Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I do not think I have spoken in the House since your elevation to the speakership. I congratulate you and wish you every success in guiding the House. I will speak tonight on an issue which is very important to my electorate. It is something I have spoken on many times before—the future of the car industry. This is obviously critical to South Australia. Manufacturing is the beating heart of the northern suburbs, which I represent. More generally, it is the beating heart of South Australia and of Victoria.

The car industry's manufacturing base represents not only Australian ingenuity and a historical connection to cars but the provision of an Australian choice for consumers. At the moment, Australians do have the choice of buying an Australian car. But the car industry faces difficulties generated by our currency. We have a currency that is overvalued and which 19 central banks around the world are holding as a reserve currency. Many of our major competitors are depreciating their currencies, often as a matter of government policy. The Japanese government is pursuing a depreciation of the yen of something like 25 per cent. So the car industry faces a very difficult environment. We have seen the local manufacturers—Toyota, Ford and GMH—grapple with what is a very difficult export market and a hypercompetitive domestic market.

The member for Groom, the now minister for manufacturing—I am not sure if he has it in his title or not, but he certainly has it in his responsibilities—visited the General Motors Holden plant this year after his elevation to the ministry. Many other elected representatives from the Labor Party were there, including the member for Makin and I. Various senators from the Liberal Party were also there, as was Senator Xenophon. We can only hope that the member for Groom prevails in his attempt at dragging this government, somewhat kicking and screaming, I think, towards providing the co-investment that is essential to supporting the two new models at GMH Elizabeth. That will take production from 2017 through to 2022.

There is no doubt that there are some barriers to this. First of all, there is the government's $500 million cut to automotive assistance. That is a very big barrier to investment and it is sending all the wrong messages to Detroit. The second barrier is this insistence on having the Productivity Commission inquire over a very short period—unfair to the Productivity Commission, unfair to those presenting to it and, I think, unfair to the parliament and the people. This is not a considered review; it is a rushed review. It is a review that is putting a brake on getting that very important investment into my electorate.

I think this delay reflects ideological divisions in the government. There is a group of pragmatic people in the government who realise that thousands of jobs hinge on this industry—some 8,000 in my own state and many more, something like 40,000, in Victoria. It is unsurprising that there are some pragmatic people in the government who want to fix this up. But there is also an ideological bulkhead, led by a weak Treasurer and backed up by the member for Mayo and others, that wants to rip away assistance to this industry and jeopardise investment in it.

I think this is a very important industry for my state and a very important industry for Australia. To see a lack of investment in this industry, to reject foreign investment in this industry—to jeopardise it—means that there is a very real risk of recession in South Australia and Victoria. If that occurs, blame will only be laid at the feet of the Abbott government.