Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In the few minutes available to me, I would like to say that I support this motion that is being put forward today. I am a big supporter of the Automotive Transformation Scheme that was introduced by the Labor government in 2009 and has been eviscerated by the coalition government.

I note that Senator Reynolds gave us a lengthy speech on the history of the manufacturing in Western Australia but made very little mention of the subject of this motion, which is the automotive industry. I also take issue with the fact that she failed to acknowledge that the Western Australian situation is completely different to that of South Australia and Victoria, who are not as geographically blessed as Western Australia. They have not had a massive resources boom which has enabled the huge investment in manufacturing and resources in her state. I also take issue with her assertion that somehow the workers in the automotive industry in Australia are the architects of their own industry's demise. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The workers in the automotive industry deserve the support and not denigration by the coalition in this place. Those workers are highly skilled and highly effective. It is not their fault that competition has been introduced into the automotive sector around the world and is going through a significant restructure at the moment.

We should all be here supporting the transformation scheme introduced by the Labor government. We should be moving to amend the scheme so that the money left in there—cynically left in there—by the coalition government, and virtually inaccessible to the automotive industry and ancillary industries, is freed up. Workers in the automotive industry in my home state of South Australia and in the state of Victoria should be able to access that money to transform the industry, continue provide good jobs for working Australians and provide skilled industries for Australians. We accept that the car industry now, unfortunately, because of the action of the coalition government to force Holden out of this country—