Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I intend to make some remarks regarding both report No. 79 and report No. 80. The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties report No. 79 contains a review of 10 treaty actions, all of which are recommended for binding treaty action. The extradition treaty with Malaysia and Exchange of Notes adopts the no-evidence approach to extradition requests. Under the current arrangements for extradition to and from Malaysia, the requesting party is required to provide a brief of evidence sufficient to establish a prima facie case. The no-evidence approach requires a provision of sufficient information to determine that the person is sought in legitimate pursuit of the enforcement of the criminal law of the country making the request. The adoption of the no-evidence approach is part of an international trend towards simplifying extradition treaties. As Malaysia retains the death penalty for a number of offences, the extradition treaty with Malaysia provides a number of safeguards to ensure that a person extradited to Malaysia under the treaty will not be subject to the death penalty. Bilateral extradition treaties are reliable and effective means by which a country may request or grant the surrender of fugitives.

Protocol V on the explosive remnants of war is the fifth protocol to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be excessively injurious or to have indiscriminate effects. The convention is an important instrument of international humanitarian law, and Protocol V extends the scope of the convention to include measures to minimise the risks and effects of explosive remnants of war. The committee was informed that the Australian delegation played an active role in the negotiation of Protocol V and advocated striking a balance between addressing the humanitarian impact of explosive remnants of war and legitimate military needs. The delegation also supported a pragmatic approach to clearance responsibilities outside a state’s control. The committee was also informed that Protocol V is consistent with Australia’s commitment to limiting the impact of armed conflict on civilian populations.

The amendments to the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement to ensure compliance with changes to the homogenised commodity description and coding system will, through changes to how goods are identified, seek to avoid possible confusion and subsequent delays in processing of goods by customs authorities. The homogenised commodity description and coding system, or HS, is an international system for classifying goods traded internationally.

The World Customs Organisation, of which Australia and its free trade partners are members, oversees the HS. Revision and amendment to the HS occurs every five years to reflect changes in commodities trading. HS 2007 creates new HS tariff line numbers to reflect a new product entering the market, the deletion of a tariff line number where a commodity is no longer traded, or the movement of a tariff line number from one subheading or category of goods to another to account for changes in the use of the good. The committee was informed that amendments to the Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement are currently being negotiated but will come before the committee for review. The committee was also informed that there will be further amendments to the Singapore free trade agreement and the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement in the future.

I want to move on to report No. 80. The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties report No. 80 contains the review of two treaty actions—firstly, the treaty between the government of Australia and the People’s Republic of China on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters and, secondly, the exchange of letters constituting an agreement between the government of Australia and the government of New Zealand to amend article 3 of the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement, ANZCERTA, of 28 March 1983. I spoke quite extensively in the House with regard to this particular treaty last sitting week. Both treaty actions are recommended for binding treaty action.

The mutual legal assistance in criminal matters treaty with China is similar to the other 24 such agreements Australia has in place. The mutual assistance treaty with China will assist Australian efforts to combat transnational crime in the Asia-Pacific region. In relation to the amendments to ANZCERTA, the opposition members of the committee have included a dissenting report to report 80. The opposition members of the committee support comments included in paragraph 2.69 and recommendation 1 of the report. On balance, opposition members of the committee recognise that the agreement will increase trade between Australia and New Zealand in a mutually beneficial way and serve to strengthen existing economic ties between the countries. However, the opposition members of the committee remain extremely concerned about the impact on jobs as a result of the change to the rules of origin in respect of the category of goods manufactured by Albright and Wilson Australia. Opposition members of the committee dissent from recommendation No. 2 and make a new recommendation:

(a)

binding treaty action be taken; and

(b)

negotiations between Australia and New Zealand commence immediately to secure agreement on retention of the RVC method of calculating ROO under the current ANZCERTA for tariff line 3402.20 before the Amending Agreement comes into force.

As I said in the House, this is extremely important for Australia because we currently have a company here that, although it is owned overseas, employs Australian workers and has profits going into Australia and the situation arising whereby that company will be significantly disadvantaged as a result of these changes—drastically disadvantaged because they stand to lose 65 jobs and over $2 million of profit going into our country.

The reason this has occurred is because there was inadequate consultation by the department with companies that could be adversely affected by these changes. When it was finally pointed out to the department that this company could be suffering dramatically as a result of the introduction of these measures the government said, ‘Look, we are sorry that this is going to happen to you, but we don’t intend to do anything about it because you were too late in responding to us.’

I find that this is absolutely outrageous. You have a company that knows they are affected. They have come before the government in good faith and said, ‘We need these changes to take place and take force,’ but because they got in a little bit late they were not included. This was not the case with other industries. You can appreciate that, if this applied across-the-board and the government had been consistent, there may be some justification here. But no. In the clothing and textile industry, when it was brought to the government’s attention that there was a problem, that they were going to lose jobs and income as a result of these changes, the government excluded men’s suits, for example, from this agreement so that it would not impact harshly on Australian business. They also did the same with regard to some aspects of motor vehicle parts I believe.

What we have here—make no bones about it—is a situation where the government, those people who pretend they represent business and support business, are seeing 65 jobs go and millions of dollars of profit going from Australia to New Zealand. What they are doing is handing New Zealand—it is a New Zealand registered company—all this money and jobs to the exclusion of Australians. This is something that could have been prevented, and the government chose not to prevent it. It is a disgraceful neglect of Australia’s interests in this particular case. The government get up there and say, ‘Look, we really care for business,’ but when it comes down to it, even though they could have done something about it, they have decided not to.

The opposition members of this committee believe there is something that can be done. If the department gets out there now and starts these negotiations with New Zealand before these measures come into effect on 1 January 2007 there is a chance that something can be done to protect the interests of Australians, Australian jobs and Australian profits. But it takes courage on the part of this government. They need to get out there and do it. I am not hopeful that they will, because their record in this regard is quite appalling, but we as opposition members believe they must. They must stand up for Australia first and cease this particular outrage on Australian workers. We commend the report and particularly the dissenting report 80 to the House.

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