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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-04-09 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

GM HOLDEN

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (15:16): I rise to talk to the house about the strategy adopted by the Premier and Treasurer on the matter of Holden. I think it has been a very shallow strategy. I think it is a response which is failing and doing nothing but adding to Holden's woes. It is a different approach to that which has been taken by his federal Labor colleagues in the commonwealth government and a completely different approach to that taken by the Victorian government. Both of those governments have taken a more measured and more sensible approach.

It is worth reminding the house of the dire circumstances Holden faces. These have been spelt out eloquently by the company itself but also by Labor ministers in the commonwealth government. It is catastrophic. The rise in value of the Australian dollar combined with action by governments in the United States, Europe and particularly Japan to devalue their currencies that has seen billions of dollars of taxpayers' money thrown at interventions designed to cheapen their manufactures for export purposes is striking and destructive to Australian manufacturing.

Mr Devereux and Holden are competing against a cocktail of problems over which they have no control. This has seen a $20,000 Japanese car now available to be landed on the docks in Australia for $15,000 as a result of those currency transactions. Governments around the world are intervening using billions of taxpayers' dollars to advantage their car manufacturers over our own here in Australia. It is a dire set of circumstances.

On top of that we have carbon taxes. We have generally poor business conditions thanks to federal and state Labor. There are hundreds of reasons for businesses not to buy motor vehicles at the moment. All of these factors coming together are crushing the company. One of the most sensible comments I have heard has been from John Camillo, the secretary of the Federation of Vehicle Industry Unions, who said:

For example, we want to look to see if something can be done to reduce the cost of aluminium castings that Holden currently imports from cars that it makes in Australia. Holden has to pay heavy import duties on its imported castings but Toyota doesn't have to pay any duties on the castings it imports from Thailand because they come in on a fully assembled vehicle.

There is a host of barriers caused by government and currency that this company is facing, and the government's approach has been to go out and belt the company. That is not the approach that the Victorian and federal governments have taken.

We also have before us clear evidence today that our Premier, a lawyer, does not understand the difference between an agreement, a contract and an exchange of letters. Completely unenforceable exchanges of letters provide no guarantees for workers in this state.

Fact 1: Holden's problems are to do with production of the Cruze and Commodore today—current models. Sales are crashing—absolutely crashing—by up to 38 percent in the case of the Cruze because of the factors I have mentioned. That is why they are cutting the workforce today. Fact 2: the $275 million package to support Holden from the commonwealth and from the Victorian and South Australian governments has to do with tomorrow's models; it has to do with beyond 2015-16 about what is to come. Fact 3 is that the Premier clearly doesn't understand those two facts or the issue and does not understand what does and does not constitute an agreement.

I previously said that Mike Rann, the former premier, was King Kong when it came to industry development issues. Well, certainly, as I have said before, the current Premier is the son of Kong. He is trying to use the Rann approach—toughen up, hairy chested, belt up the company—instead of approaching the issue maturely and sensibly. Mike Rann and Kevin Foley would have done better on this. The old guard would have handled this in a much more sophisticated way.

What this Premier has done is added to the problem, made the issue worse for Holden, upset a whole lot of workers at Holden, and not only that, he kicked an own goal by drawing attention to himself. He's made his $50 million contribution to the package the issue. He could have handled this far, far better. Very poor effort. F for fail for the Premier around the board.

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