Tony Abbott joint doorstop interview, Hobart - Coalition’s anti–dumping taskforce; border protection

16/02/11

E&OE……………………….…………………………………………………………………

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, it’s good to be here at Uniform City. I’m here with the Shadow Minister for Industry, Sophie Mirabella. I’m also here with the Leader of the Coalition in the Senate, Senator Eric Abetz, who is the Shadow Minister for Workplace Relations. I want to thank Dianne Cook and her team for showing us around this fine Tasmanian business. This business has flourished for quite a few years now and it’s a sign that the textile industry can prosper in Australia if it is adaptable, creative and flexible.

I’m also here today to announce that the next Coalition Government will have a strong and effective anti-dumping policy. We will be setting up a taskforce chaired by Sophie including the Shadow Minister for Customs, Michael Keenan and my two agriculture shadows John Cobb and Richard Colbeck. This will look at the whole dumping issue. It will consult widely. I’m going to ask Sophie to say a bit more about this in a moment but it is very important here that we enable good Australian businesses to flourish and that means that they face fair competition not unfair competition. Soph.

SOPHIE MIRABELLA:

There’s no point in having anti-dumping laws if they don’t work and we want to make sure that it’s not expensive, it doesn’t take a long time and there isn’t an undue burden on Australian business. If we have laws we want to make sure that they prevent goods being dumped in Australia, threatening successful and innovative Australian businesses and threatening Australian jobs. That’s what we want. The hardworking men and women of Australia don’t want a handout, they just want a fair environment in which to run a business and in which to work and that’s what we’re committed to doing. We made that commitment at the last election and we’re following through with that.

We want to ensure that at the next election – if we’re fortunate enough to get the support of the Australian people and form government – we will hit the ground running and we will have within a few months an anti-dumping regime that actually works, an anti-dumping regime that stops foreign companies unfairly dumping their goods in Australia and putting Australian businesses to the wall and threatening Australian jobs.

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, just to reinforce what Sophie had to say, the existing anti-dumping rules are expensive, they’re time consuming and they’re often ineffective. Just to give you two examples, between 2008 and last year we had a situation where toilet paper from overseas was coming into this country at up to 45 per cent below cost. Initially, anti-dumping action was taken but then it was no longer proceeded with. We have a situation where bio-diesel is coming into this country at, it’s believed, 40 per cent below cost. Customs have a report that’s been sitting on the minister’s desk since late last year with no action being taken.

Now, the last thing we want to do as a Coalition is damage Australia’s strong free trade credentials. We fully support free trade. We fully support our World Trade Organisation obligations. Nevertheless, we do need a more effective anti-dumping regime than we’ve got and I’m very pleased to be able today to say that Sophie and my colleagues will be working to finalise our policy so that we do have a much more effective anti-dumping regime under the next Coalition Government; a regime which ensures that good Australian businesses can continue to get a fair go. Not an easy ride but a fair go. That’s what we want for Australian business.

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, why make this announcement here in Hobart?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well look, I think that Tasmania has a small but vibrant manufacturing sector. Businesses like Uniform City are under constant pressure. There’s nothing wrong with competitive pressure, that’s a good thing, but it’s got to be fair competition not unfair competition and that’s the problem if you don’t have a strong and effective anti-dumping regime.

QUESTION:

Do you think textiles or uniforms are coming in, are being dumped?

TONY ABBOTT:

I’d certainly defer to Di Cook when it comes to providing specific examples about what’s happening in the textile industry and I don’t think any Australian manufacturer objects to strong competition but it’s got to be fair competition and when you’ve got material, produce, coming into this country well below the cost of manufacturing it and transporting it, that is dumping, and we’ve got to make sure that our excellent manufacturing industries, our excellent producers are not needlessly put at risk by an ineffective anti-dumping regime.

QUESTION:

But some would argue, Mr Abbott, that these lower-priced goods are actually helping people, for example, cost of living as we know there are a lot of cost of living pressures.

