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

The report of the Senate Economics References Committee on Australia's automotive industry is an important report and it has a clear message: we cannot give up on automotive manufacturing in this nation. The recommendations in the report are clear and unambiguous. They set out a template to save many of the jobs that potentially will be lost as a result of Ford, Holden and Toyota leaving at the end of 2017. In fact, Ford is due to leave in less than 12 months as a car maker in this country. Let me put this in perspective. It will involve up to 200,000 jobs being lost, according the Bracks review on the auto sector and according to work carried out by the University of Adelaide. It will involve a massive $29 billion hit to our GDP. It will mean that, as far as manufacturing as a percentage of GDP, Australia will slip behind countries like Botswana and Rwanda. Currently manufacturing has slipped to something like 6.8 per cent of GDP—compared with Rwanda at five per cent and Botswana at six per cent. We will go below those countries. Compare this with Germany, which has an active program of encouraging advanced manufacturing and of encouraging its auto sector. Twenty-two per cent of Germany's GDP is based on manufacturing.

We must do everything we can to arrest the tsunami of job losses we are facing as a result of the departure of these three car makers from our shores. I think we need to take the attitude that we must not give up on auto manufacturing in this country. Senator Bernardi is shaking his head. I am not sure whether he is agreeing or disagreeing.