Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As you know, Acting Deputy President Polley, before I came to this place I represented, proudly, manufacturing workers. My dad was a manufacturing worker, and I have his union ticket in my office upstairs. I have stood with manufacturing workers on picket lines, I've represented them against employers and I have made sure, in this place, to talk about how important it is that we invest in our manufacturing sector.

But it might surprise you to know, Acting Deputy President, that, recently, the Liberals and Nationals have discovered manufacturing and manufacturing workers, and, all of a sudden, they're talking about how they are now the natural parties of manufacturing workers. Well, manufacturing workers know one thing: the Liberal and National parties have never had their back. You only have to look at the parties' record in this place—in the most recent years, in opposition. We don't even have to go back to their disastrous time in government to see how badly they have treated manufacturing workers. In this place, they've voted against the National Reconstruction Fund; they've called manufacturers 'rent seekers'; they've called Australian manufacturing a 'graveyard'; they've called fee-free TAFE a 'waste of money'. The Liberals and Nationals and One Nation voted against same job, same pay for manufacturing workers. And they've voted, time and time again, with One Nation against manufacturing workers and the investment that our government is making in this sector.

Of course, everybody knows that it was Liberal Treasurer Joe Hockey who dared Holden to pack up and leave Australia. So they did, shutting the door on the jobs that came along with building cars in Australia. They have not forgotten. Manufacturing workers deserve a government that values their skills and their trades. They deserve a government that invests in the Australian critical minerals and renewables sector, so that we can deliver good, secure manufacturing jobs, now and into the future. The Albanese— (Time expired)