Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) condemns:

(i) the failure of the Government to:

  (A) articulate a comprehensive innovation policy so that Australia has the high skill, high wage jobs of the future, and

  (B) fight for Australian jobs,

(ii) the deliberate and hostile actions of the Government in bringing about the end of Australia's automotive manufacturing sector threatening a further 50 000 jobs directly reliant and the 200 000 jobs that rely on it indirectly, and

(iii) the cowardice of the Government for blaming job losses on workers to distract from its own inaction and lack of any plan to deal with the crisis facing Australian manufacturing due to the strong dollar; and

(b) calls on the Government to immediately outline:

(i) its plans to support the 50 000 Australian workers who have lost their jobs since the election,

(ii) the industries in which it expects these workers to find new jobs, and

(iii) its plans to attract the billions in new investment, new jobs, new skills and new technologies to replace those lost in the automotive sector.

This morning we woke up to the news that the Canadian government is increasing its funding for its automakers by some $500 million. This is a bid to attract investment from Chrysler. The Canadian budget documents explain that this is being done 'to create and sustain jobs in Canada and to deal with the high Canadian dollar'. We heard this afternoon that the conservative government in Victoria has just announced $22 million for SPC Ardmona. Premier Napthine said:

Up to 2700 jobs in the Goulburn Valley depend on SPC Ardmona and this co-investment secures these jobs which are vital to this region’s economy.

Deputy Premier Peter Ryan said that this is another example of the Victorian coalition government supporting business to grow and thrive in the domestic and international market. I commend Daniel Andrews and Victorian Labor for forcing the Premier's hand on this issue. This is part of Labor's response to trying to find solutions, instead of passing the buck, when it comes to ensuring that we fight for jobs in Australia.

I trust that the Prime Minister has actually heard some of the statements being made internationally and domestically—even from within his own party. I expect that he would take no notice of what the labour movement has got to say, but he at least ought to understand what the conservative government in Canada and, I might add, the conservative government in the United Kingdom and the conservative government in Victoria are saying about the need to fight for jobs and investment. We know this because I recall before the election, when the Prime Minister was opposition leader, that he almost slept in his fluoro vest. He took the view that every opportunity had to be taken to ensure that he was at a factory being photographed in a high-visibility vest. He would do all he could to shake hands with workers and show off his RM Williams boots. He called himself 'the workers' best friend', if I recall rightly.

But what a difference an election makes. We are now looking at the highest unemployment rate in a decade, yet we have heard no solutions whatsoever from the Abbott government when it comes to the question of securing jobs and investment for this country. What we have heard from this Prime Minister is the sunniest optimism, outside any commune, since the 1960s. He goes along as if he were a 1960s folk singer: he argues that we can wait for a bright, new day. Of course, workers will not be satisfied with the notion that we will actually be better off for the loss of the automotive industry and our manufacturing industry. But that is what we are hearing from the right wing cheer squad of the textbook economists and those in the gallery who take the view that whatever the government does must be right. But we have to live in the real world where jobs do not just grow on trees. We have to be appreciative of the impact of the social catastrophe that awaits this country if this government and other governments do not fight for jobs.

Automotive industry jobs are concentrated in particular regions, locations and communities—like the north-west of Melbourne, the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Geelong and the north of Adelaide. Some $2.25 billion is invested every single year in Victorian suppliers by the current industry. Some $630 million is invested every year in Adelaide suppliers. In fact, more than $80 million is invested around Western Sydney. We have huge investments, and we now are in a position where we cannot guarantee the future. We have tens of thousands of people with extraordinary skills who face the prospect of unemployment. We have very highly skilled people who have no real certainty about the future—the capacity to pay the mortgages, the capacity to support their families, the capacity of many other businesses that rely on the automotive industry. I am talking not just about the people who are directly employed but also the massive multiplier effect that ricochets right throughout the economy as a result of investment by our car companies.

I am particularly concerned about the 160 tier 1 suppliers currently registered on the Automotive Transformation Scheme. You would have to ask yourself how many of those—and they employ the better part of 40,000 people—will be able to survive as a result of the policies that this government has pursued. We know that many of those firms have already taken steps to transform their business. Many of their non-core functions, such as accounting, cleaning and catering, have already been outsourced. We know that many of those companies now face the prospect that they will not be able to sustain their existing employees. I have had the opportunity to go to Detroit on many occasions and watch firsthand what happens to a great industrial city that has been hollowed out by the loss of major industries. We have seen this in the United States and in other parts of Europe. In the case of Detroit, in many respects it resembles a wasteland.

In Australia, research by the Monash University Centre of Policy Studies and work undertaken by the Allen Consulting Group shows that, as a result of the loss of the automotive industry, the gross regional product in Melbourne and Adelaide will not recover for almost two decades— until 2031. Toyota last year spent $1.5 billion in connection with building cars in Australia. From 2001 to 2012, General Motors Holden generated some $32.7 billion worth of economic activity in Australia. During that period, Holden received $1.8 billion in Commonwealth assistance, returned $1.4 billion as income tax revenue, and paid $21 billion to other businesses in Australia for the supply of services to the industry. That is a return of $18 for every $1 spent by the Commonwealth.

We have heard from this government that these companies are somehow lazy and inefficient, that they are backward. In fact, they are far from it. The automotive industry in Australia is cutting edge. The General Motors plant in Elizabeth is among the most modern in the world. Data published by the Department of Industry shows that the number of motor vehicles produced per employee per year has increased from 11 in 1991 to 19.6 in 2012. In fact, when you include the R&D figures in that, it goes up to about 25. In other words, the number of cars produced per worker has almost doubled. What we have done is trade an industry that produces this level of wealth for Australia for a $20 billion welfare bill.

Of course, one would have to be out of one's mind to deliberately set out to do that. That is, I think, exactly what has happened with this government. They have deliberately set out to do that. I condemn this government. I condemn this government for raising the white flag when it comes to jobs, and I condemn this government for its failure to respond—if they knew these things were so inevitable and so predictable—and for not having a plan ready to go to defend these communities across Australia.

The Prime Minister likes to pretend that he had nothing to do with it and that nothing could be done. He argues that unless you are a chocolate factory there is really not much you can do. He says you cannot help a fruit-producing factory, but you can help a chocolate factory. He says we cannot help SPC because it had an international parent that was doing well. In the case of Cadbury, we know they have an international parent that is doing considerably better, and the figures produced today show that a profit of $3.9 billion for the parent of the Cadbury plant in Hobart. But this government cannot find the wherewithal to assist the people of Shepparton and cannot find the wherewithal to assist the automotive industry in this country.

What we know is that industries do need to transform. We do know that we need to modernise our economy. We do know that we need to be able to assist industries to do that task. We need to have the investment in cutting-edge science and technology to allow them to be able to do that task. We know that we need to assist our universities to develop that science and technology. We need to assist our science agencies to do that. We need the innovation incentives for companies to undertake that work, and we need to ensure that the research and innovation networks are available to assist companies to achieve those results. We know we need access to venture capital and we know we need modern infrastructure like the NBN.

We know that governments have to fulfil their obligations to the community and engender a sense of trust—to ensure that the conversations they have with private companies about investment are not put on the front page of the Financial Review by the Treasurer of Australia, as we saw yesterday. We have to be sure that the government is actually interested in finding solutions and fighting for jobs and investment, rather than trying to drive jobs offshore as if there is nothing that can be done. In my experience, governments have to be part of the solution. They have to want to be part of the solution, rather than throwing their hands up with the view that nothing can be done.

I wonder just what the Minister for Industry must make of all of this. I take the view that Minister McFarlane is concerned. Personally, I do believe he is concerned. But I wonder if he is even more concerned about the public humiliation that he has had to face: day after day of criticism by his colleagues from the cabinet, day after day of speculation about government decisions before they are actually in the cabinet room, and, of course, day after day of having to deal with public rejection by his colleagues—only to be asked to go out and announce the policy that he vigorously argued against in cabinet. We know that this is the situation because if he really did believe—in regard to SPC, for instance—that the government's position was the correct one, why did he take a submission to cabinet and argue exactly the opposite?

We know that the government have already taken steps to cut fundamental innovation programs. The Manufacturing Technology Innovation Centre was one of the first things they cut. Sixteen million dollars has already been taken from bringing designers and researchers together. We know that this is an investment that pays for itself through the opportunities to grow innovation between our researchers and our companies. The government are not interested and they have killed it. We know one of the first things they did in regard to the CSIRO was to put a freeze on the hiring of 1,400 non-essential staff. They have slashed $100 million from the Australian Research Council. They are ripping up the NBN. They have abolished the Cleantech program. They are going to cut $500 million from the automotive industry, which is one of our greatest sources of research and innovation in manufacturing.

