Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to speak to Senator Carr’s motion, which gives us the opportunity to turn our minds to the importance of the place of manufacturing in the Australian economy. The motion gives us the opportunity not only to do that but also to compare the position of the two major parties on the future of manufacturing in Australia. As we know, the manufacturing industry is an essential component of any modern economy. The stronger and more developed our national manufacturing industries are, the stronger and more competitive our economy will become.

The manufacturing industry is particularly important to my state of South Australia. We have significant investment there in our manufacturing industry, particularly in the defence industries and, of course, the automotive industries. I am very proud to host both of those industries in my state. As of May 2007, nearly 90,000 people in South Australia were employed in manufacturing. Manufacturing accounts for over 15 per cent of the South Australian economy. In the electorate of Makin, for example, 10,400 people, or almost 17 per cent of the workforce, are employed in manufacturing. In the electorate of Kingston, at the other end, the urban part, of the state, nearly 12,000 people, or 20 per cent of the workforce, are employed in the sector. So what happens in manufacturing really matters, not just to the whole of Australia but particularly to my state and to those electorates I mentioned, because in those electorates a number of families are suffering greatly from the out-of-control cost-of-living increases—