Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

Rest assured that the people that we're going to put in charge of the board and the people who will be working in this fund will have all of the skills to ensure that the money is properly spent. This won't be like a sports rorts exercise, where you simply handed out to your mates in order to try and win elections. This is about rebuilding manufacturing in this country, manufacturing that was devastated by the previous government's lack of interest in building things in Australia. We want to start building things in this country again. We don't want to see the sorts of events in Elizabeth and South Australia where you wiped out overnight one of the great companies of Australia, Holden, and lost all those jobs and all of the add-on jobs that were benefited by Holden. We don't want to see that again. The whole purpose of this legislation is to ensure that we fairly distribute funds right across Australia, including regional Australia, including Western Australia, so that we can start making things again in this country, start rebuilding the manufacturing industry, which has been so badly affected by the neglect of your government.

This is a big project. This is all about starting to build things in Australia, which we haven't been doing over the previous nine years of neglect from your government. We are serious about creating good, well-paying jobs in the regions in each of the states and territories, and I've got the greatest confidence that, under Minister Husic, that's exactly what we're going to do.