Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (14:33): I thank the member for Melbourne for the only decent question asked by a non-government member during question time today. I do not know whether it is only me who is amused or whether it may be amusing others that the only non-government member prepared to ask a question about the economy is from the Greens! We cannot get one from the once-great Liberal Party. I do not know if that is amusing only to me or whether it might amuse people more broadly. As the Liberal Party sinks in its stinking hole of mud and hypocrisy, I have been asked a question by the member for Melbourne, which is on a serious issue—that is, the jobs of Australian workers. To the member for Melbourne I say: we understand that the economic circumstances of today, where the Australian economy is strong in its fundamentals— Mrs Mirabella: So why are you introducing a carbon tax then? You are making it worse! The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Indi! Ms GILLARD: To the member for Indi, why is she cutting industry assistance? Maybe she wants to justify that. Why is she cutting industry assistance— The SPEAKER: The member for Indi will cease interjecting and the Prime Minister will ignore the interjections. Ms GILLARD: ripping half a billion dollars of industry support away from manufacturing workers? It is because— Mrs Mirabella: Two billion dollars, you are cutting! Two billion dollars in promises were cut. The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Indi will cease interjecting. Ms GILLARD: the member for Indi and the Leader of the Opposition think manufacturing workers are good backdrops for a photo, but they do not think anything else about them. That is the only thing they have ever thought about them. They do not care about their jobs and they do not care about industry assistance for their jobs. To the member for Melbourne, we are in economic times where, yes, the turbocharged nature of the resources boom is keeping the Australian dollar high, and that is putting pressure on other industry segments, including manufacturing. We understood that this was going to happen, so we have been working on it and setting up for it, understanding that this is where we would get to. We have strongly engaged with manufacturing through the framework of powering ideas—the innovation framework. Mrs Mirabella: So why has the steel council not met for six months? The SPEAKER: The member for Indi is warned! Ms GILLARD: We have strongly engaged with them through the procurement statement that has, as a subset, the Buy Australian at Home and Abroad initiative— Mrs Mirabella: It has not met. The steel council has not met. The SPEAKER: The member for Indi, having been warned, will leave the chamber for one hour under 94(a). The member for Indi then left the chamber. Ms GILLARD: Under the Australian procurement statement we have supported the Buy Australian at Home and Abroad initiative, and this week we were pleased to announce that Peter Beattie would be the resources sector supplier envoy in relation to that. We have also had industry participation plans to work through. These are ways of ensuring that when we are a purchaser, when government is tendering, that we can leverage that purchasing power for the creation of an Australian Industry Participation Plan. We also have the Enhanced Project By-law Scheme, which does the same sort of leveraging when people seek particular arrangements, as well as the Supplier Access to Major Projects program, which leverages against government decision-making procurement and procurement directed at Australian suppliers. We understand that in this period of change we need to stay very strongly engaged with manufacturing. I believe manufacturing has a future in this country. It will require a government that values jobs and values manufacturing to work with it, and we are such a government.