Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Corangamite is precisely wrong in his interpretation of what we will do if we are elected in relation to this bill, the Australian Jobs Bill 2013, and manufacturing in Australia. We have indicated that we will immediately repeal the carbon tax. I note that the member for Corangamite will be very concerned about the impact of the carbon tax on Australian business.

You certainly do not help Australian workers and Australian jobs by passing a bill called the Australian Jobs Bill, although we know that this government has some sort of fetish for Orwellian titles of its bills. It thinks that by calling it the Australian Jobs Bill that, somehow, this will create jobs in Australia. The coalition of course rejects such a proposal. In fact, when you look through this legislation it really gives you the sense that we are having a bill for a bill's sake—and certainly we have Bill at the table at the moment, so maybe we are having a bill for a Bill's sake. But we have grave concerns about this bill, which proposes meaningless changes to the Australian Industry Participation plan.

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