They have failed to produce any plan in regard to innovation. What they are in the business of doing is tearing down the innovation programs that are currently there. It has taken the Abbott government less than six months to kill off the automotive industry in this country. They have killed it through their bungling, their incompetence and their arrogance. You would have thought that that would at least trigger a moment of self-reflection from this body of intellectual giants. No. What they do is resort to the textbook economists who, of course, have an answer for everything and an understanding of very little. The industry minister tells us he could have saved Toyota if he had been given more time. The Prime Minister says there was nothing the government could do. So which is it: incompetence or impotence? They cannot even get their stories straight. They cannot work out whether or not the government was in the business of genuinely negotiating with Toyota and General Motors or whether they were in the business of driving them out of the country.

They say they are not interested in blank cheques, but they are simply giving blank expressions when it comes to the need to secure jobs for the future. They could have secured this industry with an investment of $300 million per year, or about $13 per person. This is far less than the welfare bill the country will now have to face. This is another example of where proper government strategic investment, in fact, pays for itself. The automotive industry could have contributed $700 million a year in research and development. The spin-off of new firms in aerospace, advanced materials and electronics are the very pillars of innovation within the manufacturing sector in this country. It could all have been done at a very modest price. It is simply ludicrous to claim that government policy makes no difference. We know that the Productivity Commission heard from Toyota 'that government assistance needs to be consistent and it needs to be ongoing' in order for Australian manufacturing operations to be viable. So, when the Prime Minister point blank refused on 14 December to provide any further assistance, Toyota signed the death warrant. Toyota itself said the decision on the next generation was actually very close. The contrast is clear and, in my view, damning. If it wanted to, this government could have acted to preserve this industry.

Labor have strongly argued in the face of the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression that you can attract new investment in manufacturing, which is what we did. With the price of the dollar being so high, we did see there were substantial pressures on manufacturing. But, as a result of deliberate action, we were able to secure future investment. But not this government. This is not their approach. It is exactly the opposite.

I do not want to make light of the challenges facing manufacturing, but I do know this: the high dollar continues to play havoc with manufacturing and it has done for years. I know that badly managed firms invariably will hit the fence. But we are talking about good companies here. We are talking about companies that have weathered the storm of international crisis in recent years. With proper support from government, with proper policy settings, we can secure the future of advanced manufacturing in this country. But what we are seeing now is a government that is clearly not interested, that does not have a plan and that has no understanding of the implications of what is involved with the loss of so many jobs.

The Prime Minister promised at the last election to create one million jobs. What have we seen? The loss of 50,000 jobs. Where is the plan for new investment? Where is the plan to help people find new employment? There is no plan for science and research. Where is the bright promise that this government made prior to the election? All we have are peddlers of deceit and despair.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

History will show that Senator Carr was not prepared to put any of these matters to me, as the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, over the last three days. He scurried in here to make a speech. He has scurried out again. He had three days of opportunities to put these matters to me, and he squibbed it. He squibbed the opportunity to put the matters that he is talking about today to me as the Minister representing the Minister for Industry.

I am going to talk about what this government intends to do. Probably the most sensible contribution Senator Carr made was when he talked about how he is looking for stable policy settings. That is exactly what he is going to get. But from 2007 until the removal of the opposition from government that is exactly what manufacturing did not get. There were no stable policy settings. I have had my staff trawl through Senator Carr's speeches from when he was the industry minister. The only sensible contribution that I agreed with was a ministerial statement on 24 August 2011. Senator Carr said:

Our nation is facing a historic shift, the like of which we have not seen in two generations. That does not mean the change will be easy or swift. These are incredibly challenging times.' In 2011 he said, 'These are incredibly challenging times.

What was Senator Carr's response as minister to this historic shift, the like of which we had not seen in two generations? I will tell you what it was. He was part of a Labor government where, under his watch, one manufacturing job was lost every 19 minutes during their term—200,000 extra jobs were lost over that period. In relation to the motor vehicle industry, honourable senators will be horrified to note that, from 2007 until the removal of the previous government, the number of locally made cars dropped by one-third. One in every four jobs in the industry disappeared. The locally made share of the domestic market dropped by 32 per cent. There were significant falls in R&D, productivity was down, turnover was down, vehicle production was down and exports were down.

It is a bit hard to tell when Senator Carr was or was not industry minister, I have to say. He was in and then he was out, and then he was in and then he was out. But where was Senator Carr when two or three key decisions were made? Where was Senator Carr when the Australian Labor Party in government broke a promise of $1.4 billion in funding commitments as they chopped and changed their car industry policy? That was under the watch of this inapt minister.

The former minister never delivered on his watch the stable policy settings that he was bleating about. Is a stable policy setting changing the rules in relation to FBT? Is that a stable policy decision?

Was there any consultation with industry in relation to the change to these pre-existing FBT rules? What about this minister, this inapt, in-out minister who has the gall to talk about what may or may not have happened in relation to these issues in this government's cabinet? Where was the industry minister when these FBT changes were made? Where was this former minister when a stable policy setting was required? He went missing. All those opposite know what a dramatic impact this proposal had. I will go through some of the commentary. The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, the FCAI, undertook an analysis of the likely impact of the former government's decision, describing it as terrible news for the industry and concluding that it could have a dire effect on Australian car production, including on the manufacturing supply chain—that is the component manufacturers. The very person we have heard bleating and seen crocodile tears from over the last week, the former minister, did not have the intestinal fortitude to ask the Minister representing the Minister for Industry a question over three days. He is lacking intestinal fortitude, and he lacked the ability as a minister to provide the stable policy settings that might just have saved car manufacturing in this country.

But it gets worse. This minister was either rolled in cabinet or supported the decision. We think we know which it was. We think he supported the decision, because he was very quick to come out between his industry minister gigs and attack the former Labor government when he was not sitting on the front bench. When he had been cast to the back bench, where he should have been for the last six years, he got stuck into the Green Car Innovation Fund. He wrote a book on it. He was prepared to bell the cat on that, so presumably if he was not part of the cabinet decision that introduced these FBT changes or we would have heard from him. We didn't. Therefore we quite rightly assumed that he was part of a policy that was predicted to reduce the number of units manufactured in this country by 100,000.

What did this in and out minister, this failed industry minister, go on to do? He tried to mislead the Australian public in his defence of this indefensible policy. On Channel 10's Meet the Press program, the failed minister sought to deflect attention away from this disastrous policy by saying that only a minimum of vehicles being purchased on such grounds are Australian made. He was part of the decision and then went on Meet the Press. He tried deliberately to mislead the Australian community to cover his backside on the back of this outrageous decision about which there was no consultation. Guess what the Australian Salary Packaging Industry Association said about his comments that only a minimum of vehicles purchased on such grounds are Australian made? The leasing and salary packaging industry stated that around 40 per cent of vehicles made locally by Toyota, Holden and Ford during 2012 were in fact employee benefit vehicles. Not a minimum; 40 per cent—100,000 units in a declining domestic market. It is no wonder that it was described as terrible news. It is no wonder that it was described by the FCAI as potentially having a dire effect on Australian car protection, including the manufacturing supply chain.

Stable policy settings: does the introduction and maintenance of a carbon tax sound to you like a stable policy setting?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Especially if you promised not to do it!

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Especially, as Senator Birmingham said, if you promised not to do it. What we saw with the carbon tax was a minimum of $400 added to the cost of every vehicle manufactured in Australia. Locally produced cars have been struggling to compete against imported cars. What did this former, failed, in and out minister do? He stuck by a policy that added $400 to the cost of a car made in this country—another $400 disincentive for people to buy locally. Even now, this failed minister refuses to acknowledge that the carbon tax must go, because his view is not about jobs. His view is a warped philosophical view of the carbon tax.

When Minister Macfarlane is out there fighting for Australian jobs, he is not doing it on the back of some philosophical obsession. He is not doing it on the back of a relationship with the AMWU which prompted former Labor leader Mark Latham to say the following:

Carr relies heavily on the support of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union … Carr’s strategy was to pay huge amounts of public money ... To prop up the union’s membership coverage and consequently, its influence inside the ALP.

This is not a former minister who is remotely interested in Australian jobs. This is not a former minister who was prepared to put in place the stable policy settings which, as I have said, just might have saved the Australian car industry.

