Gillard Still Mired in Manufacturing Credibility Crisis

01/02/12

Julia Gillard’s words on the future of the car industry and business innovation at her so-called major speech today are hollow because they again lack credibility.

Ms Gillard raised the role of sovereign risk in current global instability, but neglected to mention her own broken promises to the car industry that have sparked that very reality in Australia.

"We cut a deal with the prime minister (back in 2008) and then midway through ... the rules of the game changed … it certainly worries a multinational parent when sovereign risk begins to be something that is bandied about in terms of doing business with Australia." - Mike Devereux, GM Holden Chairman and Managing Director, 27 June 2011.

If Ms Gillard had a genuine interest in the car industry, in manufacturing or in innovation, then she would never have:

· broken her promise not to introduce a carbon tax – a $460 million burden on the industry;

· broken $1.4 billion of car industry promises;

· dumped manufacturing from Cabinet;

· crippled government support for business research and development; or

· shown complete ineptitude in failing to stem the worst rate of manufacturing job losses in Australia’s history.

This is also a Prime Minister who has such a dismal understanding of the car industry that she used to ridiculously claim that Cash for Clunkers was such a groundbreaking program it would change the way we lived!

Of course, both of these programs have since been axed as part of the trashing of an astonishing $1.4 billion of Labor promises to car makers.

Ian Jones, the AMWU’s Vehicle Division National Secretary, was right when he said in December that “the Prime Minister does not understand manufacturing's importance to the economy".

Why else would she call devastating job losses “growing pains”?

If Ms Gillard wants to help Australian manufacturers instead of giving foreign companies a leg-up, the first step is to axe the job-destroying carbon tax.