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

I rise on what is the most important issue facing the Australian public for many years—that is, the decisions that the Abbott government have made that have led to the loss of 50,000 jobs in the past five months and that would lead to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the future. The genesis of many of these job losses was the policy decision of the then opposition to abandon workers, to abandon families and to abandon communities in the vehicle-manufacturing industry of this country.

Former shadow minister Sophie Mirabella developed a policy to rip $500 million out of co-investment funding for the industry. According to every analysis that you see from the industry itself, this created instability and uncertainty. On top of that we saw the new government, the Abbott government, goading GMH to make a decision as to whether they were going to stay or go. They made it quite clear to GM that they actually did not care about the jobs of manufacturing workers in the Holden plants around this country. They knew that once that decision was made the capacity for Toyota to maintain production in this country was massively diminished because of the loss of components-manufacturing jobs and because the ability to produce cars in this country would diminish as a result of this push.

They then went on to verbal Toyota workers—blame the workers—for defending their wages and conditions. The Toyota workers have got decent wages and decent conditions, but let me tell you, if what happens elsewhere in the world and what has happened here in the past, when they lose their jobs, those workers at GM and Toyota will have on average about eight to 25 per cent less in take-home pay in the jobs they moved to from the car industry. So they will lose lots of money; they will lose lots of security; and they will have many, many problems as time moves on because of this decision of the Abbott government.

The others decision that the Abbott government made was to refuse to assist SPC, and we all know that Dr Sharman Stone said the arguments put forward by the coalition in defence of their refusal to help families and communities in Victoria were lies. This was not what the Labor Party said; this is what our senior experienced Liberal politicians said about the decision to refuse to assist SPC. Mr Abbott previously said that manufacturing jobs were important; but when he said that you have to remember it was before the election. It was when he was running around in his high-vis vest and his hard-hat, trying to tell workers that he was the friend of workers. He actually addressed the Victorian Liberal party in 2011 and this is what he said:

Let the message go out from here in Melbourne, the manufacturing heart of our country, that we must be a country that continues to make things.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that:

Speaking on Melbourne radio after a visit to the Ford motor plant in Geelong Abbott waxed lyrical: "It's an iconic Australian plant. It's been opened since 1925 ad it's one of the many major Australian manufacturers which would be at risk under a carbon tax.

It was not at risk under a carbon tax, but certainly at risk under an Abbott government. He then went on—and remember this was prior to the election—to say:

I think any government which makes it harder to manufacture cars is making it harder for us to continue to be a First World economy because without cars, without steel, without aluminium, without cement, we don't have these manufacturers in Australia, we are not really a sophisticated economy any more.'

So, this is what the Prime Minister, that then Leader of the Opposition, said to Ford workers prior to the election.

The message to all car manufacturing workers was: 'You have got nothing to fear under the coalition,' but the reality was that, when the high-vis vest and hard-hat came off and when he was sitting with his colleagues, they were looking at ripping $500 million of co-investment out of the industry, fully cognisant that that could mean the end of car manufacture in this country.

What have we seen? We have seen that the car-manufacturing industry is no more, because of the decisions of the coalition—decisions driven by the Liberal government. This is a problem for the economy generally, because, if you start ripping away high-paid, decent jobs in manufacturing, then you become more and more reliant on service-industry jobs with lower wages, casualisation and lack of rights for workers. That is what this is about. It will deskill the economy and devalue the economy. It will force wages and conditions in this country down, as we do not have a strong manufacturing base to drive wages and conditions around the country. When Abbott says that, the important thing is to remember that while some businesses close, other businesses open; while some jobs end, other jobs start. Sure! You see workers get the jobs but those jobs are much less skilled, much less well paid and much more insecure.

That is the problem that workers in the manufacturing industry have because of the economic incompetence of the coalition and the uncaring position of the coalition. The next thing you will see is further attacks on workers in the shipbuilding industry. We had shipbuilding workers feted by the opposition. Enter Senator Johnston, the now Minister for Defence, bringing the workers in and telling them that he is sympathetic to their position and that he will look to assist their position. And yet when they try to get a meeting with the same minister to talk about their job security and their future, they cannot get a meeting with the minister.

Again, it is a pattern of behaviour of the coalition: before the election they are the friends of blue-collar workers, but after the election they have no time for blue-collar workers. They do not want to know them. I am saying that the government should ensure that the shipbuilding industry—the Australian naval shipbuilding industry—is looked after in this country, that we cannot afford to lose the 4,000 skilled workers in that industry, that the government should be making decisions about building Australian ships in Australia. The government should also be making a decision to ensure Australian skills are kept here. Stop deceiving people; start looking after Australian jobs you have failed so far.