This is a minister who oversaw the expenditure by former Prime Minister Gillard that slugged the sector with a $460 million bill. That was the cost to the Australian car industry. That was the cost impost on Australian produced cars. Guess who was not subjected to that tax, though? Guess who did not have $400 added to the cost of their car? Yes, you are quite right if you are thinking that it was the very people that these local manufacturers were competing against. Imported motor vehicles did not have a $400 cost on them. The industry as a whole did not have a $460 million carbon tax slug put on it.

So how dare former Minister Carr and others in the Australian Labor Party come in here and run the lines that they have. I think Mark Latham has best summed up Senator Carr. I think Mark Latham has best summed up where this former minister is and was coming from, because how could anyone who was remotely interested in the men and women he was ostensibly there to defend, or how could anyone in his position, do what he did? When I said during question time that this former minister has got to accept an enormous amount of responsibility for the demise of the automotive industry of this country, I was absolutely serious about it.

You, on the other side, have got a few options. You have got the option to get rid of a carbon tax that does not and will not work, and it still continues to put Australian manufacturers behind the eight ball compared to their competitors overseas. So if you are serious about supporting Australian manufacturers, if you are serious about their jobs and if this is not just about supporting your union mates, then why do you not let the legislation go through to abolish the carbon tax? Why do you not let the legislation go through to abolish the mining tax? Why do you not let through the $20 billion—that is, $20,000 million—of savings that we want to make? Why will you not let it go through?

In relation to those savings, the Australian community needs to know that $5 billion of those $15 billion were savings that you were going to put in place in government. Now that you are in opposition, for cheap political purposes you are not prepared to let them go through. You stand utterly condemned. I look back at former Prime Minister Gillard, who announced $34 million for Ford, saying that it would create 300 new jobs—only for 330 employees to lose their jobs inside eight months. Former Prime Minister Gillard and Senator Carr were responsible for the announcement of $215 million for Holden, saying that it would secure its future in Australia until 2022. Within months, 670 jobs were lost.

The attempt by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, and former Minister Carr to frame this debate around whether we care for Australian workers is a disgrace. We care for Australian workers. We do not care for selfish trade union leaders—trade union leaders who, in my view, had the opportunity to go back to the Toyota workforce in relation to the company's desire to renegotiate the EBA. Were they prepared to do that? No, they were not. How committed were they to not changing an EBA that might, just might, have kept Toyota in this country? They were so vehemently opposed to it that they took the matter to court to ensure that they kept that EBA in place.

Surely the workers at Toyota were entitled to have a say in relation to that EBA. Surely they were entitled to be part of the decision-making process as to whether they were prepared to give a bit away to help save this company. It was not giving salary away; it was actually some sensible decisions in relation to things like Christmas leave. Sure, everyone wants time off over Christmas. Surely, though, these workers were entitled to be given the opportunity to decide whether they were prepared to renegotiate some of these conditions and possibly save the company.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After listening to the diatribe from Senator Ronaldson, is it any wonder Senator Carr would not find any joy or any reason to go and talk to Senator Ronaldson about jobs or industry policy? He spent 20 minutes saying that the unions are the problem, giving the history of the Labor Party—history that is just not true—and attacking individual senators. There was not one word about the way forward for Australian manufacturing. That is because Senator Ronaldson does not care. Do you know why Senator Ronaldson did not have the fortitude or the gall to look at this issue properly? It is because he does not understand manufacturing. He did not stand up for workers in Victoria. He did not say one word in support of manufacturing jobs in Victoria when jobs were disappearing under his government's watch.

Why would anyone with any sense go to Senator Ronaldson to get a view in relation to workers? If any worker in Victoria had been listening to that diatribe and hoping that the government would provide some support for their jobs, it was missing in that 20-minute contribution from Senator Ronaldson. All the false anger that Senator Ronaldson is so famous for in this place was on show; all the manufactured concern from Senator Ronaldson was on show. We had Senator Birmingham chipping in from the sideline, but there was not one word from Senator Birmingham in support of jobs in South Australia when it mattered—not one word of support for the workers in South Australia. Going back to Mark Latham to try and prove a point in this place is really the pits. That is really digging down to the bottom.

Senator Ronaldson, maybe you should take some advice from a politician—Dr Sharman Stone. She really showed you lot up. She was prepared to stand up for her community. I do not agree with everything Dr Sharman Stone has said in the past, but I do agree with what she has said about this government. She said that this government was lying. I have never heard a politician be so up-front about the position taken by a Prime Minister in this country—saying that he was lying. And that is the truth. We have not heard any rebuttal of Dr Sharman Stone from anyone on the other side of the chamber. What was he lying about? He was lying about what Dr Sharman Stone said was blackening the character of SPC workers. What do those opposite do? They have a political problem to deal with and they go back to Liberal Politics 101: blacken the name of workers and blacken the name of unions who represent them.

The coalition senators on the speaking list for this debate include, first, Senator Ronaldson, who demonstrated absolutely no capacity to understand the industry or to provide an answer to any of the problems facing the industry. He did not have anything for workers in the future—nothing, not one positive initiative. Next on the list is Senator Mason. I have never heard Senator Mason talk about manufacturing in this place, but I know what Senator Mason will be doing. He will be doing exactly what Dr Sharman Stone said the Prime Minister was doing to workers at SPC. He will be blackening the character of workers and he will be blackening the character of the trade union movement in this country.

Then we have Senator Back, someone else I have never heard make a positive contribution to policy in this place—certainly not industry policy. This is the politician who is saying that we should not have wind farms, who thinks that wind farms are creating a whole lot of disease around the country. If ever there were an area where we should be creating new jobs, surely it is in renewable energy. That is what is happening all over the world. But Senator Back comes in here to lecture us—the person who, with no scientific basis, thinks that wind farms are destroying lives, destroying people's health. I will tell you what he will lecture us about. He will do the same thing as Senator Ronaldson. There will not be one positive argument for industry policy or one example of what this government can do. It will be all about blackening workers—trying to blame the workers for the problems of the international economy, the problems of the national economy and, in some cases, the problems at their workplaces. It will be all about blackening the unions. Then we have got two whiz-bangers on industry policy—Senator McKenzie and Senator Williams. The Nationals are coming in to talk about jobs in manufacturing. Again, that will be about blackening the names of workers, who are trying to look after themselves, their families and their communities.

We know what this is all about. Senator Ronaldson's performance was absolutely pathetic, but given the line-up that we have got after him I suppose he was about the best we can expect. What has happened here is a triumph of ideology over the national interest and it is a triumph of market economics—we will just let the market rip and everything will be okay. It is about having no or only a limited role for government—trying to deal with all issues at the macroeconomic level but ignoring the plight of families in this country.

I do not think there would be too many coalition MPs who have ever been made redundant. Most of them have had a fairly privileged upbringing; they have come through university; they have worked in a parliamentarian's office and they have ended up in parliament—many of them, but not all of them. They do not know what it is like to go home and tell their family that they have lost their job. They do not know what it is like to wonder how they will pay the mortgage. They do not know what it is like to tell their children that they cannot look after them with a holiday or with some presents at Christmas. They do not know what that is like, and that is why they treat jobs in manufacturing with complete disrespect and disdain. And that is why at a time when manufacturing jobs are disappearing around this country you can have a senior government minister stand up and talk for 20 minutes without one idea or one approach to help workers in trouble. Quite frankly, they do not care. It is about ideology and macroeconomic issues. They do not want a role for government and they do not want a role for industry policy. They do not want a role for partnership between government and business. That is what is happening all over the world: governments are partnering with business, because we have gone through a global financial crisis, and countries and businesses are in trouble, and their governments say, 'We will help.'

The lot over there, however, is putting ideology before national interest and ideology before jobs. What they want is for this country to be no more than a quarry, a farm and a tourist destination. That is it: that is where the job growth is going to be, according to them. That is what you will do in the future. We had Mr Pyne, the Minister for Education, giving us all a bit of education on Adelaide radio the other day. I would say to anyone who is listening in, listen to what Minister Pyne said—one of the most senior ministers. He basically said, 'I am going on a committee to fix this up.' There will be a committee that Mr Pyne is on and that does not fill me with enthusiasm or confidence—a committee looking after jobs in this country. What a thought that is! The other thing that is going to happen to all the thousands of manufacturing jobs that are being lost in Adelaide is those workers will be sent into the desert to work for BHP at a mine. A 55-year-old female production worker from a manufacturing plant in Adelaide is going to up stakes, go out into the desert and work for BHP. Well, it does not work that way.

