Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

It is clear that the member for Hughes knows nothing about the automotive industry in this country. The decision to close GMH was made in 2013, and even the Productivity Commission's biased report in 2013 did not point to electricity prices as the reason why GMH was going to close. In October, both GMH and Toyota will close their doors in this country in terms of making cars here. Many small and medium enterprises around the country that provide support to the two major car makers will also close their doors. We are talking about anything up to 170 other component companies that will also close. These are the small and medium companies that members opposite constantly try to tell us they stand up for in this place. With the closure of these companies will come the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. We have already seen that begin to occur across Australia. These are the jobs of people who in some cases know nothing else other than working in the auto industry and who have worked there all of their lives. With their job losses will also come the loss of expertise that has been built up over the years as a result of them doing just that.

For South Australia, the closure of the Holden plant will be devastating. I cannot describe it any other way. The Holden plant at Elizabeth has existed for over 50 years—in fact, close to 60 years. It is an iconic building in an iconic location on the Philip Highway. It is a catalyst for other businesses that have come into the area ever since the 1960s—in particular, the development in the last couple of decades of Edinburgh Parks, which is now slowly starting to shut down because Holden is closing. Again, we see job losses with that. We not only see the job losses but also see a loss of confidence in the area. We have another 1,600 jobs still to go. I have spoken to many of the components suppliers that support Holden in South Australia. Many of them have told me openly: 'When Holden closes its doors, we will do the same. There is no transition. There are no other areas that we can go to.'

South Australia is, indeed, bracing itself for that, at a time when we all know that we have people who are unemployed, have been unemployed for a long time and are looking for work. I personally know people who have lost their jobs at Holden and have tried hard for the last 12 to 18 months to get a job. At times, they have been able to get temporary jobs—unfortunately, in many cases, in other manufacturing industries that, in turn, have closed down, so their jobs are lost again. These are the sorts of people that we need to try and think about.

As the member for Wakefield quite rightly pointed out, this is foolish government ideology that makes no economic sense. There will be a $7 billion hit to Australia's GDP as a result of the closure of Toyota and Holden. The cost to the government in lost tax revenue and welfare payments far outstrips whatever subsidy the car makers were asking for—subsidies that pale into insignificance when compared with the subsidies provided by other countries to their car manufacturers. Australia was one of 13 countries that could make a car from start to finish. It will now be one of, I think, two countries in the advanced world that do not have a car-making industry in their economy.

What is this government doing to help those auto workers who are going to lose their jobs? Very little. Indeed, the Prime Minister came out to South Australia last year when we had the floods that affected the food growers in the northern parts of Adelaide. He came out there for a media stunt. We have not heard a word or seen anything of him ever since—nothing. Yet that is an industry that could well take up some of the slack in respect of the workers who are going to lose their jobs in the car industry. Only on the weekend, I spoke to a food producer in South Australia who is well known, has a stable business, probably employs close to 100 people and wants to expand. His question is, 'What is the government going to do to help me expand my food-processing business?'

But it goes further than that, because AUSVEG have put together a very clear proposal that the government could embrace if it wanted to do something about helping those people who are going to lose their jobs—a proposal that talks about extending an irrigation scheme, setting up new facilities, fixing up some of the transport problems that we have and investing directly into skills training that the food growers need. Those are the sorts of things that could be done right now by this government if it really wanted to do something to help the people who are going to lose their jobs as a result of this government's incompetence in managing the economy of this country. It was a bad decision then and has been made even worse by the government's failure to act to support those workers.

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