Greens Leader Adam Bandt says the Morrison Manufacturing ‘plan’ is being used as a cover for a raft of failed neoliberal ideas, from union bashing to corporate welfare to weakening environmental protections.
Greens Education spokesperson Mehreen Faruqi pointed out a massive contradiction in spending on manufacturing while cutting TAFE, higher education funding and research and development – critical to any country’s efforts to innovate in manufacturing.
“Filled with contradictions and ideological fantasies, Morrison’s address revealed that his plan for manufacturing was to be ‘underpinned’ by WorkChoices 2.0,” Bandt said.
“Cutting environmental regulation, workers rights and corporate taxes while pouring public money into fossil fuel fracking isn’t a manufacturing policy, it’s trickle-down vandalism,” Bandt said.
Of Scott Morrison’s local manufacturing plan, the Greens Spokesperson for Industry and Education, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, said:
“Engineers like me know these are empty words from the party that drove the final nails into Holden’s coffin.
“Australian researchers and TAFEs have the manufacturing expertise we need for a green, caring future but Scott Morrison has defunded public training, gutted research budgets and stood by while thousands of uni jobs are cut.
“Without local research and innovation there’s nothing to manufacture. A manufacturing plan without funding for research, skills and STEM education isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
“The Greens plan for free, well-funded TAFE and uni should be the cornerstone of a manufacturing renaissance that helps us through the climate and economic crises,” Faruqi said.
