Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

"The need for the Government to make a unified commitment to Australia's automotive industry and make an urgent offer of co-investment to GM Holden to secure the new investment, jobs and technology for Australia".

This is a proposition that actually asks the Senate to call on the government 'to make a unified commitment to Australia's automotive industry and make an urgent offer of co-investment' to General Motors-Holden 'to secure the new investments, jobs' and the technologies for Australia. What we have seen, and this would be the sixth day, is minister after minister reported in the press undermining the industry minister, undermining Australia's automotive industry and undermining the tens of thousands of people that work in that industry. I do not believe the incompetence that has been displayed by this government on the automotive industry has actually been replicated before in the history of the Commonwealth. I have never seen anything like it. We now see that senior executives of General Motors, and indeed those of international companies right around the world, shaking their heads at the spectacle of what this government, our newly formed Abbott government, is actually putting on. You can just picture the leaders of other car-making countries staring in wonder at the sheer stupidity and recklessness that has been on display.

While other countries and other governments are doing all they can to compete for international investment, the Australian government want to have an argument as to whether or not we actually want an automotive industry in this country. They are in fact thumbing their nose at the international automotive industry. I think the evidence is now overwhelming that the free-marketeer, economic fundamentalist group within this government is actively seeking to dissuade investment in the automotive industry in this country.

We see that the Acting Prime Minister, Mr Truss, has written to Holden today asking them to urgently clarify their position. This is after six days of speculation generated by this government on their position. I have not seen a dedication to game-playing by government—the preoccupation with the tricky things that has been involved in these issues—quite like it before. What of course has occurred is that the coalition has now discovered that this is not quite so simple, that things have not played out as planned. The issue is in fact spinning out of control but, unfortunately, the sycophantic and subservient and unimaginative group that now makes up the coalition MPs from Victoria and South Australia has done nothing about actually preserving the jobs in the automotive industry. These MPs have allowed these tricky game-playing ministers to go about undermining any effort to actually secure investment in this country. I ask, in regard to Mr Truss's letter, how it can possibly be the case that General Motors be asked to clarify speculation generated by the government. How are they able to actually make a call on their future plans when the government refuses to reveal its plans?

We have had a position where the government initially said, 'Well, it's up to the Productivity Commission. We can't possibly respond to the Productivity Commission.' We now have the Prime Minister and others saying that they do not want to spend any more money. We have Holden's Mr Devereux explaining today, at the Productivity Commission hearing, that the government has had before it since it came to office the files on what was actually required to ensure the investment takes place in this country. Furthermore, despite the repeated efforts to verbal this company, the company has actually said yet again that no decision has been made in regard to future operations. In fact, we are told that there is plenty of money available. Well, that is not the case of course because what we do know is that, in terms of the profile of the new car plan money, which I was very proud to introduce, the program comes to an end in 2020, as it is a terminating program. The profile for that funding is: $150 million in 2015-16, $300 million in 2016-17, $258 million in 2017-18, $175 million in 2018-19, $91.7 million in 2019-2020 and $25 million in 2020-21. So there is a very sharp tail-off. The issue of the future of the industry rests very much on the question of investment certainty.

How can a business case be put together on the proposition that there is no money in the program after 2020? Therefore the company asks a simple question: around the world, what is the situation? Governments co-invest. But only in Australia do we have a conservative government now saying they will not co-invest into the future.