In Canada, the conservative government understands that we have come through a global financial crisis and that there is a need for the government to intervene and help maintain industry. As Senator Carr—one of the best industry ministers we have ever had—said in his speech, the Canadian government gave $500 million to the industry to keep it going—to get it over a problem. They did that because they know what happens when workers lose their jobs and when communities are under stress. When people lose their job, they have financial hardship: Many of them end up with family break-ups and perhaps health consequences, mental health issues, alcohol abuse, family finance problems and intergenerational unemployment. That is what governments try to avoid at all costs, and yet a senior minister from the coalition government can stand up here for 20 minutes and rave on about nothing positive—not one policy. It was an ideological and political barrage with no content and no substance.

Senator Ronaldson will probably be their best speaker, given what is coming behind him. Yet his speech had no substance, and so it is all downhill from here on in. To those listening in the gallery, I urge you to stay for the coalition speakers—

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, please address your comments through the chair. You cannot address the gallery.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Through the chair, what will happen is a comedy hour when the rest of them come in. It will be the National Party trying to justify why they did absolutely nothing to save jobs at SPC. They will go on the attack against workers who want to be represented by a union. They will attack workers' wages and conditions and they will try to blacken the name of workers who dare to negotiate an agreement collectively with their union. It will be pretty low-grade stuff coming from a pretty low-grade level set by Senator Ronaldson.

We will have to deal with many problems—for example, the casual employment that is going to be rampant here. The Canadian Conservative government has been looking at this phenomenon. In Canada, workers between the age of 25 and 49, when they lose their jobs in manufacturing industry, end up being absolutely worse off. What happens to those workers? Their wages end up being between nine per cent and 22 per cent worse after they lose their jobs in manufacturing. That is exactly what is going to happen here.

We have a policy to deal with such problems. We know what needs to be done. We do not want to rush into free trade agreements which simply destroy jobs in this country. The minister on the other side is thinking, 'Get a free trade agreement in as quickly as you can so I can say I've done something.' But we on this side want to look after working people. Let us look at what happened at Mitsubishi when workers lost their jobs there. One female 31-year-old former production worker, in interviews with Adelaide University, said:

I’ve got two agencies that I work for just to keep the work up because every now and then you might get 20 hours one week and then you’ll get 50 hours the next week … you’ve got to take it while it’s there because the next week it might not be. And you don’t get holiday pay and sick pay

That will please the Work Choices warriors on the other side who, until 2007, fought against working people by trying to take away their rights and conditions through Work Choices. They will be very happy that workers do not get annual leave. They will be very happy that workers do not get sick pay. What they are about is a low-wage economy—a mining and tourism economy—instead of a manufacturing economy. A former draughtsman in his early 60s on short-term contracts explained his situation, having done a lot of work for which he needed to be paid. He said:

The guy I’m working for is not in a very good financial position. I’ve drawn up a wages bill that’s getting a little out of hand and he can’t pay me. So all sorts of promises and I’m looking at going somewhere else. I’ve been to a couple of other places on contract but it’s only for a week at a time and there’s nowhere else to go …

This is a draughtsman—a skilled person—who has lost his job in the car industry and who cannot even get a regular income. That is why Labor fights for proper industry policy. That is why we want to look after workers and look after their communities. A 51-year-old former maintenance fitter who became a part-time security guard said:

There doesn't seem to be jobs around for people of my age—

he is a skilled fitter—

and particularly or almost definitely no permanent job. It seems to be casual. They’ll take you on for maybe a couple of days.

These are the experiences of workers who lose their jobs in the manufacturing sector. Did we hear one word from the government about what is going to be done for them? No, we absolutely did not. We heard a diatribe about the carbon tax and ideological talk about a strong economy, but we heard nothing about what is going to be done either for workers who are losing their jobs or for their communities. The positions of the politicians in this place from Victoria and Adelaide have been absolutely hopeless. Only one politician on the coalition side has belled the cat—Dr Sharman Stone, when she said the Prime Minister was lying and blackening the name of workers at SPC. That is the reality, and it was stated by their own MP.

We want to make sure that there is a strong industry policy and that we do not run around attacking the trade union movement or union members because they want to collectively bargain. We do not want to push their wages and conditions down. I know that, when I was a tradesman working in a number of industries, I needed my annual leave loading and that I needed my penalty rates to pay my bills. But if you are in here you do not need annual leave loading or penalty rates, because you are doing all right. The other side do not know what it is like to be a worker in trouble. They do not know what it is like to not be able to pay their mortgage. But they will give no support to industry policy or to workers, and ideology will triumph over the national interest. It is an absolute disgrace—it is reprehensible.

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

I think it is worth mentioning that this motion is partly about having a comprehensive industry policy and a policy of innovation and that it expresses concern about jobs that have been lost. This motion is clearly meant to make a political point. I do not begrudge the Australian Labor Party's doing so—it is their job—but I would like to come at the debate from a slightly different perspective.

I think it is worth quoting what Donald Horne said in his iconic Australian book The Lucky Country, which I think is 50 years old this year. He used the phrase 'the lucky country' ironically. Everyone talks about Australia being the lucky country, and in many ways it is. But Donald Horne said:

Australia is a lucky country, run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck.

That is what he said 50 years ago, and you wonder whether it has held true over the last 50 years. There are some major challenges facing the economy. I do not think there is a simple solution, but let us look at what some of the challenges are. It is worth referring to a very good piece written by Emeritus Professor Richard Blandy, whom I regard as a very good friend and have a lot of respect for. He called it the way it was a number of years ago, when the South Australian Liberal government was seeking to privatise—and eventually did privatise—the state's electricity assets. Professor Blandy was a truth-teller who cautioned against the manner of their privatisation. Professor Blandy, in a piece he wrote for the Australian at the end of 2012, made reference to the International Monetary Fund's world Economic Outlook Database, which showed that Australians back then were:

… only the 13th richest people in the world, a decline of six places from the heyday of the 1990s.

He goes on to make reference to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the US Department of Labor, which looks at issues of productivity and unit labour cost, and he says that that very comprehensive study found that:

Australian productivity growth is the third lowest among the 10 countries, just nosing Spain into second-last spot. South Korea's rate of productivity growth has been 3.5 times Australia's—

350 per cent higher than Australia's—

across the past 20 years. Finland and Sweden's rate of productivity growth—

and no-one can accuse those countries of being low-wage countries—

has been about double Australia's, and that of the US about 70 per cent faster.

So this is a real challenge that, as a nation, we must deal with, because, if we do not, in this globalised world—and I will get to the issue of some of these free trade agreements that we have signed up to—we are going to be in real strife.

We saw the shocking unemployment figures that came out today. And presumably that was before the most recent job losses that have been announced which will be impacting this economy in the months to come. I dare say that, in the lead up to the 2016 election, because of the announced shutdowns, we will be seeing factory after factory, industrial premises after industrial premises, closing down and people being given their redundancy slips—and that is absolutely tragic—in the many thousands, particularly in my home state of South Australia and in the state of Victoria. But it will have a national impact.

So we have seen this blame game, with both sides throwing mud at each other. There is an issue about the role of unions. We see reports on that, and I note Phillip Coorey's report in the Australian Financial Review just yesterday in which he reported that Toyota blamed the unions in discussions with the government and raised issues about the lack of flexibility in trying to change conditions and not being able to allow workers to vote on that, and that the federal government, through Senator Abetz, indicated there would be intervention. I have great sympathy with what Senator Abetz said. If it is true that Toyota did say that this was an issue and if it is true that the company could not get a ballot of workers to modify some conditions to allow some greater flexibility and productivity then I think that is wrong, and I think there is validity in criticism of that.

Having said that, let us put this in perspective. Of the cost of a motor vehicle, the labour costs involved are estimated to be between 13 per cent and 16 per cent. So if there were some flexibility then sure it would make a difference but it probably would not make a difference of more than one per cent in the cost of a motor vehicle.

I need to say, about the AMWU in my home state of South Australia, that John Camillo, the head of the union there, cannot, under any reasonable criteria, be regarded as a radical or militant union leader. He is someone who has been respected by both employers and of course the workers he represents alike. He really desperately wanted General Motors Holden to stay on in South Australia, and I see him as someone who has been quite moderate and reasonable to deal with.

As a result of the closure of Toyota, we have now seen the final domino falling. The members of the federal government say: 'What did the ALP do when Mitsubishi and then Ford closed? That happened under their watch.' And that is true. But the duty of care, I think, was greater on this government because there were only two manufacturers still standing—General Motors Holden and Toyota. Behind them, though, there is a very important supply chain of automotive component manufacturers. So there is a greater duty of care on this government in terms of the way that was dealt with, because once you lost Holden it was almost inevitable that Toyota would go and with it this massive supply chain with tens of thousands of jobs—up to 40,000 direct jobs in the component manufacturing sector.

