Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (14:44): Of course when any worker loses their job around the country that is a very disturbing matter for them and their family. It puts a lot of pressure on. From the point of view of this government, all you will ever see us do is support working people who find themselves in that position. Indeed, we know how shattering it can be for someone to confront the circumstance of unemployment, and that is why we took the actions we did in the global financial crisis to keep Australians working and to keep them in jobs. On the question of Penrice and the production of soda ash that the member asked about, I think it is important that we are accurate about what was putting pressure on this company, accurate about the impacts and also accurate about carbon pricing. So let us go through the facts, which I believe the members opposite ought to be interested in. The facts are these. Soda ash sells for around $340 per tonne. That is a fact. After assistance, the impact of the carbon price on a tonne of soda ash is around $1.20 a tonne. That is the fact. The impact of carbon pricing on soda ash production is similar to a 0.3c appreciation in the Australian dollar. As we all know, we have seen a 60 per cent appreciation in our currency over the last few years. So the pressures on this business are strongly impacted by the strength of the Australian dollar. It is also impacted by factors like lower international shipping costs, which are making imports more competitive. Mrs Mirabella: Madam Speaker, I am just a bit confused— Government members: What's your point of order? Mrs Mirabella: My point of order is— Government members interjecting— Mrs Mirabella: It is a very serious— The SPEAKER: The member for Indi has the call. I am struggling, though, to see how the Prime Minister's answer is not relevant. Mrs Mirabella: The Prime Minister seems to be impugning the honesty of the company in their press release. The SPEAKER: The member for Indi will resume her seat. She is again abusing a point of order, and it will not be tolerated. I will actually direct people to the Manager of Opposition Business's recent speech about abiding by the standing orders. The Prime Minister has the call. Ms GILLARD: Thank you very much, Speaker. That was a clear example of the continued negativity of the opposition. I was bringing to the parliament the facts, and I think the facts matter, and no amount of headshaking by the member for Indi changes that. So, when we are talking about this business, there were clear pressures. I have given you the figures about the impact of carbon pricing compared with the impact of the Australian dollar. Obviously the impact of carbon pricing is very, very, very, very modest indeed. So this is an example of the kind of change we are seeing across our manufacturing sector, driven overwhelmingly by the high Australian dollar. That is why we will respond to those real pressures with a statement on jobs and innovation and why we will always resist the opposition's plans to cut back assistance to manufacturing. (Time expired) Mrs Mirabella: I seek leave to table a document, the ASX release by Penrice Soda. Mr Albanese: Yes. I like the member for Indi. Leave granted.