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

It is important because trade actually matters. Over the last 50 years world trade has grown three times faster than world output. Each new round in the WTO, or previously the GATT, has produced a new impetus. This is why the previous government was so neglectful in using its position as chair of the Cairns Group to advance this interest. It has achieved nothing on this front for the past seven years.

When you think of it, if world trade is growing at three times the rate of world output, it translates to jobs, it translates to a better current account and it translates to a circumstance in which this nation secures its economic future beyond the resources boom. The other side was content to ride the resources boom rather than secure a future beyond it.

As for the steps that have been taken over recent weeks to secure this outcome, I participated in an APEC meeting in Peru followed by an informal meeting of trade ministers in Paris a couple of weeks ago. Importantly, the outcome of both of those meetings gave new impetus, new authority and a new direction to the negotiators in Geneva to move to conclude the round. And over the last fortnight there have been intensive discussions over the phone with many of my ministerial counterparts to achieve that objective.

The truth is we are at a crunch point in these negotiations. If we do not conclude the round this year, my fear is that the Doha Round will go into a long-term drift—and that is not in anyone’s interest. So every effort must be made to ensure that we take advantage of the political will and the momentum that is there, and, in using the G8 meeting that the Prime Minister will be attending, to drive home the importance of this point of concluding the round.

The truth is, with world food prices where they are, this is the best time that we have ever had to get agricultural subsidies down. If we cannot get them down at a time in which growers are receiving the best prices—

An incident having occurred in the gallery—

I notice the comment in the gallery. Let me say—

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