Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

Let us see how it goes. He is new to it; we had to sit on the other side, so we know how this goes—but I prefer to be over here. As far as Austrade’s functions are concerned, the extent to which they have been changed is that we have incorporated into the trade portfolio the functions of Invest Australia and the Global Opportunities program. There has been no diminution in the functions of Austrade; there has in fact been an expansion of them and a greater integrated approach.

We believe it is important to bring the investment functions within the Trade portfolio, because what we as a government understand is what the previous government never properly comprehended, which is that the nature of trade has changed. Trade is no longer simply about exporting commodities or producing here and shipping. Increasingly, there has been a very strong trend to direct investment out of this country so that businesses can take advantage of global supply chains or take equity or ownership in markets positioned overseas. If you look at the figures, direct investment out of Australia now almost equals direct investment into Australia. This is a significant change. What we say, though, is that we need a more integrated approach as to how that change, that refocus, has occurred. It is not just the decision that we took in the budget to incorporate the Invest Australia functions, which was part of an election commitment that we made; we have also referred this question of investment and investment flows very much to the Mortimer review.

The Mortimer review has been criticised by the opposition for being yet another review. They, of course, were a government that never had it, because the problem with the previous government was that, in a coalition context, so long as the Trade portfolio always defaulted to the National Party they never thought of trade much beyond commodities—agriculture, specifically, and broadacre agriculture at that. Of course, trade is much more than that.

I congratulate the former government for seeing the light now that they are in opposition, because the portfolio has at least gone to a Liberal. I would have thought that he would have understood much better, because he knew the neglect that the former government demonstrated in the trade portfolio by having this focus on agriculture. He set about building something of an empire in the industry portfolio. That is how Invest Australia came about. That is how the Global Opportunities program came about. But we say that dissipation of resources into another portfolio was costly and wasteful.

By integrating these initiatives into the Trade portfolio, we are obviously looking for considerable savings. The department has, as I understand it from Senate estimates, identified the numbers of people and the costing arrangements by which these programs will be absorbed. So, quite contrary to the member’s question about what the functions are and how they have changed, with the implication being that they have been reduced, they have in fact been expanded.

I also make the point that given the focus on investment, trade negotiations also, as a result, have, from our perspective, to take much more notice of the behind-the-border issues. The previous government, in terms of the extent to which they did have a focus beyond agriculture, were very much tariff barrier orientated. We understand the importance of looking at the services side of the equation and the capital flows—and by definition that means that increasingly the negotiating focus and the thrust of the negotiations, whether they are multilateral, regional or bilateral as in free trade agreements, are increasingly going to have to be on the behind-the-border issues.

See this speech in context