Govt stands firm against Buy Aussie push

The Rudd government is standing firm in its opposition to calls from the unions for
Labor to adopt a "Buy Australian" policy at its conference next week.
Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner met union officials on Wednesday, as part of a
strategy to convince them the government already had a plan to help manufacturers
without resorting to protectionist policies.
The unions want the government to give preferential treatment to local companies
when making decisions on infrastructure spending.
Mr Tanner told Sky News the government didn't support preferential treatment for
Australian companies because it could do more harm than good.
"In particular, we are trading nation, and we are relatively small trading nation,
compared with the US or Europe or China," he said.
"It's crucial for Australia that we don't invite retaliation, that we don't trigger
a protectionist backlash against us taking protectionist measures because that would
lead to job losses."
But Mr Tanner said the government accepted it had a responsibility to make it easier
for Australian companies to compete for government business.
"We are part the way through a reform process that's trying to get a more
co-ordinated approach and part of that is looking at ways to make it easier for
Australian companies, particularly smaller companies, to compete," he said.
"We are happy to talk to unions about those issues, and to others, as we have been
doing, but we are certainly not in favour of discrimination, it would be bad for
Australia, it would cost more for taxpayers, we would have to take money away from
somewhere else."