Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Especially, as Senator Birmingham said, if you promised not to do it. What we saw with the carbon tax was a minimum of $400 added to the cost of every vehicle manufactured in Australia. Locally produced cars have been struggling to compete against imported cars. What did this former, failed, in and out minister do? He stuck by a policy that added $400 to the cost of a car made in this country—another $400 disincentive for people to buy locally. Even now, this failed minister refuses to acknowledge that the carbon tax must go, because his view is not about jobs. His view is a warped philosophical view of the carbon tax.

When Minister Macfarlane is out there fighting for Australian jobs, he is not doing it on the back of some philosophical obsession. He is not doing it on the back of a relationship with the AMWU which prompted former Labor leader Mark Latham to say the following:

Carr relies heavily on the support of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union … Carr’s strategy was to pay huge amounts of public money ... To prop up the union’s membership coverage and consequently, its influence inside the ALP.

This is not a former minister who is remotely interested in Australian jobs. This is not a former minister who was prepared to put in place the stable policy settings which, as I have said, just might have saved the Australian car industry.

This is a minister who oversaw the expenditure by former Prime Minister Gillard that slugged the sector with a $460 million bill. That was the cost to the Australian car industry. That was the cost impost on Australian produced cars. Guess who was not subjected to that tax, though? Guess who did not have $400 added to the cost of their car? Yes, you are quite right if you are thinking that it was the very people that these local manufacturers were competing against. Imported motor vehicles did not have a $400 cost on them. The industry as a whole did not have a $460 million carbon tax slug put on it.

So how dare former Minister Carr and others in the Australian Labor Party come in here and run the lines that they have. I think Mark Latham has best summed up Senator Carr. I think Mark Latham has best summed up where this former minister is and was coming from, because how could anyone who was remotely interested in the men and women he was ostensibly there to defend, or how could anyone in his position, do what he did? When I said during question time that this former minister has got to accept an enormous amount of responsibility for the demise of the automotive industry of this country, I was absolutely serious about it.

You, on the other side, have got a few options. You have got the option to get rid of a carbon tax that does not and will not work, and it still continues to put Australian manufacturers behind the eight ball compared to their competitors overseas. So if you are serious about supporting Australian manufacturers, if you are serious about their jobs and if this is not just about supporting your union mates, then why do you not let the legislation go through to abolish the carbon tax? Why do you not let the legislation go through to abolish the mining tax? Why do you not let through the $20 billion—that is, $20,000 million—of savings that we want to make? Why will you not let it go through?

In relation to those savings, the Australian community needs to know that $5 billion of those $15 billion were savings that you were going to put in place in government. Now that you are in opposition, for cheap political purposes you are not prepared to let them go through. You stand utterly condemned. I look back at former Prime Minister Gillard, who announced $34 million for Ford, saying that it would create 300 new jobs—only for 330 employees to lose their jobs inside eight months. Former Prime Minister Gillard and Senator Carr were responsible for the announcement of $215 million for Holden, saying that it would secure its future in Australia until 2022. Within months, 670 jobs were lost.

The attempt by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, and former Minister Carr to frame this debate around whether we care for Australian workers is a disgrace. We care for Australian workers. We do not care for selfish trade union leaders—trade union leaders who, in my view, had the opportunity to go back to the Toyota workforce in relation to the company's desire to renegotiate the EBA. Were they prepared to do that? No, they were not. How committed were they to not changing an EBA that might, just might, have kept Toyota in this country? They were so vehemently opposed to it that they took the matter to court to ensure that they kept that EBA in place.

Surely the workers at Toyota were entitled to have a say in relation to that EBA. Surely they were entitled to be part of the decision-making process as to whether they were prepared to give a bit away to help save this company. It was not giving salary away; it was actually some sensible decisions in relation to things like Christmas leave. Sure, everyone wants time off over Christmas. Surely, though, these workers were entitled to be given the opportunity to decide whether they were prepared to renegotiate some of these conditions and possibly save the company.