Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Workers work everywhere but mostly they work in the suburbs, like the ones I represent. Toyota's decision has become a nightmare yet again for people who live in my electorate. Not only is it a home to Toyota's technical centre in Notting Hill with 150 employees; it is also home to the largest car component manufacturer in the country. When we continually talk about jobs in regional areas, people forget there are jobs in the suburbs and we need to protect them as much as we protect any job anywhere in this country. My thoughts are with those workers who are sitting in limbo not knowing their future because they are not directly employed by Toyota or Holden but their work is completely dependent upon Toyota and Holden. I have already seen enough car component manufacturers shut down in my electorate. Actually they have been shutting down since the Howard days. We never get a rescue plan into the suburbs. Nobody ever talks about bailing them out. Nobody ever looks at the cost of housing in my suburbs, where the mean average is around $1 million to buy a home. Nobody talks about looking out for them. I am crying out to this government to do something more than just being callous about these workers and discarding them to the scrap heap, and to look at more than just retraining. What are they being retrained for? They are not all going to work on the east-west tunnel. It is going to be a short lived experience anyway. (Time expired)