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

I will check the record for you, Member for Hotham, and see what it comes up as, but I understand you did quite well. That aside, there is no point rehashing what could have been. We need to give some comfort to our exporters by showing them that this government has something to deliver to them in the future. The minister cannot lament what could have been. He is in the position to effect change and must take responsibility for trade policy. He cannot hide behind reviews and David Mortimer forever.

The minister is correct in what he says about trade: it does matter. It matters a great deal. It is a pity that he has not carried this through in delivering a clear, coherent trade policy that allows exporters to plan with certainty and apply for EMDG with certainty. Instead of embracing a broad and comprehensive trade policy that incorporated both Doha and new free trade agreements, the Rudd government has taken a policy approach that has dismissed the benefits of FTAs and so compromises the opportunities available to Australian exporters. Exporters are now paying the price of a policy based on Labor ideology rather than on an understanding of the reality of world trade reform. The trade minister’s inability to put forward a coherent and achievable trade policy has left the Rudd government scrambling for a backup plan while Australian exporters are left high and dry. Remember that it was department officials who told Senate estimates in June that they had not been instructed to work on a backup plan should the Doha Round talks fail.

We have repeated evidence of the contempt in which this government has held bilateral free trade agreements. The Prime Minister claimed in 2006:

Multilateral trade liberalisation must be prioritised to number one, two and three—bilateral FTAs come in my view a distant fourth.

Then in 2007 the trade minister said before this House:

Bilateral trade deals are a very poor second cousin to multilateral or regional agreements.

But, while this government has been playing Russian roulette with the livelihoods of Australian exporters, free trade agreements negotiated under the previous government continue to deliver for exporters. The coalition government delivered FTAs, including those with the United States, Thailand and Singapore, and also did the heavy lifting on the preparation of the Chile FTA.

The US FTA is delivering real benefits to Australian industry and consumers. As well as providing enhanced market access for Australia’s services, manufacturing, agriculture and resources sectors and progressively eliminating tariffs on goods, it also works to make these sectors more productive by stimulating investment. Although the US FTA is in its early years, exporters have already taken advantage of the improved access that it provides, with significant increases in our dairy, lamb, mutton and orange exports.

The government cannot continue to base its trade policy on ideology. After nine months of reviews and policy confusion this government must get serious about trade policy. The Minister for Trade and the Prime Minister cannot cut and run or hope for the best.

On top of Fuelwatch, ‘grocery watch’, ‘childcare watch’, ‘obesity watch’, ‘alcopops watch’, ‘job-loss watch’, ‘tooth watch’, ‘pension watch’ and a whole range of other ‘watches’, we now have ‘trade watch’. There is simply too much at stake to just stand there and watch. There are enormous opportunities available for Australian exporters with a range of trading partners, especially China and South Korea—a market that a non-government study has shown could be worth an extra US$22.7 billion to Australia’s GDP. But they are not gains that can be won by an expensive photoshoot or by offering a token reference to bilateral agreements during overseas trips.

I agree with the member for Hotham, who, 12 hours after the Geneva meeting, stated that the breakdown in the Doha Round does not bode well for the Copenhagen summit on climate change next year. He conceded:

… if you think about it, we’re just about to get into the climate change discussions.

…         …         …

If we can’t resolve trade talks that recognise the balance between developed and developed countries and get stuck on a single issue, we’ve got to find a better mechanism to take this forward …

Unlike climate change negotiations, which essentially impose costs, Doha trade talks are about creating winners, especially in developing nations. The Doha multilateral trade round highlights the perils of reaching a global climate change deal without China, India and Brazil. As we work forward, we must not be deluded about just how difficult the tasks of resolving the Doha Round and achieving multilateral climate change reform are going to be.

Despite international support, the Doha Round of multilateral free trade has collapsed. And so the Doha Round rolls on unresolved, which is why the coalition government pursued FTAs and why the coalition opposition continues to pursue the policy that trade negotiations need to be based on both multilateral and bilateral trade reform. The World Trade Organisation remains an important framework for delivering further trade liberalisation. We should not resile from our commitment to trade liberalisation or use the breakdown in the Doha talks to fragment any other policy. We must work harder on free trade agreements, and the government must act quickly before Australian exporters pay the price, yet again, for its current policy chaos.

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