Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Hansard source

I will take that interjection. Let us just go through some of the things that happened during the period of this government. Perhaps the first place to start, when we look at South Australia in particular—and I know we have two South Australian senators in the chamber at the moment—is to look at Holden. What happened there? It is a very simple proposition: all this company needed, sometime after 2017, was $80 million in support from the federal government. What happened? This government goaded Holden into leaving Australia. That is a shocking development for the country. It is a particularly shocking development for the people of South Australia. They simply sat back on their hands and goaded this company into leaving the country. Once we lost Holden, what happened next? Toyota said, 'We can't make a go of auto manufacturing in the absence of Holden.' That obviously impacted dramatically on the workers at Toyota. But it had a secondary and just as important impact in South Australia, because a lot of the component manufacturers who provided components for both Holden and Toyota are going to lose their jobs as well. So it had a compounding effect. In areas where there was an opportunity to create some employment or keep jobs in Australia, this government sat on their hands—sat by and watched those jobs disappear.

This motion goes to another area where this government is simply sitting on its hands and not doing anything—the very skilled employment of those in South Australia, and across the rest of the rest of Australia, who work in the shipbuilding industry.

I notice we now have a third South Australian senator; in fact, we have four South Australian senators in the chamber. Why? Because this is a significant issue for South Australia. What is going to happen if this government does what it did for Holden, if it does what it did for Toyota? I see another senator from South Australia shaking his head over there. Can I talk about something that is in Senator Fawcett's area of interest: the Woomera bill? We could have—

Senator Birmingham interjecting —

Senator Birmingham, you could have made a—