Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macquarie for her question. The challenges we face in relation to the budget are obvious, given the fact that we now have $20 billion of savings—$5 billion of the $20 billion was actually announced by Labor—that are held up and blocked in the Senate by the Labor Party and the Greens. Of course, the Australian economy is facing challenges. That is what we have inherited from Labor.

The challenges identified by the chairman and CEO, Dan Akerson, today in Detroit are the same challenges that many other manufacturers and businesses in Australia are facing. I quote the CEO of General Motors Holden in Detroit. He says:

The decision to end manufacturing in Australia reflects the perfect storm of negative influences the automotive industry faces in the country, including the sustained strength of the Australian dollar, high cost of production, small domestic market and arguably the most competitive and fragmented auto market in the world.

He says that and he is right: it is a challenging market in which to operate. And it is a market that has been heavily subsidised by Australian governments—in the case of Holden, $1.8 billion between 2001 and 2012. But, if money were the issue as to why Holden is leaving Australia, then why did Ford leave and Mitsubishi leave whilst Labor was in government? The money was flowing, but they decided to leave.

One of the things that needs to be noted is the high cost of production. I say emphatically to the workers at Toyota, who are due to make a decision this Friday about a proposal put to them by the management of Toyota: please vote for your jobs this Friday. The AMWU is recommending a vote against a proposal put forward by Toyota to try and have a fairer arrangement in the workplace. For example, Toyota exports 70 per cent of its produce to the Middle East. At the moment, Toyota has to close its plant for 21 days over Christmas. How does that work when you are trying to export to the Middle East, where they do not celebrate Christmas? And now Toyota has gone back to the workers and said, 'Please reduce this to 10 days so that we can have consistent supply,' and the AMWU is recommending a vote against it. The AMWU would not even meet with Toyota management, because the AMWU wanted to have 53 people turn up—

Ms Kate Ellis interjecting—

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