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I accept that there are very serious cost of living pressures on Australian families right now and I fear that the Government is going to make those cost of living pressures much worse in the course of the coming year with their flood tax, their mining tax and above all else their carbon tax. I mean, that is the real problem with the extra taxes that the Government wants to put on us, it will make cost of living pressures much worse. But I don’t think Australian families want to see Australian workers penalised and that’s why it’s important that we’ve got a strong anti-dumping regime.

SOPHIE MIRABELLA:

Can I just add to that, Tony? Australians expect their government, first and foremost, to look after the welfare of Australians and to ensure that we have the right environment and the right laws for this country to continue to grow and flourish. No one that I’ve spoken to, going right around the country, believes it’s fair for good, efficient, innovative Australian businesses to unfairly compete with subsidised foreign goods that are dumped on our shores. We have a responsibility to make sure that we continue to be a country that makes things and if we believe that and if we want small and medium sized businesses in particular like this one here today in Hobart to continue to employ people then we need to ensure that foreign goods are not dumped in Australia and that is the whole objective of our announcement today, to make sure that we have the exact policies to prevent this sort of dumping to occur because we have an extraordinary history but we’ve seen in the last three years over 87,000 manufacturing jobs disappear and we want to do whatever we can to create a fair environment in Australia so Australian businesses aren’t penalised and Australian jobs don’t disappear.

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, any further questions?

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, will you repudiate either Joe Hockey or Scott Morrison for their comments about the asylum seekers?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I want to say that Scott has shown a lot of guts this morning accepting that he might have gone a little bit too far yesterday. I think that it’s very important that we have a tough border protection policy. The Coalition will always have a tough border protection policy but we will never depart from being humane and I want to thank Scott for being man enough to accept that perhaps we did go a little bit too far yesterday.

QUESTION:

Was there a divide within the Liberal Party on this issue?

TONY ABBOTT:

No, I don’t believe that there is or was. We are totally united in wanting effective border protection. The Howard Government stopped the boats. The Rudd/Gillard Government changed the policy; the boats started coming again. Now, we’ve got to stop the boats. The only way to ensure that we don’t see more tragedies on the high seas is by stopping the boats and that’s why it’s important that we put a tough and strong border protection policy in place and we’ve got one and I invite the Government to reach up to the shelf, take down our policy and put it in place.

QUESTION:

Does the Coalition lack [inaudible]

TONY ABBOTT:

I’m not going to get into a sort of who said, what was said, that kind of discussion. Look, my argument is with the Government. It’s with policies which have failed and that’s an argument which we should be prosecuting and that’s what I’m doing.

QUESTION:

The Government has said that the cost for the funeral was $300,000. Is that appropriate?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, that’s a matter for the Government. It’s up to the Government to justify what the Government does.

QUESTION:

[Inaudible] my question. Does the Coalition have compassion in this sort of situation?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think the most humane thing you can do is put in place policies that stop the boats and we’ve got policies that have worked before, they can work again and I invite the Government and the Prime Minister to reach up to the shelf, to take our border protection policies down, put them into place and that will make a difference. That’s the most humane thing you can do.

QUESTION:

Given the situation yesterday, aren’t your calls for calm and unity falling on deaf ears?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think the important thing is to expose the flaws in this Government. Now, I believe that the Australian Workers’ Union today called for a new policy on dumping. I’ve just said what the Coalition’s position on dumping is. We will have a much stronger anti-dumping regime. We will be reconsidering this whole question of whether it is enough for damage to have taken place or whether simply threatened damage is sufficient. We will be reconsidering the whole question of the cost and the time of anti-dumping actions. We will be reconsidering this whole question of what expectations are rightly on ministers when dumping has been found to have taken place. Now, I’ve outlined our position, the Government doesn’t have a position. The Government is persisting with a system which is plainly inadequate and that’s our job, to hold the Government to account, to be a credible alternative and we’re getting on with it.

QUESTION:

What’s your position, then, on the asylum seeker funerals? You yesterday were concerned about the cost and you’ve had different people in your party saying different things. What is the position?

TONY ABBOTT:

That is a question for the Government to justify. It’s not up to the Opposition to justify the actions of a Government. It’s up to the Government to justify the actions that it has taken.

Thank you.

[ends]