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

I thank the member for Lyons for his question. I think it is true to say that there was serious neglect by the previous government of the services sector as an export opportunity for this country. The services sector of this economy is responsible for 80 per cent of the domestic economy but is only worth about, I think, 30 per cent of our export performance. We have got to do better on the services front. That is why, to start with the multilateral area, we have led the way in suggesting that, as part of the conclusion to the Doha Round, services have to be included. We have also advocated the calling of what is referred to as a signalling conference, a getting together of those economies for which services exports are a particular focus of attention.

Bear in mind that the WTO now has 152 members—a new member acceded just recently. For a lot of developing countries in that context, the services sector is not as important as agriculture in particular and, to some extent, industrial goods. So the signalling conference is a mechanism whereby, despite the requirement for a singular undertaking under Doha, nothing is concluded until everything is decided. At least we have a mechanism to carve it out. That is on the multilateral front.

The director-general may convene the meeting of ministers over the next few weeks to hammer out the settlement between agriculture and industrial goods. He has also undertaken to convene, at the ministerial level, a meeting of the services group, and we will be pushing for ambition. We have made the point that, as much as we have to get ambition in agriculture and NAMA, the non-agricultural market access area, or industrial goods, if you like, we will not be signing off on the Doha Round as a country, as Australia—this is not the Cairns Group position—unless we have an outcome on services.

So far as the regional architecture is concerned, we have also pushed very strongly for the inclusion of the services sector in the regional negotiations, as we have in the FTAs. We have resisted pressure on the part of the ASEAN group to exclude services in the context of the ASEAN free trade agreement that we are negotiating together with New Zealand. We have had a considerable and significant outcome in services—the most comprehensive outcome in any FTA we have had—with the recent one we signed up to with Chile. I know the shadow minister at the table likes to suggest that all this work was done by them, but it was not. I am prepared to acknowledge the great work that was done in terms of negotiations, but I tell you what: we came along and really drove this agenda and spoke at the political level and said, ‘We want an outcome and a comprehensive one.’ Both Chile and Australia have a vested interest in showing the way in terms of a model FTA to enhance the multilateral system and to reinforce the fact that you can drive this agenda at the bilateral level too. That is why we drove so hard to get the Chile agreement up as our first FTA since being back in government. It has a considerable outcome in the services and investment sectors.

In terms of the FTA with China, bear in mind that the negotiating strategy of the previous government was to concede market economy status to that country without getting anything in return, and that is why the negotiations on that free trade agreement stalled for three years. We have reactivated them. We got involved; the Prime Minister got involved—this was a particular focus of his activity in re-engagement. I went to China the week after the Prime Minister’s visit, and we have made clear that we want the FTA to proceed, but it has to be a comprehensive one. As difficult as the argument is going to be about agriculture and, for that matter, industrial goods, we have said that services and investment have to be in the equation.

I say to the member for Lyons: I think there is huge potential to improve our export performance in this nation, in particular through the services sector. A lot of the activity there is going to be involved in the border issues, but at the multilateral front, the regional front and the bilateral front we are putting a major new focus on services as a way forward to securing and sustaining our export base and the future of this economy.

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