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

Yesterday, the Treasurer said:

... there would not have been any free trade agreements if we hadn't of made the hard decisions about industry assistance at the beginning of the year.

The Treasurer needs to explain what he meant by his comments. Are they an admission that the Abbott government abandoned the Australian auto manufacturing industry in order to secure free trade agreements? Is that also why in December last year the Treasurer hounded GMH out of Australia? Indeed, both Toyota and GMH cited free trade agreements as factors in their closures.

The Treasurer also said yesterday that there was insufficient time to allow for an open tender for the building of Australia's future submarines. This claim does not withstand scrutiny and has been refuted by several well informed sources. Before the election, Defence Minister Johnston said: 'The coalition today is committed to building 12 new submarines here in Adelaide.' There is now a perception that that commitment was reneged on in order to secure a free trade agreement with Japan.

Auto manufacturing and defence manufacturing both underpin much of Australia's multi-billion-dollar manufacturing sector, and both are vital to the South Australian economy. It is becoming clearer by the day that the Abbott government has sacrificed Australia's auto and defence industries, tens of thousands of Australians employed by those sectors, and its own defence and industry ministers in order to rush through free trade agreements with Japan, Korea and China.