That is where this government made a number of fundamental mistakes. I think it was a mistake for the Treasurer, Joe Hockey—as capable and as competent as he is—to have basically taunted General Motors Holden, saying, 'Will you stay or will you go?' That sort of bravado was completely unnecessary and, I believe, completely counterproductive. It needs to be pointed out that, just 24 hours earlier, Mike Devereux, the outgoing Managing Director of General Motors in Australia, said to the Productivity Commission, 'We want to keep making cars here.' Then there was that extraordinary statement by the Treasurer, basically saying: 'Hurry up and make up your mind. Stay or go. Hurry up and tell us.'

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about Truss—what about what he did?

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

I think Senator Farrell makes a very good point. What the Acting Prime Minister, Mr Truss, said at the same time just exacerbated that. So it was completely unhelpful, and I believe it was reckless of the government to go down that path.

What Richard Reilly from the Federation of Automotive Products Manufacturers has told me and what he has said publicly is that we are now in a diabolical situation, because what we are seeing is the collapse of the entire supply chain. That is why all stops have to be pulled out to see if alternative outlets for these products can be found so that there can be some hope for those tens of thousands of employees. The easiest and best way to keep those people employed in the automotive component sector was to keep making cars in this country. Of the G20 nations, there is only one country that does not manufacture cars, and that is Saudi Arabia—and they are desperate to be making cars. There is something seriously wrong about that.

I agree with what the CEO of the Ford Motor Company in the United States has said: that if you lose manufacturing, you lose the bedrock of a good economy. This is not just about cars; we know that the mining industry has reaped great benefits from the innovation that has been driven by our automotive sector. This is very bad for our economy.

My concern is that there is not a plan B. My concern is that, as to the policy—despite the best endeavours of Minister Ian Macfarlane, who I think is genuinely a good man who has been fighting the fight in the cabinet but who has been defeated by colleagues who take this flat-earth view of the world—we need to be very careful of how this is handled in the next few months because, if we see a collapse in the automotive supply chain sector, those jobs will go, and go very quickly

That will risk putting South Australia, Victoria and, indeed, the nation into recession, because there are another 200,000 jobs that could be relying on that.

Let us talk about other cost inputs like the carbon tax. I think the way the carbon tax was implemented by the former government was a disaster. The current government says that the cost of electricity would be reduced by nine per cent if the carbon tax is repealed. That is true, but the concern is that that is a superficial approach, because there are many other things that can be done to reduce power prices far more than the repeal of the carbon tax that need to be looked at. We need to look at the National Electricity Rules. They need to be reformed as part of an overhaul of our energy policies.

The political debate over the past few years has been narrow and simplistic. To suggest or imply that the carbon tax is the primary cause of electricity price rises ignores the fact that changes to electricity transmission and distribution account for about half of electricity bills, that we have gold plated our electricity networks and that we need to give more power to the Australian Energy Regulator. The rules governing how networks are regulated oblige the AER to provide network businesses with a guaranteed return on their investment, regardless of whether the investment was necessary or worthwhile and regardless of whether the investment is later found to be unnecessary or premature. They are the sorts of reforms that we need to tackle. That is what this government needs to tackle, and I hope it can be done with bipartisan support.

In my home state of South Australia, the announcement was made this morning in the Adelaide Advertiser that the largest wind farm in the state is set for the Yorke Peninsula. The Ceres Project is worth $1.5 billion and will have 197 wind turbines. Guess what: that will guarantee the highest electricity prices for South Australian consumers and businesses. Why? Because the problem with wind power is that it is intermittent and unreliable. You have to switch it off on hot days. If you put too many eggs in the wind farm basket, it will distort the electricity market and choke off investment in baseload renewables such as geothermal, solar thermal and tidal power. Allowing those 197 additional wind turbines to be built in the state is actually a very bad decision. We have more wind turbines in South Australia than the rest of the country combined. Unfortunately, that is a legacy of some very bad and ill-thought-out policy decisions of the government of Mike Rann in South Australia.

That is something that we need to tackle, and that is why I welcome the role that Danny Price from Frontier Economics has played in pointing out the difficulties with wind energy and that it makes it more difficult for baseload renewables to get onto the market, let alone the impact it will have on prime agricultural land on the Yorke Peninsula and the impact it will have on the ability of aerial firefighters to fight fires if there are fires on the Yorke Peninsula.

Earlier today I had to postpone a motion on the food processing and manufacturing sector because of a lack of commitment and a reluctance by both the government and the opposition to support it, notwithstanding the sympathy that was expressed privately to me by a number of members of this place. The inquiry that Senator Madigan and I have sought to put up—and Senator Madigan deserves to be acknowledged for his key role as the instigator of the Australian Manufacturing and Farming Program—would look at current laws relating to dumped imported products and the effectiveness of Australia's antidumping laws. We need to see whether we need to introduce similar measures to those set out a number of years ago in the United States in the Byrd amendment—named after the legendary senator Robert Byrd—where, if a company were found to have dumped goods in the country and dumping duties were applied, then the companies affected could, in effect, get those dumping duties. What is wrong with essentially compensating a company as a result of dumping?

We know that just last week the Anti-Dumping Commission made a number of rulings against canned tomatoes from overseas which were found to have been dumped in this country, hurting SPC Ardmona. Dumping is illegal, but the way you prove dumping cases is extraordinarily difficult in this country. I will give you one example. Tindo Solar is one of the last remaining manufacturers of solar panels in this country. It makes a very fine product. It is based in Adelaide. In fact, former Prime Minister Gillard opened their premises. Tindo Solar have to struggle against dumped imported Chinese panels. The United States and Europe have said, 'Enough is enough,' and imposed a duty in respect of that. We are still working through that. The cost of running a dumping case for a small or medium business is simply prohibitive, although some changes brought by the previous government do provide some support. But it is just extraordinary that the major parties did not agree to that Senate inquiry. I will try again with Senator Madigan when the parliament resumes.

I note that on 25 June 2013, when dealing with the Customs Amendment (Anti-dumping Measures) Bill, Senator Colbeck made mention of SPC Ardmona and the importance of emergency measures and dealing with emergency provisions. So to say that these matters have been dealt with previously in a Senate inquiry is not true. The coalition has not yet told us how it will tighten dumping rules, but we need to deal with them.

I must, with a heavy heart, criticise former minister Craig Emerson. He was just so dogmatic, I believe, about free trade. We have not got a fair deal. It is not fair that we have the fair trade agreement with Thailand and their motor vehicles are sent over here but if we want to send a top-of-the-line Ford Territory that costs somewhere in the region of $57,000 it will cost well over $100,000 in Thailand because of non-tariff barriers. How is that free and fair trade? It is not, and it is killing Australian jobs. These are the sorts of things that we need to deal with. In relation to SPC Ardmona, I congratulate the advocacy of the local member there, Dr Sharman Stone.

We need to have an effective dumping regime, and the ALP and the coalition have to get rid of this 'free trade at any cost' mantra. People joke about us in other countries. We are referred to as a 'free trade Taliban' because we have such a fundamentalist view of free trade.

These are the sorts of things we need to look at in the context of the manufacturing industry. It is going to be a big ask, but, with our unemployment rate at a 10-year high, my fear is that we could be at a 20-year high unless we do something about this sooner rather than later. It is incumbent on all of us to get together, to be flexible, to acknowledge where we can improve the competitiveness of Australian industry, to improve productivity and to deal once and for all with dumping, which is killing Australian jobs, to make sure that free trade agreements are not just one way against Australia's interests. Those are the sorts of things that we need to do, otherwise I fear we are going to run out of luck. Donald Horne said 50 years ago, 'Australia is a lucky country, run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck.' That is what all of us in this place must avoid at all costs for the sake of the people of Australia.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was upstairs in my office having a cup of Earl Grey tea and listening, as of course I always do, to Senator Cameron's contribution on Senator Carr's motion about Australian jobs. Senator Cameron's contributions are feisty, sometimes eloquent but always interesting. He said that when Senator Mason came to the chamber he would blacken the name of the unions, the workers and the car manufacturers. I just want to assure the Senate that that is not my aim, but I do not have any problem with blackening the name of the Australian Labor Party. That is a very different issue.

