House debates
Thursday, 10 November 2016
Questions without Notice
United States Presidential Election
2:43 pm
Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
My question is to the Prime Minister. The Liberal Party's delegate to the United Nations, Senator Cory Bernardi, has lauded the election of Donald Trump as 'a movement against the establishment political parties'. Is the Prime Minister concerned by the movement against establishment political parties, particularly by conservative groups based in South Australia, and what implications does this have for government policy?
2:44 pm
Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The honourable member is very familiar with the loss of manufacturing jobs in South Australia—after all, his party has contributed so much to the loss of those jobs. After all, it was the Labor Party that in six years did not commission one single naval vessel.
Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
It was Labor, in government for six years—
Honourable members interjecting —
Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member for Sydney has been warned.
Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Six years in government, recognising that our submarines needed to be replaced, recognising that our Navy needed new vessels, recognising that work needed to be done, but unwilling and unable to make a decision, leaving thousands of workers in South Australia to face that valley of death as the existing work tails off. We have commissioned, or are commissioning, 54 new naval vessels—
Honourable members interjecting—
Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
What did Labor do? Nothing. Is shipbuilding important in South Australia? I think it is. I think South Australians know it, and they know that it was the Labor Party that abandoned them.
And what about the Labor Party's brilliant management of the energy supply in South Australia. We need to have reliable, affordable power. Yes, we need to cut our emissions and we are doing so. But you have to be able to keep the lights on. You have to be able to keep the wheels of industry turning. The Labor Party abandoned the workers in those businesses. The Labor Party's energy present to South Australia is the least reliable and the most expensive wholesale energy in the country.
Nobody has less moral right to talk about workers' jobs and the manufacturing industry than Labor members from South Australia. You abandoned the workers in South Australia. You abandoned the workers at Osborne. It is the Liberal Party and the National Party, our coalition, that has given them hope for an advanced manufacturing future. We did that. We are building up an advanced manufacturing base in South Australia. The Labor Party abandoned South Australia, they abandoned those workers and they abandoned those jobs.