Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Hansard source

Of course he was a pushover. They pushed him into getting rid of Gonski; two or three days later they pushed him back to supporting Gonski. But on the really important issue here of Holden, he was nowhere to be seen.

I do not think, in my time in this parliament, I have ever seen a government go out of its way so actively to encourage a negative decision by a company. The decision of Minister Hockey was to goad this company into making an early decision on this issue, when he should have been doing exactly the opposite. He should have been making soothing noises; he should have been indicating that the Australian people want to live in a country where we continue to make cars. That is the message he should have been giving this company. In fact, he gave it the opposite.

What also amazed me yesterday, when it was clear that there was a serious issue here in that Prime Minister Abbott had not contacted the company, was what the Acting Prime Minister or the acting Deputy Prime Minister—I am not sure what he was—Minister Truss did. What did he do? Did he get on the phone to the company and say: 'Look, we want you to stay manufacturing in this country. We want you to continue to build cars. We want you to keep employing Australians. We want those Australians to be paying tax so that this country continues to grow'? No, he did not get on the phone. Did he send an email to the company indicating those things? No, he wrote a letter. He used snail mail to get in contact with this company. They were not serious about saving the manufacturing industry. (Time expired)