John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I am grateful for an opportunity to join with the Minister for Trade to, on behalf of the opposition, congratulate Dr Francis Gurry on being selected by the Coordination Committee of the World Intellectual Property Organisation as the nominee for the position of director general. It is another good example of Australia punching above its weight in the international arena.

It is pleasing to see an Australian contributing in this international and important organisation. Australians have a proud history of playing a prominent role in the world community. Dr Gurry’s resume shows he has an extensive engagement with the international community—and the trade minister has made reference to that—extending back through the past two decades. I agree with the trade minister that Dr Gurry has excellent qualifications for his new position. I am sure his specialist knowledge in that role will be in this nation’s favour.

In his statement the Minister for Trade goes beyond commenting about Dr Gurry’s appointment, and I would like to make a few remarks to address some of the comments he has additionally made.

Australian exporters too have a significant contribution to make to the global market, despite what I see as the best efforts of this government to create, at the moment, enormous uncertainty for them. Coming from a constituency like Mallee, whose principal employment and whole engagement in life is related to export activity, I am quite qualified to make these comments.

The question has to be asked: just how serious is this new government when it comes to trade? Just how serious is this new government when it comes to supporting Australian exporting firms and providing them with a level of certainty to plan for their future and the future of their employees?

Just two days ago the Treasurer stood at the dispatch box and, seemingly without a twinge of empathy for exporters and investors, delivered a budget that slashed any hopes of securing much needed certainty for the sector. It is a budget that did absolutely nothing to dispel the fears of the traders and investors who have been subjected to chaos and confusion since this government came to office. We have a trade minister who seems to take a slightly different position every time I hear him speak. He seems to want to rewrite history. This nation has always punched above its weight in this sector. It is so important to this nation. And despite the colour of governments in the last 30 years there has always been an enormous activity and interest in this subject. It does not serve the minister well to attempt to rewrite history and describe the efforts of the immediate past government as not meeting the task. He has already described, in reference to the Doha Round, how difficult the situation is and he knows, as much as he is confident of outcomes, just how difficult it is going to be, filled with all the political uncertainties of an election in the United States—but I do wish him well, and I welcome that activity.

I am in this parliament because I remember what happened to my exporters in the mid-80s under a previous Labor government when they were subjected to the unravelling of their border protection—tariffs—without any assistance whatsoever to cope with achieving greater efficiencies. They are extremely impatient for reform in the multilateral area—extremely impatient. That is why the former government, in a two-pillar approach as the minister has described, was increasingly active in bilateral arrangements. I would like the minister to understand that there needs to be a parallel approach here because the exporters that I represent, and Mallee is so typical of much of rural Australia, are extremely impatient after decades of promises about trade liberalisation and the removal of those very unfair export subsidies they are required to compete with.

We have had a slight mish-mash of announcements from the new government—statements about trade policy, trade policy reviews, the EMDG scheme, Doha and free trade agreements. We have had calls for reviews and for reports, ad hod statements, policy on the run and an ever-changing narrative on where this government stands on negotiating agreements. Aside from the trade minister’s contradictory remarks pertaining to, of all things, trade, one thing that strikes me about the member for Hotham is his unrelenting willingness to pass the buck on this issue and blame the previous government. The record shows it is different to that. He is now the government, he is now the minister and he is responsible for all the things he has committed to do in his statement here tonight. He should energise that progress but not leave behind those bilaterals as they are incredibly important to citrus growers and table grape growers. To completely abandon that activity is not a very strong approach; it is a pillar approach.

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