Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure, following those two great first speeches by Senators Seselja and Peris, to return to a very important matter for South Australia. I return to an absolutely critical matter for South Australia. It is a matter which should have had every South Australian senator in this chamber ready to participate in its discussion. Instead, we had Senator Williams and Senator Macdonald going off on tangents, telling various stories. They talked about anything but the matter before us.

There are 6,600 manufacturing workers who are going into the Christmas period with more uncertainty. The government says, 'Let us go to the Productivity Commission. Let us see if we can get it past March. Let us see if we can save the electoral bacon of Steven Marshall and the Liberals in South Australia.' There is nothing here about the hardworking South Australian manufacturing workers. There is nothing here about the critical suppliers of automotive parts. The industry is in its infancy. Those in this industry are working incredibly hard to diversify. They supply parts not only to the motor vehicle industry but also to other sectors of the manufacturing industry. They need a critical decision. They need a decision that the former Labor government was prepared to make and put on the table.

This government appears racked by division in a lot of areas, and one of them is in the manufacturing area. The economic rationalists are saying, 'Let it go. Let Playford's creation'—a former Liberal premier's creation for a vehicle building workforce and plant in South Australia—'wither on the vine either by inattention or by delay by referring the matter to the Productivity Commission.' I do believe that, in their heart of hearts, all South Australian senators agree on the critical situation confronting us. The fact is that we cannot allow such a significant portion of our workforce to be put in a situation of ongoing stress.

As Senator Carr said, global capital is scarce; there is plenty of competition for it. I am sure that an offer of $1 billion worth of investment in Thailand would interest a few politicians in that democracy. In this coming month, we need to have the security of knowing that further investment will be attracted to the motor vehicle industry. We need a decision which will allow those global decision-makers to further invest in this industry to take it forward into the 2020s.

Senator Farrell mentioned that no-one has worked harder than this workforce and its representatives in trying to make ends meet, in bringing about competitive outcomes to secure the longevity of this tremendous workers base and in bringing together a situation which will allow us to be one of only eight countries in the world that can design a car and take it to market.

I thought in some respects we had a useful contribution from Senator Williams about the Australian dollar. I can well remember the shift that went on in South Australia when an additional 1,000 people were employed in exporting Camaros to the US. That was off a very low Australian dollar. We have not been in that type of fortunate economic position for a very long time. But who knows where the floating dollar will end up? But I tell you what, if it goes down 10c and we have no manufacturing industry at all, we will know the answer then: it will be of no benefit to us.

What about the subsidies that are in place around the world? When you consider that currently Australia's direct budgetary support for the car industry is about $18 per person per year, the UK is $28, Germany is $90, Canada is $96, France invests US$147 and the United States is subsidising its manufacturing workforce by about $265, we do not look too bad. I think Senator Xenophon's comments about fair trade with Thailand stood out. (Time expired)