Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My apologies, Mr Deputy President. I need to restate that the contribution from the other side over a couple of days in this debate has not given me any sense of confidence that there will be a successful outcome here. In fact, Senator Bushby mentioned the outcome of the Productivity Commission but the Prime Minister has ruled out any additional funds prior to the Productivity Commission making its determination. So I suppose it takes us back to where we are at.

On 7 September there was an election and a government was elected, a government that has been characterised as having its first 100 days of delays. We have the National Commission of Audit due to come in on 17 January and a bit more in March. And answers to almost every question on almost every topic in this chamber are 'we will not commit'.

We have a dire situation in the automotive industry. The Senate is a representative body of states with 12 senators for each state. We have had one contribution from Senator Edwards, which I will say no more about but it did not inspire me with any confidence that there was any great support for the automotive industry in South Australia. We have had nothing from Senator Fawcett, nothing from Senator Birmingham although he did say something this morning. He said he supported the car industry—and has remained stubbornly silent ever since. We have seen nothing from Senator Ruston, nothing from Senator Bernardi. It is very unusual; Senator Bernardi is usually the most vocal of the senators from South Australia on a whole range of issues. So all of those thousands of people in South Australia looking at their representatives in this chamber have had a very poor result from the other side. In fact, what has been coming back is chilling. This industry is so important to our state and, as rightly pointed out by Senator Conroy, it is vastly important to Victoria. The spin-off is immense. BlueScope Steel could be dramatically affected by any closure of the automotive industry in South Australia as could transport companies. Toll transport and Allied Transport are all part of the exactly-on-time logistics chain. The impact if this industry does not get the wherewithal to continue and commit to the additional billion dollars' worth of funding which those opposite have been asked to put on is going to be devastating. Devastating is probably not the word. All of those families are living with this uncertainty while this government procrastinates and delays, with a background of leaking, with a background of telling journalists, 'We are dry economic people here. We do not really want to be chipping in.'

One lower House member has put his name up to the front, Alex Hawke. Alex Hawke tweeted this morning, referring to a very partisan article in TheAustralian, which basically says the workers at Holden should take about a 67 per cent pay cut. I am sure it is very encouraging for them at this time of the year and with this uncertainty over their heads.

The reality of what is happening here is inaction. You claim you have a mandate to govern and you claim you have a mandate to do all sorts of things. What you should be doing is stepping up to the plate and securing the future of the automotive industry. The automotive industry is the largest contributor to manufacturing research and development. The skills developed in that endeavour are not contained to the automotive industry. Those people get trained, work in the automotive industry and then go across the whole manufacturing sector. If we want to be a smarter country and if we want to add value, this industry cannot be allowed to wither and die just because there are dry economic rationalists in the Liberal Party.

If this was something to do with agriculture like GrainCorp, then the Nats would be all over it, the Hon. Joe Hockey would be bullied into submission and we would have certainty. But, unfortunately in this case, it is the automotive industry and this government looks set to let it wither and die.