The opposition's solution to problems in the manufacturing industry, particularly the car industry, was their traditional solution to every problem. Which is? To throw money at it. It does not matter if it is health, education or welfare—the Australian Labor Party, like so many social democratic parties in the West, believes that you solve economic and social problems by throwing money at them. They threw money at the car manufacturers. Did it work? No, it did not. Did they nevertheless keep throwing money at the car industry? Yes, they did.

In 2012 Ms Gillard announced $34 million for Ford, saying that it would create 300 new jobs. That was just a couple of years ago. What happened then? Ford got their money but instead of 300 new jobs 330 employees actually lost their jobs within eight months. Also in 2012 Ms Gillard announced $215 million for General Motors Holden, saying it would secure Holden's future in Australia until 2022—for the next 10 years. What happened next? Holden got their money but within months 670 jobs were lost. All up, from 1 January 2011 through until 31 December 2013 the Labor government provided a total of $660 million in funding assistance to the three major motor vehicle producers. The question the Australian people have to ask, that this parliament has to ask and that this Senate in particular has to ask is: was that money well spent? Clearly, it was not. The Labor Party does not worry about that. It is only $660 million. That is spare change! When you are running budget deficits in tens of billions of dollars and government debts in hundreds of billions, who cares about $660 million? Labor certainly doesn't. This puts us into more and more debt that the next generation will have to pay off. Labor does not care about that.

More than a couple of times in this place I have discussed Labor's history of debt. The hole in Labor's vision for our future, for the future of our country and our children, is the same hole that swallowed governments in Western Europe and North America. That is the idea that debt really is okay. Labor would argue, 'That is infrastructure.' That is true. Of course, money can be borrowed to develop infrastructure that can assist the next generation. But there is a problem. Labor's debt was not created because of infrastructure; it was created on the back of recurrent expenditure. That was the problem—just like Western Europe and North America: the same bloody hole that those democratic nations fell into. That is exactly what started to happen in the six years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor governments. There is a history. This is not new. This is Labor's history. It has been since 1904 with John Christian Watson. From Chris Watson all the way through to Mr Kevin Rudd, the last Labor Prime Minister: every time Labor leave government in this country they leave Australia further in debt. There has not been one exception since 1904. Every time Labor leaves office, Australia is further in debt.

This is an economic issue, of course it is, because government borrowing can distort economies. It can distort the private sector and it means that the interest bill has to be catered for. That is true. There are economic issues, but there is a greater issue. The Labor Party and too many governments—some, I concede, Conservative and Christian Democratic governments in Western Europe—have made this mistake. There is a moral issue as well. The Labor Party has never had any problem in passing down debt to the next generation—our children and, indeed, our grandchildren. If it were all for bridges and roads, you could perhaps justify it, but it is not; it is recurrent expenditure. The coalition believes that generations should live within their means—more or less, subject to infrastructure costs. If you want to spend more on health, education and welfare, you know what you have to do: you have to tax more. One thing the greatest Treasurer in Australia's history—

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Paul Keating!

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

the Hon. Peter Costello said is: intergenerational inequity is intergenerational theft.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That makes no sense at all.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Generations should pay for themselves—I will just mention this for Senator Farrell's benefit based on his interjection—with the exception, of course, of infrastructure. But, as I have asserted, that is not where Labor's debt came from. It certainly did not come from infrastructure; it came from recurrent expenditure. And that was the great moral failure—forget the economic failings of the Labor Party when they were in government; forget them as they were awful—of the Labor Party. It is the moral failing that people do not talk about sufficiently. Somehow it is all okay to plug our children and our grandchildren with the debt of people living the high life on health, education and welfare. That generation cannot afford it.

I know my friend Senator Cameron always rails against cuts, as Mr Rudd did in the last campaign. 'Oh, the coalition is going to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.' Why? Balancing budgets and generations paying their way are what we in the coalition believe in. In a sense the demographic incentives are all wrong. It is so easy to add to public debt, like the Australian Labor Party does. Just put it on the credit card and, you know, no-one really feels the pain. There might be an adverse op ed in the Australian Financial Review or The Australian, but basically no-one really cares. Just add to public debt, like they did in Western Europe, like they did in the United States and Canada, and no-one ever really complains.

The tough decision is for a government to say, 'Generations should live within their means, and we have to cut to make sure they do.' That is a much tougher decision. If anyone thinks the coalition government enjoy cutting, they are wrong: (1) it is painful for people and (2) it is politically courageous. It is not easy to do; it is hard. We are doing it not because it is easy; we are doing it because we want to set up our country and our children and our grandchildren for a brighter future. Quite frankly, if I were a teenager living in Athens, Greece, then I would want to shoot every baby boomer and every politician I found. You have had governments for 30 years letting down their children and their grandchildren, and it is a disgrace! And somehow it is all okay to keep borrowing. Finally the day comes when the music stops and someone has to pay the bill—the IMF steps in or Chancellor Merkel says, 'Enough is enough,' and they have to pay the bill. We in this country want to stop that sort of expenditure before it gets to that stage. Sadly, it is only the coalition who will do that. We are the only ones who will stand up and speak for the next generation. The opposition will not do it. Do you know why? Because it is tough and it is politically difficult. Everyone knows that. It is fine for Mr Rudd and Senator Cameron, as he often does, to talk about cutting. Sure it is tough, but these are decisions, tough as they are, that we make for the future of the country.

You could defend the $660 million that the Labor Party spent in three years if it actually worked, but it did not. All that money was spent—$660 million—and it did not work. It did not save a job; those manufacturers went out of business. Or maybe you could argue they did not spend enough? If, horror of all horrors—horror perhaps more for the Labor Party than for the coalition—Mr Rudd had been re-elected, and God forbid the horror of that, would Senator Carr stand up and say, 'We're going to give another $1 billion or another $2 billion to the car industry'? Would that be appropriate? It might prop them up for a bit longer, but in the end it would not save the industry. And that is the sad thing.

I accept part of Senator Cameron's argument: it is not just about the union movement—and I have not said that—it is also about a high Australian dollar, the high cost of manufacturing, low economies of scale and increased competition in the market. I accept that, and I am not going to argue that it is all the fault of the trade union movement or, indeed, of Australian workers—I do not accept that; there are many other issues as well—but the Labor Party fundamentally failed, and that is what is so frustrating.

What gets me is this. When I was at university the Hawke government were elected—and I do not mind saying this and I have said it before—and they were a great reforming government. The current government is not a reforming government in that model, in that Hawke and Keating—

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, it's not.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not. Labor are stuck in a time warp. You have become a theme park for social democratic failure. Just like the British Labour Party, just like the social democratic parties across Western Europe: all you can do is tax and spend. No other policy agenda exists except more and more debt, and it is awful. One great thing about Mr Whitlam—and I know we criticise Mr Whitlam—was he cut tariffs. Do you know what he said? He said, 'Tariffs are a tax on working people.' And do you know what? Mr Whitlam was right. He took some tough decisions, and for that he is to be congratulated. But today's party is certainly not the Hawke and Keating party and is not even the party of Mr Whitlam; it is more the party of Watson, Scullin and Curtin. Labor's near future looks a lot like their distant past, and that is not a good thing for the Labor Party and it is not a good thing for our country. It is worrying: Labor want to save the Toyota Camry while being stuck with an FJ Holden mentality, and that is awful.

I remember Senator Madigan's first speech for the Democratic Labor Party. He said in his maiden speech that there were good Labor governments, and I accept that—you have heard me say that before; I accept that—but there is nothing worse for Australia than a bad Labor government. We experienced that for six years. The great reforming ministers—Mr Hawke, Mr Keating and in this chamber, as you will recall, Steve, Senator Button and Senator Walsh—made tough decisions. I respect that. I respect it because it is not easy. I remember that when I was at university they cut government spending, particularly in the mid to late 1980s. They cut wages growth, with the accord and with the trade union movement.

Senator Button had the car plan, which honourable senators will recall. You can argue about the timing. I think there were arguments between the Labor Party and the coalition about how quickly it should all happen. But the bottom line is that the direction was the right direction. Senator Button said that, slowly, over a 10-year period or so, assistance to the car industry should be reduced. The direction of the reform was correct. The timing—okay—there is debate about.

I remember that Senator Walsh even convinced the Hawke cabinet that university fees should be introduced. Of course, the left of the Liberal Party went berserk, as they always do, 'This will stop students having access to university.' In fact, what happened? The Labor Party, and Senator Walsh, did the right thing. Three times more young Australians go to university now than did 30 years ago, when I went. It is a tribute to Senator Walsh that he did that. Money coming into government coffers has enabled our community to have so many university places for young Australians who otherwise would not have gone to university.

