Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

Absolutely. But it gets much worse than that. We have a government that believed there was no future for the car industry in Australia, killing off not only Holden but also Toyota and hundreds of component suppliers in one fell swoop. Then they destroyed the renewal energy industry, cutting investment in that industry by 88 per cent in 2014 alone. I can tell members opposite that I have spoken to people in my electorate who were affected by those cuts.

And we have seen the Australian government also trashing the reputation of the Australian Submarine Corporation, Australia's largest naval shipbuilder. The previous defence minster said that they could not be trusted to build a canoe. He did not even allow them to participate in the competitive evaluation process for the submarines, and sent the supply vessel contract offshore. There are going to be another thousand jobs lost by Australian naval shipbuilders in this country over the next three years. I have heard the remarks of the Minister for Defence about how they have brought forward contracts to 2018, but 2018 is three years away. People need jobs now, and in the meantime there are going to be another thousand of those jobs lost—particularly in my home state, where those jobs are crucial given that they come on the back of the closure of Holden in 2017.

Again, it does not stop there. We now have a free trade agreement which jeopardises the jobs of Australians, albeit those members opposite are in denial about that. The reality is that it does. Even worse than that, we have legislation that wants to send offshore Australian jobs in relation to Australian coastal shipping. Another clear example of this government not caring one iota for the jobs of Australian people but simply trying to secure jobs for people elsewhere by sending our contracts offshore, by allowing offshore labour to come in and do jobs that we could otherwise be doing and by cutting out the skills training to ensure that our young people could do the jobs that will be coming up in the near future. We have 300,000 unemployed young people in this country, and in my part of Adelaide those figures are around 20 per cent. This government needs to have a good hard look at its policies because its policies, when it comes to unemployment, are failing the Australian people. (Time expired)

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