Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I want to continue with some questions for Senator Xenophon, who again has indicated that he is likely to support this bill subject to the passage of amendments. I want to clarify two points. The first point is that Senator Xenophon, as I understand it, said last week he would not support this legislation unless 450 gigalitres was going to be returned to the Murray, and today he is saying he is going to support it in return for having the Murray listed as an agenda item on COAG. I want to be clear if that is the nature of the deal that he has. Last week Senator Xenophon made it clear—I think it was a sensible position—that he would not support this legislation, because he was so concerned about the 450 gigalitres being taken from the Murray, and now it looks like the concession he has achieved is that we have it as an agenda item for a meeting at some point in the future.

The second point I want to ask Senator Xenophon about is the protection of local jobs, and in particular the amendment that the Greens are putting forward on steel procurement. I know Senator Xenophon has expressed significant concern about this—it is a big issue in South Australia, and indeed in New South Wales. I know that Senator Xenophon did say during the last election campaign that he was very keen to see an overhaul of government procurement laws to ensure that Australian steel is used in taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects. We agree—we think that is a very important change. We recognise that there are significant jobs in Australia that are dependent on the steel industry, in particular a steel industry that works efficiently and that can be one of the most efficient steel industries anywhere in the world.

The Greens have put forward a steel procurement amendment to give force to Senator Xenophon's words, and that is to ensure that we mandate the use of local steel in a number of projects. We have, for example, costings that indicate if we were to mandate local steel in New South Wales we would get 10,000 jobs from that decision, 5,000 of them in the Illawarra. Of course in South Australia, in response to the Arrium crisis, we know it is critical that we support the local steel industry there. In light of that I am very keen to know whether Senator Xenophon will be supporting the Greens amendment to give force to his words—that is, ensuring that we have government procurement laws that mandate the use of Australian steel in Australian projects.

I would like Senator Xenophon to address both of those issues—firstly to confirm that, even though last week he said he would not deal with the government unless 450 gigalitres were returned to the Murray, today he is saying he is happy with this simply being listed as an agenda item at a COAG meeting, and secondly to clarify whether he will support the Greens local procurement amendment.