Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

It was just last year when the member for Hotham proclaimed:

Bilateral trade deals are a very poor second cousin to multilateral or regional agreements. Bilateral agreements can lead to trade diversions rather than trade creation ...

Well, if this FTA is not trade creation, I do not know what is. Now, along with his eleventh-hour conversion to bilateral agreements, the Minister for Trade is acknowledging the weakness in his own argument and conceding, albeit on the sly, that free trade agreements are complementary, not contradictory, to multilateral agreements and can actually go further and offer greater benefits for Australian exporters. Let me repeat that in the member for Hotham’s own words: can go further and offer greater benefits for Australian exporters than multilateral agreements.

Not content to accept that the coalition had adopted a robust trade policy—it immersed itself in negotiation at both a multilateral and a bilateral agreement level—the Minister for Trade has instead been selling short the extensive opportunities for free trade agreements for Australian businesses. Today I congratulate the Minister for Trade on his about-face and his new-found willingness to accept the value of following the path laid out by his predecessors. For the truth is the minister stands here today to announce the fruits of a coalition policy and coalition initiated negotiations. It was the previous government that agreed to begin discussions on a bilateral free trade agreement with Chile. It was the previous government that put in the hard work to see that goal realised.

The record shows that the Australian Labor Party has never fully negotiated a bilateral free trade agreement. And today that record remains intact, despite what the member for Hotham may want us to believe or wishes so desperately to believe himself. And really, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, perhaps exporters will be prepared to overlook this act of policy swiping from the Labor government. Perhaps they will not begrudge the efforts of the floundering minister, who seemingly has no policy direction and no ideas about where to take this multibillion-dollar export industry. The minister may choose to stand in this place and take credit for the hard work and decisions taken by previous governments, but at least it is some good news for Australian exporters and investors. For the first time since the Rudd Labor government was elected, exporters have some good and solid news. All they had been offered before were empty words and, yes, more reviews and more reports. The member for Hotham needs to understand that rhetoric, reviews—

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