Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I must say that I find some of the statements being made in this debate absolutely extraordinary. I represent the seat of Corangamite, which is a very important part of the country in terms of employment in the car industry. We are a proud home of Ford. I refer to a report in the Geelong Advertiser on 24 May 2013. 'Shattered' is the headline. The report says: '510 Geelong jobs axed by 2016. No Fords to be built here. We are gutted.' That is what the workers say. Guess when this happened? This happened under Labor's watch.

This is from Henry Fuller. I will ask to table this in a minute. For 25 years, Henry Fuller has packed his lunch and headed off to work at the North Geelong Ford factory. Yesterday he and hundreds of workmates were told their jobs will go as Ford ends all production in Australia. What an absolute joke that those opposite are saying we do not care about manufacturing and the car industry. That is an absolute joke. We have committed $1 billion between 2015 and 2020 and we are taking action to repeal the carbon tax, which will be an enormous benefit to manufacturing. What are the members opposite doing? They are stopping this. They are stopping helping workers in this country, and that is an absolute disgrace.

We see money being thrown at the car industry. The big problem that we have seen under Labor for the last six years is that money has been given to the car industry with no accountability. That is a key issue. We support the giving of money, but we do not support the fact that money is given with no accountability. What that means to the people of my electorate is no guarantee on jobs. I will tell you what happened in January 2012. Prime Minister Gillard came to Geelong and announced $34 million for Ford. Guess what she said: 300 new jobs. Fabulous. The only problem was that that money did not guarantee one job. This is indicative of how Labor does business. Eight months later, 330 jobs were lost at Ford. What we have seen is an unmitigated disaster in the way that Labor has managed the car industry and car industry support.

Let me remind you of some other momentous decisions that Labor has made. There was an $801 million cut to the Green Car fund; there was a cut of $429 million to the cleaner car fund; and there was the $1.2 billion, as we have heard. This is a demonstration that Labor is simply all over the shop when it has come to managing the car industry. Let us not forget the fear caused over FBT changes. That was an utterly disgraceful decision. That would have resulted in 80,000 direct and indirect car industry jobs being lost, a one-third drop in vehicle production, a 27 per cent fall in exports and an 18 per cent decline in turnover. And guess what—no-one was falling for the Ruddish and the Labor rhetoric that we were hearing before the election. The people of my electorate, the people of Geelong, knew that that was an utter disaster, and that ricocheted throughout the whole country.

We understand how important the automotive industry is to the people of Geelong and to Australia. The government appreciates the automotive industry's value to Australian manufacturing and the role it plays in innovation and the development and application of new technologies. We want a viable car manufacturing industry in Australia. Let's face it—that is why we have committed $1 billion. The reason we are taking this to the Productivity Commission is that we want the money to be spent responsibly. We are not going to promise money and then see jobs lost. That is what happened under Labor. We are going to ensure that that money is invested in Australian jobs and that that money is invested in the car industry, and that will reap fantastic benefits for the people of my electorate, because what we have seen is an unmitigated disaster from Labor. We are determined to turn this around. We are determined to turn around Labor's reckless management of the car industry and we are very proud to do so.

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