Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

The Labor Party love to talk about their concern for the manufacturing industry but, with policies like this, we know they are just crocodile tears from those opposite. In fact, those opposite are pursuing policies that would have a disastrous impact on manufacturing, on mining and on the energy sector. The coal, oil and gas industry directly employs around 65,000 Australians, and the aluminium sector employs around 17,600. There would be significant impacts there. The construction sector, which the Labor Party are already trying to cripple under union corruption, provides around one million jobs across the board. We would ultimately see fewer opportunities in all of these sectors because of greater costs that would be in place, and less competitiveness for Australia, which would harm our economic transition as a nation when we can least afford it.