Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At about 9.30 this morning, a group of workers attended a rally in the Illawarra in my electorate of Throsby. The rally was outside the office of Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells. The purpose of the rally was to draw attention to the fact that this morning the parliament was to be considering the Steel Transformation Plan Bill 2011, which will provide $300 million of assistance to the steel producers of this country, most notably OneSteel and BlueScope, both of whom have plants in my electorate in Throsby. The residents and the workers are concerned that this legislation should enjoy the support of all sides of parliament, because if we are to have a viable, secure steel industry in this country it needs to have the support of governments at all levels and it needs to have certainty. The $300 million of assistance contained in the bill will provide the much-needed funds to assist those companies engaged in the transformation, re-engineering and reinvestment in plant and equipment to ensure that they are viable over the long term.

The rally comes a week after unions and management of BlueScope concluded very difficult negotiations around the company's proposal to restructure and, as a consequence, shed several hundred workers from its workforce. I congratulate the unions, principally the AWU, together with management for reaching an agreement which looks very different to that which both parties took into the negotiating room. It is an agreement which will enable those workers who will be exiting the plant to leave with dignity and will enable the business to get on with its restructuring and ensure that it has a viable enterprise.

The cooperation that was seen between management and unions in nutting out that agreement and the assistance provided by the Commonwealth government stand in stark contrast to what we have seen from the opposition. They have given us great expectations over the last nine months that they would do something concrete to support the manufacturing industry. A lot of great speeches have been made, but when they had the opportunity this morning to put those speeches into action they were missing. They opposed the Steel Transformation Plan. When I rose in the House last week to move a motion which would have called upon the government and the House to support a range of measures to support manufacturing, we saw speaker after speaker from the coalition parties oppose that proposition. The word 'arrogance' has been used in this debate on a number of occasions. I think it is very arrogant to on the one hand say that you support manufacturing workers but on the other hand do nothing in aid of that support.