MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE

Mr PASIN (Barker) (15:53): To any steelworkers from Whyalla who might have just been listening to that contribution, that was the member for Griffith. Where is Griffith? Griffith is an affluent inner-city electorate in Brisbane, along the Brisbane River—certainly no steelworkers, or very few, I would hasten to suggest.

Unfortunately, what they would have heard was not what they wanted to hear. What they wanted to hear was the once proud Labor Party standing up for them, their industry and their jobs. Instead, what they heard was, 'You're just a casualty of the ideological war we're perpetrating on the Australian people.' That's what they heard—the once-proud Labor Party who stood up for workers now turns their back on workers.

These may well be workers in regional South Australia—and that might not matter to you—but it matters to me. It's not in my electorate, but it's significant. The other thing that matters to me is that—in a country where we export phenomenal amounts of coking coal, where we have available to us phenomenal amounts of coking coal and where we have iron ore exports that rival the rest of the world—we will no longer produce structural steel.

We have flown the white flag on the capacity to build or create steel. Mr Rob Mitchell: You have! Mr PASIN: The member for McEwen says, 'You have.' I would never suggest, Madam Deputy Speaker, that in the chair you would do such a thing.

But the truth is that those opposite have done this. And how have you done it? You've done it by pursuing this ideological renewables-only agenda, which has driven up the price of electricity.

During question time, we heard from those opposite seeking to blame the former owner of the steel mill, Mr Gupta, about his failure to undertake maintenance on the blast furnace. This was a situation where, quite frankly, in the state that experiences the highest electricity costs in Australia and in turn potentially the highest electricity costs in the world—and again, who do we have to blame for that?

It's an agenda that is driven by those opposite, who want to drive up the cost of electricity not just for households but for businesses. We shouldn't be surprised—should we—that the businesses most likely to fail in that setting are those businesses that rely heavily on electricity and the cost of energy. Those really energy-intensive industries are going to fail first.

Government members interjecting— Mr PASIN: I can hear those opposite, like the member for McEwen, chattering. But my question to those opposite would be: do you think the world's going to use any less steel as a result of this decision? No.

Those opposite need to understand— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): Order! I want less interjections. I ask the member for Barker to direct his comments through the chair.

You know well the standing order. Mr PASIN: I seem to encourage interest from those opposite, and I'm pleased. Because—through you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I suggest to the House that, as a result of this really difficult decision that was delivered to 500 or 600 South Australian regional workers by the Premier of South Australia yesterday, there won't be any less structural steel utilised globally or indeed in Australia.

But now it'll be produced in jurisdictions who care less about carbon emissions, who care less about workers' safety, who care less about workers and what workers are paid. I want to live in an Australia that makes things. I want to live in an Australia where we don't have the working poor.

As the brother of a dead worker who died on the job, I want to make sure people making things can do it safely, but unfortunately those opposite want to live in this utopia where unfortunately you can drive up the cost of energy but heavy industry survives in Australia. It isn't exposed to global competition. That's exactly what's happening.

If you don't realise that what you're doing is exporting jobs to the rest of the world, then think again because that's what's happening here. We couldn't build this building today with Australian products, but we could in 1988.