Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

General Motors' announcement that it will be winding down its business is an inevitable result of this government's actions. Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and Warren Truss goaded Holden to shut down its auto manufacturing in 2013, and last week General Motors decided that, without the business generated by local manufacturing, its other activities in Australia were not sustainable. That includes the world-class engineering and design centre at Fishermans Bend in Victoria. While the service centres and HSV will be maintained, the 185 Holden dealerships are now in the process of being transformed. They are, of course, especially important in country towns, where they are major local employers. They help maintain the skills base of the economy through the apprenticeships they provide. So, after 160 years, the iconic Holden brand will disappear from the new car market.

The tragedy is that none of this was inevitable. It was a direct result of a political decision by a government that has never understood the importance of manufacturing to the economy or the vital part that the automotive industry played within the wider manufacturing sector within this country. Other industries and other sectors have long recognised that the auto industry was the great driver of private sector R&D, of skills formation and of capacity building in this country. This great repository of skills and industrial capabilities went across all other sectors in manufacturing. Of course, nothing has yet emerged to take its place, and this government's inaction and lack of anything resembling a coherent industry policy suggests that nothing is likely to.

The government's only response to the end of Holden has been a political one. It's sought to dodge blame for the havoc that it has caused, by blaming Holden, continuing a policy of consistent hostility and denigration of the automotive industry and particularly of Holden. Just think about this for a moment. When the Abbott government came to power, the contract that General Motors-Holden had for armour plated vehicles, for instance, was taken away from that company and given to BMW. When the company sought to get special national registration, which it can under the ATS Act, they couldn't even get an appointment with Minister Cash. When they put $120 million into R&D—without any government support, I might add—and put another 150 people on the payroll just last year, they couldn't, of course, get any support from this government. They couldn't even get on the list of cars to replace Comcar in this country, despite the investment they were making in R&D. But what has the Prime Minister chosen to do? Go on the attack and blame Holden for what has happened.

Mr Morrison, of course, had a seat in the cabinet room when Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey were goading General Motors to leave. He shares responsibility for that disaster, and he now seeks to blame Holden for what's going on He has deliberately misrepresented the assistance that's been provided to the automotive industry. It's a simple proposition here. He says that the company received $2 billion in taxpayers' money. He never explains that, for every dollar put to General Motors through various programs, $19 was put back into the economy. He doesn't explain the mechanism by which that occurred, where there were more taxes paid back into the economy than there was assistance provided to General Motors. Even in the period of economic crisis around the GFC, when the Australian dollar was at a record high, the Australian automotive industry was expanding in this country when it was retreating in most other parts of the world.

We saw this government dismiss, with tremendous and tragic consequences, the enormous contribution that the automotive industry paid to this country. In an average year General Motors' revenue was $6.1 billion, and it received something like $286 million in profit. It spent just under $2 billion on vehicle components. It provided assistance to Australian businesses throughout that process. It directly generated other manufacturing activity and boosted the skills of the economy. It spent $564 million on wages, wages that were spent in local businesses. Also $130 million was paid to the federal government on personal income tax on those employees' wages; $100 million was spent in corporate tax; $55 million was spent on import duties; $300 million was spent on capital investment; and $200 million was spent on R&D and engineering design. For every dollar put in by the taxpayers, $19 was put back into the economy. On a per capita basis, we were contributing about $17.50—less than the price of a footy ticket—to build an industry of global standards, providing employment right across the country, providing enormous contributions throughout manufacturing and providing enormous contributions in terms of R&D. By international standards, our support was extraordinarily modest.

This government, of course, sought to blame the company, because it provided very little notice. They provided notice entirely consistent with their obligations in the terms of their reporting requirements to the stock exchange. There were international executives on tap in this country to provide it. I received calls from their very, very senior executives to discuss this.

This government's big problem is that it has no real connections with industry. It has no understanding of industry. It has no real relationships with Australian industry. Little does it surprise me that they can be put in this situation, because they can't read the signs of what's actually going on within the Australian economy. They have no real understanding of what's actually needed to sustain this economy, particularly in Australian manufacturing. They have no real understanding of what is occurring right under their noses, and they have no understanding of the consequences of their own actions.

It's been put to me quite simply: not enough people in this government actually care about what they're doing. I know there are people in the Liberal Party who know that the consequences are profound and know that, if you goad a company to leave, there's a good chance they might actually take you up on that offer. We know that the situation in this country is such that a thriving manufacturing sector can provide sustained prosperity for this nation, but it requires the support of government and policy and requires consistency of government to ensure that that occurs.

Look at what we're seeing in R&D in this country, with the policy being pursued by this government to take further support from our manufacturers and to further reduce the support that's available from this government. We have a government that is committed to a tragedy, in terms of their failure to appreciate what it means to actually see a country become increasingly dependent upon very narrow sectors of the economy, not understanding what it means when we narrow the level of economic complexity, not understanding the real costs of reducing our ability to have the capability to sustain our defence industries, not understanding the consequence of not being able to ensure that we maintain our economic sovereignty, and not understanding the consequence of what occurs when you can't stand on your own feet. We have a government that's only too happy to spend billions and billions of dollars to support French companies, when it comes to the submarine program, without the proper policies in place to ensure that local content is maintained. We have a government that simply doesn't know what it's doing when it comes to industry policy. We have a government that has no regard for the consequences of its own actions.