So I am not here just to trash the Australian Labor Party. I actually think they have done some very good things in the past. Australia is a much, much better country now than it was in the 1970s and a lot of that is due to what Mr Hawke, Mr Keating and the relevant ministers did during that period. It is a much better country.

Senator Xenophon mentioned Donald Horne, who said that Australia is a great country run by second-class people. I disagree. Both the Australian Labor Party and the coalition—the coalition backed Labor on this—reduced tariffs and unleashed the dollar, and there was significant macroeconomic reform in the eighties. Both parties endorsed it. And you know what—the public did not like it, because it was painful. I accept that—it was painful. Acting Deputy President Boyce, you would remember it. It was painful and things were awful for a while, but that restructuring of the economy set up Australia for 30 years of uninterrupted growth. We are the miracle economy. Without getting into the partisan debate about who deserves what, the bottom line is that, despite what Donald Horne said, from 1983 to 2007 there were remarkable, reforming governments that made this country and its economy the envy of the entire world.

This country is not run by second raters, either Labor or coalition. That is rubbish. We did things that parliaments in Western Europe and the United States could not and would not do. They did not have the courage to do those things. I remember well, again going back to the 1980s, the then Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, saying that Australia would be the 'poor white trash of Asia', that it would never be able to restructure its economy. Honourable senators will remember that. That is not what happened. We had the courage in this country, from 1983 up until 2007, to take really difficult decisions, and that set us up for a golden age.

I am frustrated now by this once-great reforming party. I am, as you know, Acting Deputy President, one of the more vociferous and vocal critics of the Australian Labor Party in this place; I am no shrinking violet. But I do not mind acknowledging success and performance when it arises. The problem today with the Australian Labor Party, under both Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard, is that they lost the reformer zeal. They just lost it. And what has happened? Now it is all about blaming the coalition for the failures of the car manufacturers. If only the Australian Labor Party could return to what it was. The truth is that in this country politicians were actually ahead of an unwilling public and a self-satisfied professoriate. We were far, far ahead of them.

I know the Australian Labor Party would not want to agree, but the big difference between us and the Labor Party, in that great reformist period of 1983 to 2007, was that we supported them in those major reforms. It did not help the farmers or many other people, at first. It was uncomfortable. But we supported the Labor Party, as we should have and as they deserved. But when the Howard government was going through its reformist period, every single time the Australian Labor Party thought they could garner some political traction, they objected to what the coalition government was doing. I recall the GST debate. This country had to reform its taxation system. A goods and services tax was appropriate. What did this lot do? Complained about it from go to whoa. The difference was that we supported Labor when tough decisions had to be made and when tough decisions were made they never supported us.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The first part of Senator Carr's motion that we are considering today says:

That the Senate—

(a) condemns:

(i) the failure of the Government to:

(A) articulate a comprehensive innovation policy so that Australia has the high skill, high wage jobs of the future, and

(B) fight for Australian jobs …

The two speakers who have spoken best in support of that motion are in fact the speakers from the government. Both speakers have demonstrated that there is in fact no policy; there is no strategy. I cannot say that I did not enjoy Senator Mason going through the very long list of great Labor Party achievements over many years. I can say to him that there are many more achievements than that. But, of course, he only had 20 minutes—he would need several days to list them all. He also talked about the courageous nature of many of those decisions.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, they were, at the time.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He said that, and he has repeated that, and that is great. But he also must forget the opportunism that went with some of that. I am not going to dwell on this, but while you, Senator Mason, say the government of the day supported the floating of the dollar I recall as an observer of politics at the time—I certainly was not here—during question times that shadow ministers in the opposition would jingle change in their pockets to reflect how the dollar had in fact dropped in value. I also remember former Prime Minister Howard, again in an opportunistic remark, saying that the strength of the Australian economy is directly related to the value of the Australian dollar. Senator Mason, I think if you were actually going to be completely honest with us, it was not the fulsome support that you suggest was there—

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was pretty fulsome!

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senators Marshall and Mason! We are not here for a personal debate. Could you just address your remarks to the chair, please.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am always happy to have a frank and open discussion with Senator Mason, and we have done so on many occasions. But at least Senator Mason did not blame the workers—and at least I give him some credit for that—unlike most of his colleagues we have heard, including Senator Ronaldson earlier.

He did acknowledge that there are many factors that are putting pressure on the manufacturing industry, such as economies of scale, the high Australian dollar and some of the stiff competition we are receiving from other countries. No-one has suggested, and certainly the opposition has never suggested, that these are not challenging issues. But the fact is that those opposite are the government. They have an obligation to put in place policy settings that support manufacturing in this country. They simply cannot take the view, as Senator Ronaldson seemed to do, that the strategy is to run up the white flag—be surrender monkeys and have no policy.

Senator Ronaldson is actually the minister representing the industry minister in this place and in his 20-minute contribution he did not talk about one positive thing that this government intended to do in the manufacturing industry. Not one. He did not talk about one plan, he did not talk about one policy response, he did not talk about any vision and he did not talk about a single proposal. And we can only conclude on this side, and I think it has been borne out by many of the comments, that the government simply does not seem to care.

One of the things that Senator Ronaldson harped upon was the need to have consistent policy settings for this industry. Well, the industry has a consistent policy setting right now from this government, and that is no policy. That is the consistent policy setting this government is offering the manufacturing industry—to have none. I do not think that is what industry is looking for. I do not think that is what the Australian people nor the people who rely on the manufacturing sector directly or indirectly are looking for. It is certainly not what we are looking for. We believe this government needs to do better. It actually needs to do the hard work and develop an industry policy and deliver consistent policy settings for the future.

But they also say: 'We haven't been in government very long. These things are inevitable. What could we do?' Let us go back: when Sophie Mirabella was first appointed as the manufacturing shadow minister many years ago that is what started to send alarm bells through the industry. She announced initially that there would be a review of car industry assistance. It then developed further to where they actually got to the position of saying that they would cut $500 million of assistance to the manufacturing industry, in the vehicle industry in particular. That is the sort of thing that started to send shockwaves through the manufacturing industry, and through the car and vehicle industry in particular.

Even Blind Freddy realised over the last few years that the most likely outcome of the election that was just held was going to be a change of government. Everyone understood that. While we were hoping and trying our best to turn those views around, certainly industries would have been looking very closely at the coalition policies, because those policies would become the policies of the new government. Of course, they knew very clearly through their discussions with the then opposition and now government that they were serious about removing support for the vehicle industry. So it is no wonder that plans started to be made for their response to those policy settings and that gutting of the support for that industry.

I think what it really says—and Senator Xenophon made reference to this—is that there are simply too many people in the government who have this flat-earth policy about economic rationalism, who think all industries need to stand on their own two feet and who do not realise that every industry does not exist in a critical mass situation that supports other industries and that other industries might feed off them. That is because they have their economists and they do not actually understand how things work on the ground in reality. They fail to understand that the vehicle industry provides a critical mass at a number of different levels. It provides a critical mass at the R&D level. In fact, the vehicle industry was contributing $700 million every year to R&D investment. That did not all just end up back in the vehicle industry. A lot of that R&D then spun off into component manufacturing and into other industries, like aerospace and robotics and even shipbuilding and many other manufacturing industries. If you take that $700 million out of the R&D economy in manufacturing you hurt all of manufacturing—not just the vehicle industry, you hurt it all.

The vehicle industry also trains very highly skilled workers. It has state-of-the-art plants. We are training people in this country with skills which they would never get trained in anywhere else, and of course those skills then feed components suppliers and other industries. Of course, that is going to be gone now. So other industries that may have been viable for the future because they could rely on a steady supply of highly skilled workers—skills that were imported into this country as well—are not going to have those available for them.

Let us look at robotics as an example. The vehicle industry has some of the most sophisticated robotics of anywhere in the world. Of course, they introduce them here and they train people in how to program them, how to manufacture them, how to maintain them and how to use them. Those skills and that technology are then readily transferable to other industries. And if you take that away, if you want to come here and set up a plant that is going to require a high level of robotics, and yet there is no skilled workforce—there is no other critical mass of robotics in this industry—then you are likely to look elsewhere.

We were one of the 13 advanced economies that could actually design, plan, build, manufacture and produce in its totality a car from nothing to rolling off the production line—although now there will only be 12 once we are gone. Only 13 economies could do that. It is a huge advantage economically to be able to do it. It gives us so many skills that, as I said, flow on around the whole of the manufacturing sector. So it is not just about the vehicle industry.

