Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have to say, after seeing the MPI from the member for North Sydney, it is a little rich for the coalition to be having a debate about protecting the jobs of Australian workers. Just looking around the chamber, I see that there are not that many members here who were here under the Howard-Costello government. And there are probably not that many members here who, when they had the opportunity to look after Australian workers, went and saw how that mob went about it. I actually was here. I did see the ravages of Work Choices and what it did to my local community. I did see people who were being paid the award minimum rates who, for the first time in the history of this country, could be paid below those minimum rates. I did see that mums and dads trying to make ends meet just could not withstand that sort of pressure. And, like the member for Goldstein, I also had the opportunity to go and visit boardrooms at that stage. I went and asked a board at a particular company—quite a large company that was operating in my electorate; and they had a number of their overseas representatives there—'Why are you doing this? The people out there are not wealthy; they are on minimum rates. The courts have decided these are the lowest rates you can pay them; why are you trying to get them to sign an individual contract for lower rates?' And their answer, in a very distinct American slur, was, 'It was your government'—referring to the federal parliament—'that gave us permission to do it.'

So, in other words, if we want to make it okay to go out and slash and burn, and pay below the minimum rates of pay, that is on the head of this parliament. That is what the Howard government did when they had the opportunity to look after Australian workers. I saw the ravages of that, as it played out in my electorate. I saw the real contest that occurred out there. I saw workers going on strike, workers like Warren Small and people from Esselte. These people were paid absolute minimum wages, and they were out for nine weeks to try and bring attention to that. So don't come in here and lecture us about preserving Australian jobs, when you had all that opportunity—12 years—to do something and your crowning achievement of looking after Australian workers was Work Choices. And let's face it: everyone knows that, in the party room, they are under pressure to bring that back again. This is about having some 'incentives' in the Australian economy. I tell you what: it is not about looking after Australian jobs.

Another thing that was very interesting, when we go through the speeches from the other side, was the member for Goldstein waxing on about interest rates. I was also in this House when we counted seven interest rates rises in a row! I was here when we saw the tally just keep going up. I was one of those paying a mortgage and watching the impact on my mortgage. So to come in here and try and lecture people about the management of this economy! Well, they had their opportunity and, in the 12 years that they had it, the tally sheet did not come out in their favour.

But what really concerns me, and those who have sat through this debate, is to again be told about the 'wasteful spending', as they call it, on pink batts or school halls, and their attempts to demean the efforts that were made to protect the Australian economy from the worst financial shocks in 60 years. Not once in this whole debate has the global financial crisis been referred to. Not once has Australia's position in coming out of that global financial crisis been referred to, nor the fact that the International Monetary Fund, with respect to our handling of the economy through those shocks, said that we were probably the best economy to emerge out of the global financial crisis and we handled the challenges better than most economies around the globe. That is not an accurate quote, but the international representatives of the International Monetary Fund certainly used words to that effect.

The fact is that Labor did invest in school halls. But what we also did was invest in science blocks, in language centres, in higher education, in school partnerships. We invested money not only in bricks and mortar and in building schools for today but n the development of skills for young people for their futures—all those things those opposite want to demean and just refer to under generic titles like 'school halls'. We are the ones who have doubled investment in education. In the 12 years that they were in power they took billions out of the education budget. It is something that we refer to continually because, what they decided to do was to take that away, strip all the money that they did not want to spend—and, sure, they had a $22 billion surplus, but they did it by not spending on education, by cutting $1 billion out of health and also by not spending on infrastructure development in this country. All of those things I have referred to are great criticisms of the former government, quite frankly. It is not just the balance sheet you need to look at here: look at interest rates, and at where they were when we took over; look at the issue of jobs, where at least we have returned fairness and decency in the workplace.

And they have the gall to mention small business. Only recently, with much fight, we were successful in establishing the mining tax. Don't forget: one of the aspects to the mining tax, apart from it being the leverage for increasing the superannuation of Australian workers from nine to 12 per cent, is reducing company tax on small business down to 28 per cent. Those people over there voted against that. They are committed to actually increasing the tax on small business. That is what they want to do—they want to make sure that Gina Rinehart, Twiggy Forrest and their other mates at the top end of the pole in the mining sector get a tax reduction and do not pay their fair share of tax. We actually want to ensure that the benefits of Australia's booming resource sector is felt throughout our economy—not just by a few but by all. I mentioned the global financial crisis, but one of the things that has certainly impacted more recently is the Australian car industry. In Fowler I do not have a car industry but I do know the strategic importance of maintaining a car industry. I know that there are probably only 12 countries in the world that have the strategic capacity to manufacture a motor vehicle. If you lose that, it is not just the fact that you may not be selling motor vehicles or exporting motor vehicles but the fact that you will not have the skill sets—and for all those other trades that are not simply for the manufacturing but for the componentry. All those matters come together and are symptomatic of our being in a highly skilled economy.

We are one of the lucky countries. There are about 12 countries, as I say, around the globe that can manufacture a motor vehicle. We are one of them. We have those skill sets. We need to ensure that we retain them. One thing I am absolutely convinced of is that if we lose motor vehicle manufacturing in this country we will never, ever get it back. You cannot re-establish it. It will be just taken over. If we lose those skill sets we will never get them back.

What has been the response? As I said, I am a person who does not have motor vehicle manufacturing in my electorate or my state, but I know the importance of it. I would have thought that so would the opposition. Many of them actually come from a state that has motor vehicle manufacturing. And they are going to cut by half the investment in the motor vehicle industries.

Motor vehicle industries around the globe operate in only two ways. Either they are subsidised or alternatively they are restricted, highly protected by tariffs. We are trying to provide the incentive to develop those skill sets, maintain this industry and keep it viable. It is a good export industry for us and it showcases our skills and shows that we can do these things. The downstream aspects of motor vehicle manufacturing, the componentry and everything that goes with that, are such that people are not just supplying the motor vehicle industry; they are supplying elsewhere into our manufacture based economy. Those people too would be in jeopardy. But the opposition are just walking away from it.

They are not walking away because they do not believe it. They are walking away from this because there is a $70 billion black hole that the member for North Sydney has said they have to fill now, because of where they need to cut and slash to make their budgetary aspirations. This is just taking too much of a chance.

This government does have a track record when confronting a crisis. It showed it in respect of the global financial crisis. It can be trusted to invest wisely in developing jobs. It has shown it in protecting Australian jobs with the amendments to Fair Work Australia. This is in direct contrast to what those opposite did when they had the opportunity during 12 long years of the Howard government. (Time expired)

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