MITSUBISHI MOTORS

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (16:09): Last week we had the sad news that Mitsubishi management in Japan decided to close Mitsubishi's Tonsley Park plant. The closure will mean about 1,000 loyal, hard-working South Australians will lose their jobs. I congratulate the state and federal governments for the way they quickly joined forces to make available up to $85 million to provide further infrastructure and create more job opportunities in the south.

The Minister for the Southern Suburbs has been appointed to head up the Southern Suburbs Coordination Group, and I have been pleased with the level of consultation I, as a southern suburbs member, have had with the Minister for the Southern Suburbs and the Premier's office, and the minister has asked me to be involved with him on that group.

I am very proud to drive a Mitsubishi 380 and, after clocking up more than 55,000 kilometres in less than two years, I have to say it is a wonderful car. Before the 380, I drove a Mitsubishi Verada which was also a very well made local car. The south of Adelaide has always been very proud of, first, the Chryslers and, then, the Mitsubishis. Driving around the south, you certainly see a lot more Mitsubishis than in other states and even in other parts of South Australia. So many people in the south have a connection with Mitsubishi and Chrysler. When doorknocking, you cannot go too far without knocking on the door of someone who once worked at the Lonsdale or Tonsley Park factories or they are related to someone who worked there or they work for a company that supplied Mitsubishi.

Last year I drove into the Hackham football ground to watch a Hawks match and, as I pulled up next to the boundary fence, a woman approached the car. She leaned in through the window and touched the dashboard and said, 'What do you think of the dash? It is pretty flash. I installed that.' She could have been Michelangelo, Leonardo or Dali. She was so proud of her job and the work that went into it and she took great delight in making a locally built car for local drivers.

Some people in the south are absolute Mitsubishi fans, like my dad who, when he died of cancer in 2001, had accumulated three Magnas. He loved those cars so much that he never wanted to trade them in. As a stock agent living in Woodcroft, he used his original Magna to drive out in the paddocks, his second one for a mixture of on-road and off-road endeavours, and his newest one was pretty much reserved for going to church and to visit friends. He fought cancer three months before his death which gave him time to get things in order. One of his requests was that we line up the three Magnas so that we could have a special family photograph taken with them. Then he gave us specific instructions. He did not want anyone having his first Magna, the one that he had launched his business with, so it was to be taken to the wreckers. The second one was allowed to be sold and the newest—which I admit was the cleanest one, because when you are a stock agent they tend to smell after a while—was to be left for Mum.

Deaths in the family are terribly hard on families, and our southern family is in mourning for the loss of Mitsubishi, even though death always seemed to be hanging above us. We are a resilient lot in the south and we will adapt, just as we have had to in earlier times when Mitsubishi shed jobs at Lonsdale and Tonsley Park. A lot of great new businesses have been set up in the southern suburbs and they are generating hundreds of jobs. Some companies have adapted to manufacture high-tech products, others have completely changed what they were producing to take advantage of changes in South Australia, like the current mining boom. We have also attracted many new businesses to the south and we will continue to do so.

Unemployment in the south is around the state average which, as we all know, is at a record low. Business owners I speak with in places like Hackham, McLaren Vale and Lonsdale are positive about the future. They are employing more workers and taking on apprentices, which is fantastic news not only for our part of the state but for the whole state. With the help of the state and federal governments we will overcome the closure of Mitsubishi, but we will never forget the great cars and the wonderful people who proudly worked so hard to build them.