Of course it was a massive co-investment. The government of the day, and then opposition, used to talk about industry welfare. But for every dollar that was invested by the government we got many, many times the return on investment from those vehicle companies—investment that secured industry, secured good jobs and secured the supply industry and many other industries, and provided them with skills and technology and R&D. That will be very sadly missed.

They did not need to go. When a multinational company is in Australia, and you have the Treasurer of this country goading them into leaving, in the most reckless way, what do you say if you are a multinational? 'If the government doesn't want us here, and is challenging us to leave'—the likely outcome of that is that they will leave, and that is exactly what has happened. Holden had said previously, under our government, that they intended to stay here for the long term. The policy settings we had in place would have kept them here for the long term. So what happened? An Abbott government happened: an Abbott government that sent clear signals to the manufacturing industry, to Holden in particular, that they were not welcome here—'We do not want you here.' Of course Toyota was at all times watching that. And Toyota had a very different business model—mainly exports. Again, in challenging times. But Holden leaves and we get back to that economies-of-scale argument. Suppliers, who often supplied all vehicle companies—as well as other companies—all of a sudden were getting into a situation where they may themselves not be viable. Them not being viable then put extra pressure on Toyota being viable.

All this happened because of an Abbott government. This industry survived the global financial crisis but it could not survive the election of an Abbott government. I think in the long term that this is a decision that people will look back on and say: what a reckless government this was in goading this huge company that provided so many jobs and so many skills into leaving this country, which then had the flow-on effects for Toyota too.

The automotive industry is, as I said, of immense strategic, scientific and economic importance to our nation—and it is now at its end thanks to this government. It did directly employ 50,000 Australian workers and another 200,000 jobs relied on businesses created by the auto industry. The second part of the resolution here also asks the government to release the plans they have for those people—and, of course, there is deathly silence. There is no plan. There is nothing they can say about it. The Minister representing the Minister for Industry here did not even go near that, did not even address any of those issues. There was just deathly silence.

Senator Ronaldson talked a lot about internal issues within the Labor Party. He even went and quoted Mark Latham. As if those 200,000 people who relied on this industry care about that. There may be some people who care about it, and have some interest in that, but let me tell you: most people in Australia do not care about that. What they do care about is what is going to happen to their future and what is going to happen to their kids' futures. Where are these good, high-skilled manufacturing jobs going to come from in the future now that this government has sabotaged the vehicle industry?

And what do we hear from the government? Just personal attacks on Senator Carr, personal attacks on other senators and attacks on the previous government—as if they are still in opposition saying, 'No, no, no', as they did over the last six years. They did not need a plan to say 'no' in opposition but, now they are in government, we expect more than simply saying no—saying no to the vehicle industry, saying no to having an industry plan, saying no to a plan for those people who are going to be displaced through this tragic process.

Again, there was no need at all for this to have ever happened. This was a $21.5 billion industry. The previous government took us through one of the worst global economic meltdowns since the 1920s Depression and got this country through as one of the few that did not go into recession—one of the few that kept unemployment relatively low and one of the few that was then positioned, as we come out of the global financial crisis, to take advantage of our non-recession period and low unemployment. But it looks like that is being completely sabotaged by this government.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics have just released their unemployment figure for January, and what do we find? The jobless rate has now shot up to six per cent and is now at its highest level in a decade. In net terms 3,700 jobs were lost during the month of January, but the real stories are even worse than those figures indicate. In fact, 7,100 full-time jobs were removed from the economy during this month while 3,400 part-time jobs were added. So the real impact of those figures is significantly worse than they indicate.

The coalition government are not just vandalising our nation's industrial capacity; they are destroying our consumer confidence in the process. Westpac's recently released monthly unemployment expectations subindex also rose by 2.3 per cent. What did Westpac's senior economist Justin Smirk have to say about these figures today? He said: 'Households are clearly nervous about jobs again. Recent press on Holden, SPC, Qantas and now Toyota would not have helped.' Of course it has not helped. This government is failing to act even when their own members are calling for action.

What did we hear from Senator Ronaldson? Instead of talking about the plan this government might have to address these shutdowns he simply wanted to blame working people and unions. One of the things that rang true for all of us here when we heard that rhetoric—that nonsense—was, finally, what was said by Dr Sharman Stone. She is a member of the government—a lower house member representing those workers at SPC. When Mr Abbott and others were besmirching the reputation of the workers and the unions she called it for what it was—and that was an absolute lie. She has belled the cat on their strategy.

Their strategy is to blame everyone else. They blame the now opposition. They blame working people. They blame unions. But they do not blame their own actions of goading Holden to leave this country. They do not blame their own actions of having a vacuous industry policy, no response to what is happening in the economy and no care for those working people and their futures. They simply seem not to care.

Representatives of the AMWU from the shipbuilding industry were up here earlier in the week. They are facing their own challenges, particularly with the pipeline of orders. We are now entering into a stage where there will be a period of time when there is no work in those industries. It is called 'death valley'. If we lose the skills from those industries will we ever be able to ramp up again? Once you lose a skills base—once you lose a critical mass—you lose the capacity to ramp up quickly and efficiently to build ships. What did we find? While those union representatives tried to get appointments with the finance minister, the industry minister, the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and with a number of other ministers they either got no response or were told those ministers were simply too busy.

That is in contrast to the welcome mat that was out to these very same people prior to the election, when their views were being sought and seriously considered. Now they are in government those ministers do not want to hear the union representatives' views. They do not want to hear of the issues confronting another major industry in this country. Without proper government consideration, proper government planning and a proper government response, the shipbuilding industry could go the way of the vehicle industry. I think it is an absolute tragedy that this government has presided over what has happened in the vehicle industry. It did not need to happen. This government is responsible for its starting to happen. This government is responsible for goading them out and for taking away the assistance. They stand condemned for that. (Time expired)

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What Senator Marshall says is a bit rich—much as I admire the gentleman. I sat here and listened to Senator Marshall pretend to us that in mid-September of this year the world was perfect and all of a sudden it fell in a hole. Senator Marshall, before you go, in relation to Holden I have to say to you that when I was in the United States recently I heard an interview with an executive of General Motors in Detroit. When asked about the Australian car manufacturing industry he said, 'But it stopped years ago! We haven't been manufacturing vehicles in Australia for years, have we?' Speaking about General Motors and speaking about Detroit, colleagues would be interested to know that it was only in July 2013 that the city of Detroit became the largest city in the history of the United States to file for chapter 9 bankruptcy protection.

In the few moments that are available to me I would like to say that I did meet with the AMWU representatives in Perth recently. They were pleading the case for my support for assistance in the shipbuilding industry in Western Australia. Of course we have the opportunity of an even more burgeoning shipbuilding industry. In my conversation with them I spoke about quality. The first thing they tried to tell me was that the quality of manufacturing in Korea, Singapore and China was so bad that all they did was to repair their work. Having seen ships recently off the production line in China, I was able to assure the representatives that the design work was supervised by Norwegians and the Dutch and shipyards were overseen by Koreans. The quality of that work was fantastic.

I did ask them: 'Could you come to the table with an undertaking for a specific project that, in the event that your company could win a project you would hold yourselves to any contractual labour agreement for the purpose and for the length of that contract?' They could not. I asked them, 'What other union might be involved?' They said, 'The CFMEU.' I asked, 'Could the CFMEU come forward with a guarantee of no change of price?' Of course the answer was: no, they could not.

In the few moments available to me I would like to reflect on how this opposition, when in government, failed Australians—and particularly failed Australian workers. We know the disparity in the workforce in Australia—about 15 per cent of workers in the non-government sector are members of unions, whereas closer to 90 per cent of members and senators on the Labor side, I believe, are members of unions. Those people sitting opposite us have an awesome burden once they come into the parliament—that is, to use their influence on union members in workforces to see the reality of circumstances.

Let me tell you about someone from 2004—it is a name known to us all: now Leader of the Opposition Mr Bill Shorten. He led SPC Ardmona workers on a six-day strike in the middle of the harvesting season, winning them an extra eight days of so-called leisure time. He said at that time how pleased he was that he had won this agreement from SPC Ardmona for a 13.5 per cent improvement in salary conditions, including an extra eight days. Here we are today, in 2014, wondering why SPC Ardmona is having so much difficulty in surviving. There are so many Labor members and senators who could have, and should have, used their influence in the workplaces from which they have come to try and get reasonable conditions and reasonable labour costs. Regrettably, we have seen the outcome today: Senator Carr's ridiculous—I say 'ridiculous'!—notice of motion.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired.