Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Ciccone, you opened the door so wide! I was reading an article the other day about how, in America—and perhaps this is happening here, too; we'll have to ask some of your colleagues—people are starting to sell their Elon—sorry, I mean their Teslas! That's because those on the Left of politics don't like to be seen driving around in an Elon—sorry, I mean a Tesla—anymore. But I'll put that to one side. I'll remind Senator Ciccone, because he is younger than me, though I hate to admit it, that my memory stretches back a little further than his. The downfall of the Australian car industry goes straight back to the Dutton car plant, where, in their desire to centralise, control, force and unionise, the then Labor government forced completely separate car companies Toyota, Holden and Ford to share bodies, engines and drive trains. When you went out and bought a Holden Astra, it was exactly the same as a Toyota or Ford. That was the downfall of the Australian car industry, and it was 100 per cent at Labor's feet. They unionised, they controlled, they centralised and they forced massive inefficiencies into the Australian car industry.

What do we have now? We have a Labor government again who hates people having choice. Senator Ciccone says that it's all about giving people choice, but the fact is it's not. The most popular cars in Australia—the D-Max, the HiLux, the Ranger—are all being made more expensive under this Labor government's policy. And guess what will theoretically become a bit cheaper under this Labor government's policies. It's the Elon—sorry, the Tesla. They become cheaper under this government's policies. So you're not giving Australians a choice. You're not giving Australians the choice of the cars that they have demonstrated over a long period of time are the best for this environment, best for workers and best for how people want to live their lives on the weekends. This Labor government wants to suck that out.

We've also seen, in the answers to questions today, the betrayal from the Labor Party of the great Western Australian gas industry, with a two-month delay on a project extension. This isn't a project approval. This is not a greenfield site. This is a project that already exists, the famous Woodside project, which has the sign-off from the state Labor government. Yet this federal Labor government, under Minister Plibersek and Prime Minister Albanese, has got to delay this until after the election. Why do they need to delay it until after the election? This is a really important project for the economic future of Western Australia. This is a really important project for the economic future of not just Western Australia but Australia. This is a really important project to ensure that we have gas supplies not just for ourselves domestically but also for our major trading partners and allies, like Japan.

These are not trivial decisions that should be kicked down the road for two months because of an election where you want to keep the Greens on side. That's not how we should treat policy development. Again, this is not a greenfield approval. This is a project that has been underway for decades. This is a site that has been used for decades. But we've got to kick the can down the road another few months to get it past the election so they don't have a problem on their left flank. What an absolute disgrace and what a revealing statement of the priorities and the values of this Labor government. They don't think about the people of Australia. They don't think about the economic impact on my home state of WA. They only think in terms of their own electoral interests over the next few months. Well, I say let's bring on that election because I think the Australian people are going to have a very different opinion.