Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Given the comments I made, it is a bit rough of the honourable member for Gellibrand to say that the government has ignored her constituents. I will simply make the point that the government became aware of the concerns raised by Albright and Wilson regarding the impact of these new rules of origin only after negotiations with New Zealand and the industry had been completed. We made every effort to see whether the company’s requested existing tariff item, detergents, could be retained exclusively for up to five years. The Minister for Trade, Warren Truss, met with the company in early November 2006. The Minister for Trade personally raised this issue with New Zealand’s trade minister, Mr Goff, at the recent APEC meetings in Hanoi on 14 November. As I said earlier, New Zealand is unwilling to reopen the finely balanced package which was agreed. Consultations with the Australian industry associations established that there was no consensus on Albright and Wilson’s request. That is the case but we will remain in consultation with the company. We will keep it under review, but obviously an amendment as proposed, which has not been agreed with New Zealand, is not something that can be accepted by the government.

Question put:

That the amendment (Ms Roxon’s) be agreed to.

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