Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on a matter of national importance. As the COVID-19 pandemic buffeted the world and severed supply chains across the world, our nation began to realise that years of Liberal economic policies and speeches of the kind that we have just heard have done nothing to correct the whittling down of our sovereign capability. In fact, they have left our nation with a depleted manufacturing base. Australians who trusted the three versions of this Liberal-National government since 2013 have been lied to, ripped off and let down.

For eight years, this Liberal-National government has been pushing out blue pamphlets claiming it's the party of jobs and growth. But there's been a steady decline in the number of manufacturing jobs. That hurts. It hurts workers who've lost their jobs, it hurts local economies where they used to spend their hard-earned cash and it hurts entire industries, like car manufacturing. But loss of manufacturing also hurts every Australian. It makes us less safe and less able to look after ourselves. COVID has shown that we cannot take international trade and movement for granted anymore. Those days are gone. We need to manufacture by ourselves, for ourselves. But this government doesn't care for you or your needs as Australians.

In my home region of the Central Coast, manufacturing is a vital, important industry, supporting thousands of jobs and helping our region weather the storm of COVID-19. Commonsense government policy should be to support manufacturers like those on the coast and, indeed, in communities right across the country. Any industry minister worth their salt would use their ministerial powers to support domestic industries over foreign competitors. But Minister Andrews is not a commonsense minister.

In 2015, then Parliamentary Secretary Karen Andrews signed several ministerial exemption instruments that removed antidumping duties on steel from the People's Republic of China. Given the choice of protecting Australians or letting China dump steel, Karen Andrews chose China over Australia. This was despite near-universal reporting that China was, in fact, dumping steel on the market. In April 2016 Arrium, the major steel producer that ran the Whyalla steelworks in South Australia, went into administration. The Whyalla steelworks was only saved—not by this government, not by industrial policy, not by Mr Morrison and not by anybody in the Liberal-National government—by workers at the Whyalla steelworks, who agreed to large cuts in conditions and pay just to keep it functioning.

A subsequent Senate Economics References Committee inquiry into Australia's steel industry and the Arrium collapse cited in its Australia's steel industry: forging ahead report:

The pressures caused by the influx of dumped and subsidised steel … are considerably greater than the normal pressures expected in naturally competitive markets, creating additional pressures on the Australian steel industry.

That very well-researched report, tabled in this very parliament, also noted that the industry:

… will continue to decline without urgent action by the Australian government to address the issues of … unfair import competition.

Yet, despite 28 recommendations which would have saved jobs and protected Australian sovereignty, the Liberal governments—all flavours of the three ones that we have already had in the last eight years—did nothing. Karen Andrews did absolutely nothing.

By 2017 the Australian Workers Union was reporting that local companies appeared to have lost $200 million in work due to dumping in the previous 12 to 18 months following Minister Andrews's decision and action to roll back antidumping protections. Even today, industry minister Karen Andrews has implemented precisely zero of that report's recommendations.

Not only have the government failed to respond to the recommendations of the steel industry report; they've lied to Australians about protecting and growing Australian jobs. Both Morrison and Karen Andrews have vacated the space and let the antidumping reform process stall over and over. The effect has been the frustration of the Australian industry. Antidumping has been described as a regulatory arms race. In a race, you cannot step off the track. Refinements to laws and methods need to be updated regularly to react to adaptive predatory behaviour by unscrupulous exporters targeting the Australian industry. However, the last substantive antidumping reform package that this government brought to the parliament was way back in 2015.

Parliamentary Secretary Andrews, as she was in November 2015, put out a media release. This is what she said back then:

While Australia's current anti-dumping system is strong it must keep pace with industry trends. The Government is committed to working with stakeholders over the coming months to identify future reform opportunities to further strengthen our anti-dumping and countervailing system.

Her commitment was a declaration of a decision to do nothing. What she says and what she's done are completely at odds. Her word means nothing. Yet we have the continued charade of consultation. The industry has spent thousands of hours consulting with the department on reform options and has waited years and years for these much-needed reforms. Despite a package being finalised by the department for the minister and cabinet's consideration on multiple occasions, under Minister Andrews and her predecessors, reform has gone nowhere.

Recent Senate estimates reveal how careless the government is on antidumping, with Minister Andrews slashing funding for the Anti-Dumping Commission by five per cent for this financial year and by 13 per cent compared to the funding of 2016. She has also engaged in a process which has led to the currently highly respected commissioner, Mr Dale Seymour—a man unrivalled in his knowledge of the antidumping system in Australia since becoming the inaugural commissioner in 2013—effectively being forced out of office from the end of this month.

Despite the US slapping tariffs on steel imports and the EU enacting emergency safeguards on steel imports, the Australian government has done nothing. Minister Andrews and the MIA Mr Morrison, our Prime Minister, will not even contemplate transferring responsibility for safeguard investigations from the Productivity Commission to the Anti-Dumping Commission, which is best international practice. There's not one Australian minister standing up. This government has vacated the field. There's not one frontbencher on so-called Team Australia taking up the industry ball for us. Mr Morrison's Cronulla Sharks jersey and his cap might create the impression that he understands teamwork, but whenever he's been needed to put on the jersey for Team Australia, for the Australian industry sector, he hasn't even shown up for the training session, let alone made it onto the field. His industry minister—well, she's a 'Karen'.

This is all occurring at a time when Australian industry faces unprecedented threats from dumping. As state and federal governments spend billions in infrastructure and housing projects to help the economy recover from the biggest shock since the Great Depression, our domestic demands for steel have become even more vulnerable to cheap, dumped foreign steel. At this critical moment when Australian industry requires a responsive trade remedy system and a dedicated minister willing to do everything in the government's power to defend Australian jobs against unfair trade, we are struck with an industry minister and a Prime Minister who are paralysed. They have an appalling record. They're asleep at the wheel, leaving manufacturing jobs as a sitting duck to predatory behaviour.

Australia needs a local steel industry. It supports regional jobs. It protects our national sovereignty and defence procurement in a time of war. As the pandemic has shown us, local manufacturing is crucial when supply lines are disrupted. Australians understand today, in February 2021, what was less obvious to us in February 2020, pre-pandemic. We need to build our own. Australians want to build our own. If you believe in Australian industry and manufacturing jobs, it's only Labor that's going to do the work. Three LNP governments have failed to address this critical problem and have failed to save jobs for hardworking Australians. It's a fact that, since Karen Andrews became the industry minister, the playing field for Australian industry has become far less level, and the results have been dire.

According to the latest quarterly figures from the ABS, which came out in November, there were 128,400 fewer jobs in the manufacturing industry. That's a 13.5 per cent decrease. Let's put it another way: a manufacturing job has been lost every four minutes since Karen Andrews became minister. That's the loss of two manufacturing jobs since I started speaking, and that's because of the government's failure to act in this critical area. It doesn't need to be like this. I thank the Australian Workers Union and the CFMMEU for their advocacy on behalf of their workers, because the government has abandoned the field. (Time expired)