QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS
Senator GHOSH (Western Australia) (15:13): Can I start by expressing sympathy with the people in Whyalla and an understanding that they are going through a really insecure period at the moment. When industries that are highly important to local towns are in jeopardy or have threats associated with them, it creates deep insecurity around jobs and people's lives.
So I think it's incumbent on us to recognise that when we start debates like this, because these are people's lives, and there are huge impacts not only on people's economic futures but also on their families and their communities. So I start on that note. But I quickly turn to a note of incredulity because the coalition's approach to this today just illustrates once again why they are not an alternative government in their current state.
The first reason for that is that their industry policy has no coherence. It is utterly contradictory at its core, and the people opposite don't understand where they stand on this economically. Industry policy has had a complicated and difficult history in this country, but it is something that requires close attention.
The reason I say they have no coherence is that in the past you could reliably know that the coalition would oppose industry policy. People like former treasurer Joe Hockey would stand there and tell the car industry to go overseas, damned be the jobs, damned be the impact on the Australian economy. But today you don't know that because they don't know where they stand.
They're opposed to the investment in Australian industry. They opposed Future Made in Australia. But every time one of these plants is under jeopardy, every time people's jobs and communities are on the line, they come in here and bleat about it.
They complain about the job losses, but they don't actually support the solutions. The second reason they have no coherence or no credibility as an alternative government is they don't look at the whole picture because the whole picture requires you to see the whole board but then also look at details. The opportunism on show today was really quite something.
You've had opposition members say that this is all about energy. Well, actually the blast furnace that has shut down and is causing this difficulty is actually about a failure to invest in that maintenance and the technology itself, but it also reflects an older technology that probably needs to be replaced in the long-term. So when they talk about energy, they're really talking past the blast furnace issue.
It's a blast furnace that the people in Whyalla have tried to get working, but they can't do it and keep workers safe at the same time. There was not a word about worker safety today either when it came to the blast furnace. You then had Senator Antic saying, 'We should just try and emulate China because the only difference between the Australian economy and the Chinese economy is they have cheap energy prices.' You must be joking.
The simplistic reductionist nonsense on economic policy that comes from the coalition today must make their former finance ministers and treasurers just embarrassed to be a part of this party. But I can tell you there's a different approach on the Labor side. There's a different approach that is committed to not only a thriving and dynamic market economy but one recognises that, in the global environment we're in right now, industry policy has changed as well.
That's because we have a strategic environment that requires us to allyshore and friendshore some aspects of our supply chains to prevent monopolies. It's because, from a competitive perspective globally, we have countries around the world that are also protecting their own industries, and in order to give Australian companies and firms and workers a fair shot and a fair and free marketplace, we need industry policy here too.
It's about levelling the playing field. It's not about giving us an unnecessary advantage. It's about recognising the global environment we're in.
The third thing is that it's recognising that industrial capacity is important for an economy. It's important for two reasons. It's important for jobs and it's important to ensure that you have diversity in an economy so you're not vulnerable to price shocks.
If you're highly limited in the number of industries and areas that you compete in globally and one of them goes up or down, you effectively go up and down with it. That diversity is important too. This government recognises that the government needs an industry policy.
Government can't be the dumb money, but it needs to be done in a structured and smart way.