Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I want to indicate that I was not able to contribute to the second reading stages of this bill yesterday because I was, along with Senator Sterle and Senator Scullion, at the funeral for the brave and wonderful Michael Koren yesterday. He is someone who is well known to many people in this building. My colleague Senator Kakoschke-Moore indicated our position to the bill, coming from a slightly different perspective, and I hope I am not accused of nitpicking—or Nickpicking—in terms of the questions I will put to the finance minister.

Further to the questions that Senator Whish-Wilson has been asking on modelling of the impact of this tax cut, the concern we have expressed—that Senator Kakoschke-Moore, as part of the Nick Xenophon Team, has expressed—is that we are worried about the future of manufacturing in this country. Assistance is needed, desperately, for Arrium; the automotive sector has up to 200,000 jobs falling off a cliff, potentially, by the end of next year, when car making in this country closes down; and manufacturing in this country is at a crisis point, down to six per cent of our GDP.

In respect of these tax cuts and the $4 billion in forgone revenue, has any economic modelling been done on spending that revenue on, for instance, providing loans or assistance to our steel industry or to our manufacturing industry; on job programs; on extending, for instance, the Automotive Diversification Program or on extending the Next Generation Manufacturing Investment Program, through the department of industry, for emerging manufacturers, manufacturers transitioning from the close of the auto sector? Has any modelling been done to say what the comparative benefits would be, in economic terms, if we took some of that $4 billion and spent it on programs that would generate or save jobs—the many tens of thousands of jobs we expect will be lost when car making in this country closes down?

Right now, I am struggling to see the assistance that is needed to ensure that jobs are saved in the steel and auto sectors, and in manufacturing more generally. The impact of those many tens of thousands of job losses will be a big increase in our welfare bill and decreased tax receipts from those corporations, those companies, that shut down. In Whyalla, if Arrium falls over, we are talking of a 'Detroit-level event', according to Professor John Spoehr of the University of Adelaide. I think what Professor Spoehr says is a salutary warning, if we do not get this right. In the context of this bill, was comparative analysis done on diverting some of the $4 billion worth of tax cuts to other expenditures to boost industry or manufacturing in this country?