Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to support and participate in this private member’s motion moved by the member for Hotham. The blow-out in the trade deficit to $1.6 billion in March represented our 60th consecutive monthly trade deficit and was a sad reflection on the performance of this government and its ministers. Australia has been importing more than it has exported for five years, despite the biggest resources boom in 50 years.

The statistics speak for themselves: a record annual trade deficit in 2004 of $24 billion, a record annual current account deficit of $54 billion in 2006 and a record foreign debt of $520 billion. Each trade deficit adds to our current account deficit, which in turn adds to our foreign debt, which has grown from $193 billion to $520 billion over the past 11 years. Australia’s higher debt places upward pressure on interest rates as the perceived risk of lending to Australia increases. Australia has the second highest interest rates in the OECD.

Manufactured exports have recorded growth of 0.4 per cent a year compared to 16 per cent a year under the previous Labor governments; services exports have grown by five per cent a year, compared to an average growth of 14 per cent a year under the previous Labor administrations; and the volume of resource exports has averaged growth of just 1.5 per cent a year over the past five years. If Australia had maintained the rate of export growth recorded under Labor, we would have had a trade surplus of $23 billion in 2006 rather than the deficit of $12 billion actually recorded.

The resources boom is an opportunity squandered for Australia because of this government’s policy failure. Labor had consistently stronger export growth because we were prepared to invest in the drivers of economic growth—infrastructure, skills and innovation—and because we developed integrated trade and industry policies. Labor was also prepared to drive harder for new markets to be opened up through multilateral free trade rather than the mess of failed bilateral agreements pursued by this government.

ABS data released recently also showed that Australia’s services deficit with each of our FTA partners has deteriorated. The free trade agreement with the US is so far less than successful. I understand there is to be a review later this year. The Howard government is always reluctant to push hard with our friends across the Pacific, especially in the area of defence manufacturing. Australia punches far above its weight in the specialised area of niche defence manufacturing.

An outstanding example of our capability in this area is the Bushmaster armoured personnel carrier, designed and built by the former Australian Defence Industries—now Thales—in Bendigo, my electorate. Earlier this month one of these vehicles came under attack from a roadside explosive device, or IED, in the southern provinces of Iraq. The vehicle was damaged and later recovered, but most importantly the two ADF occupants were not injured because of the superb design and construction of the vehicle. Bushmaster offers a far superior level of protection than any other vehicle of its type throughout world, including the American designed and built Humvee armoured personnel carrier.

I understand the American Marine Corps is very interested in Bushmaster but is restricted by the protectionist nature of the American defence manufacturing industry, which uses various instruments to block any chance of success in the US market by non-US-manufactured defence products. I know our officials from DFAT and Austrade do a great job in lobbying hard for our defence manufactures in the United States but are constantly being stymied by the US defence manufacturing sector. Australia currently has commitments for over $23 billion in US manufactured defence equipment, including $500 million for Abrams battle tanks, $6.6 billion for the Super Hornet interim fighter and a massive $16 billion for the Joint Strike Fighter project. Yet there is little chance of any reasonably sized volumes of Australian manufactured defence equipment like the Bushmaster gaining access to the US defence market. So much for so-called free and fair trade!

Our American friends and allies are more than happy to have Australia and our flag along on their various foreign policy adventures and more than happy to have us as partners in the coalition of the willing, but they are totally unwilling to allow our Australian built, vastly superior and life-saving defence manufacturing products like Bushmaster access to the US market. It is time the Prime Minister and the trade minister intervened and demanded that our US allies, in the spirit of the so-called free trade agreement, used any forthcoming review to insist on access to the US market for some of our superior defence products, like the Bushmaster.

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