Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I think Senator Farrell makes a very good point. What the Acting Prime Minister, Mr Truss, said at the same time just exacerbated that. So it was completely unhelpful, and I believe it was reckless of the government to go down that path.

What Richard Reilly from the Federation of Automotive Products Manufacturers has told me and what he has said publicly is that we are now in a diabolical situation, because what we are seeing is the collapse of the entire supply chain. That is why all stops have to be pulled out to see if alternative outlets for these products can be found so that there can be some hope for those tens of thousands of employees. The easiest and best way to keep those people employed in the automotive component sector was to keep making cars in this country. Of the G20 nations, there is only one country that does not manufacture cars, and that is Saudi Arabia—and they are desperate to be making cars. There is something seriously wrong about that.

I agree with what the CEO of the Ford Motor Company in the United States has said: that if you lose manufacturing, you lose the bedrock of a good economy. This is not just about cars; we know that the mining industry has reaped great benefits from the innovation that has been driven by our automotive sector. This is very bad for our economy.

My concern is that there is not a plan B. My concern is that, as to the policy—despite the best endeavours of Minister Ian Macfarlane, who I think is genuinely a good man who has been fighting the fight in the cabinet but who has been defeated by colleagues who take this flat-earth view of the world—we need to be very careful of how this is handled in the next few months because, if we see a collapse in the automotive supply chain sector, those jobs will go, and go very quickly

That will risk putting South Australia, Victoria and, indeed, the nation into recession, because there are another 200,000 jobs that could be relying on that.

Let us talk about other cost inputs like the carbon tax. I think the way the carbon tax was implemented by the former government was a disaster. The current government says that the cost of electricity would be reduced by nine per cent if the carbon tax is repealed. That is true, but the concern is that that is a superficial approach, because there are many other things that can be done to reduce power prices far more than the repeal of the carbon tax that need to be looked at. We need to look at the National Electricity Rules. They need to be reformed as part of an overhaul of our energy policies.

The political debate over the past few years has been narrow and simplistic. To suggest or imply that the carbon tax is the primary cause of electricity price rises ignores the fact that changes to electricity transmission and distribution account for about half of electricity bills, that we have gold plated our electricity networks and that we need to give more power to the Australian Energy Regulator. The rules governing how networks are regulated oblige the AER to provide network businesses with a guaranteed return on their investment, regardless of whether the investment was necessary or worthwhile and regardless of whether the investment is later found to be unnecessary or premature. They are the sorts of reforms that we need to tackle. That is what this government needs to tackle, and I hope it can be done with bipartisan support.

In my home state of South Australia, the announcement was made this morning in the Adelaide Advertiser that the largest wind farm in the state is set for the Yorke Peninsula. The Ceres Project is worth $1.5 billion and will have 197 wind turbines. Guess what: that will guarantee the highest electricity prices for South Australian consumers and businesses. Why? Because the problem with wind power is that it is intermittent and unreliable. You have to switch it off on hot days. If you put too many eggs in the wind farm basket, it will distort the electricity market and choke off investment in baseload renewables such as geothermal, solar thermal and tidal power. Allowing those 197 additional wind turbines to be built in the state is actually a very bad decision. We have more wind turbines in South Australia than the rest of the country combined. Unfortunately, that is a legacy of some very bad and ill-thought-out policy decisions of the government of Mike Rann in South Australia.

That is something that we need to tackle, and that is why I welcome the role that Danny Price from Frontier Economics has played in pointing out the difficulties with wind energy and that it makes it more difficult for baseload renewables to get onto the market, let alone the impact it will have on prime agricultural land on the Yorke Peninsula and the impact it will have on the ability of aerial firefighters to fight fires if there are fires on the Yorke Peninsula.

Earlier today I had to postpone a motion on the food processing and manufacturing sector because of a lack of commitment and a reluctance by both the government and the opposition to support it, notwithstanding the sympathy that was expressed privately to me by a number of members of this place. The inquiry that Senator Madigan and I have sought to put up—and Senator Madigan deserves to be acknowledged for his key role as the instigator of the Australian Manufacturing and Farming Program—would look at current laws relating to dumped imported products and the effectiveness of Australia's antidumping laws. We need to see whether we need to introduce similar measures to those set out a number of years ago in the United States in the Byrd amendment—named after the legendary senator Robert Byrd—where, if a company were found to have dumped goods in the country and dumping duties were applied, then the companies affected could, in effect, get those dumping duties. What is wrong with essentially compensating a company as a result of dumping?

We know that just last week the Anti-Dumping Commission made a number of rulings against canned tomatoes from overseas which were found to have been dumped in this country, hurting SPC Ardmona. Dumping is illegal, but the way you prove dumping cases is extraordinarily difficult in this country. I will give you one example. Tindo Solar is one of the last remaining manufacturers of solar panels in this country. It makes a very fine product. It is based in Adelaide. In fact, former Prime Minister Gillard opened their premises. Tindo Solar have to struggle against dumped imported Chinese panels. The United States and Europe have said, 'Enough is enough,' and imposed a duty in respect of that. We are still working through that. The cost of running a dumping case for a small or medium business is simply prohibitive, although some changes brought by the previous government do provide some support. But it is just extraordinary that the major parties did not agree to that Senate inquiry. I will try again with Senator Madigan when the parliament resumes.

I note that on 25 June 2013, when dealing with the Customs Amendment (Anti-dumping Measures) Bill, Senator Colbeck made mention of SPC Ardmona and the importance of emergency measures and dealing with emergency provisions. So to say that these matters have been dealt with previously in a Senate inquiry is not true. The coalition has not yet told us how it will tighten dumping rules, but we need to deal with them.

I must, with a heavy heart, criticise former minister Craig Emerson. He was just so dogmatic, I believe, about free trade. We have not got a fair deal. It is not fair that we have the fair trade agreement with Thailand and their motor vehicles are sent over here but if we want to send a top-of-the-line Ford Territory that costs somewhere in the region of $57,000 it will cost well over $100,000 in Thailand because of non-tariff barriers. How is that free and fair trade? It is not, and it is killing Australian jobs. These are the sorts of things that we need to deal with. In relation to SPC Ardmona, I congratulate the advocacy of the local member there, Dr Sharman Stone.

We need to have an effective dumping regime, and the ALP and the coalition have to get rid of this 'free trade at any cost' mantra. People joke about us in other countries. We are referred to as a 'free trade Taliban' because we have such a fundamentalist view of free trade.

These are the sorts of things we need to look at in the context of the manufacturing industry. It is going to be a big ask, but, with our unemployment rate at a 10-year high, my fear is that we could be at a 20-year high unless we do something about this sooner rather than later. It is incumbent on all of us to get together, to be flexible, to acknowledge where we can improve the competitiveness of Australian industry, to improve productivity and to deal once and for all with dumping, which is killing Australian jobs, to make sure that free trade agreements are not just one way against Australia's interests. Those are the sorts of things that we need to do, otherwise I fear we are going to run out of luck. Donald Horne said 50 years ago, 'Australia is a lucky country, run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck.' That is what all of us in this place must avoid at all costs for the sake of the people of Australia.