MATTERS OF URGENCY
Senator McLACHLAN (South Australia) (17:40): As the last speaker on this motion, I want to express my thoughts and sympathies for the people of Whyalla. I know they're going through it tough, particularly those employed directly by the steelworks but also the families that sit behind those workers, that support those workers, and all the associated businesses in Whyalla that will be deeply impacted.
I also acknowledge the contribution by Senator Lambie, who focused on the corporate failures here. There are a lot of times in this chamber when each side of politics is blaming the other. I come from corporate Australia, but when I started my journey in life I was a young lawyer in Port Augusta advising the Australian Workers' Union, and I spent a lot of time in Whyalla.
These failures are a series of poor decision-making by corporate Australia and corporates internationally where they undercapitalise these facilities and then the workers and the families of the workers suffer. You can't magically sum up this sort of failure at this scale. Governments of all political persuasions do their best, with the best of intentions, to try to shore up and fund these important facilities that give us sovereign capability.
The corporates ask for this money and often expense it in bad faith. As a body politic, we need to think about how we're going to address these issues with these important industries going forward. I'm almost at the point on my political journey where I think maybe we just need to build a steel mill ourselves and own it as a state facility, and that is a long way for a Liberal to come.
We just can't keep funding these corporate giants, often on a global scale, that undercapitalise these facilities. I have been to Whyalla. I have been to these facilities.
They are ancient, from a steel-building perspective. They're not as efficient on a global scale. If we want to see families in this important community in my state thrive, we need to give families certainty.
They need to be able to decide to put down their roots, not just come to Adelaide to add to the population of Adelaide but to live happy, healthy lives in facilities which are powered by clean energy and are not continuing to contribute to environmental degradation, because that won't be sustainable either. At some point, Australian society will not tolerate that—again, undercutting the certainty.
There's been a lot said about net zero—rubbish. I think that if we want sovereign capability we're going to have to work out how to fund it in a sustainable way, and we're going to need to hold the corporates to account. We've had two wounds in South Australia.
We've just had Whyalla, we have the smelter at Port Pirie on almost a five-year cycle or longer, we've had the algal bloom, and we now have bird flu. We're a small population in a vast state. We know that we have the goodwill of the federal parliament, but don't let the corporates off the hook.
Do not let years of selfishness and greed be disguised at the moment of failure. The South Australian government, even though it's of a different political persuasion, is doing its best. It has the goodwill of its Liberal senators.
We hope that they will be successful in finding a solution and that we build a sustainable steel mill in Whyalla. But the decision-making is not going to be easy and the problems are similar to those around the world. I end with my thoughts for the workers.
The PRESIDENT: The question is the urgency motion as moved by Senator Blyth be agreed to.