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

That is where the blame needs to be sheeted home. The member for Fadden is a boisterous man with little time for proper reflection, I have noticed, in this place. But I ask him to reflect on this. Despite the resources boom and the best terms of trade for decades, Australia has underperformed on the trade front for the past five to six years. Total export revenues grew at an annual average rate of only 5.8 per cent in those five to six years compared to almost 11 per cent in the 18 years following the float of the dollar in 1983. For goods exports, it was 6.4 per cent under the Liberal coalition and 10.3 per cent when we were in office. Services exports grew at about a third of their long-term average under the previous government and manufacturing export growth collapsed, growing at only three per cent compared to 13 per cent when Labor were in office. What is the rest of the coalition’s record? They had a trade deficit for more than five consecutive years. They had 72 consecutive months of goods and services trade deficits before the surpluses we finally recorded in April and again in June. Nearly two-thirds of Australia’s cumulative trade deficit over the last 20 years has been incurred in the last five years. The current account deficit is now at a record level of $67 billion—around seven per cent of GDP—and, in addition, there is soaring foreign debt of $607 billion.

I remember the former government, when it was the opposition, railing against us and the debt truck. It said it was going to reduce foreign debt; it doubled it. In fact, it turned the debt truck into a B-double. Yes, there has been failure on the trade front but it is all sheeted home to that government. That sounds like failure to me, shadow minister, and I think you ought to be honest about where the failings have occurred.

The other point I would make, by way of comparison, is this: in the 12 years that your party was in office, net exports contributed to economic growth in only two of those years; yet, when Labor was in office for the 13 years previously, net exports contributed to economic growth in 10 of those 13 years. That is why we have to ensure that our trading sector again becomes a net positive contributor to economic growth. We have to ensure that the Australian economy sustains itself beyond the resources boom. That is why we not only campaigned for but also have proceeded to implement what we have referred to as the twin pillars approach—a new approach to trade policy to turn around the sclerotic, appalling performance by the previous government. They did not just bequeath us a high-inflation economy to deal with; they bequeathed us a pathetic trade-performing economy. Thank you very much. That is the extent of their failure. As for the twin pillars, I will take the minister through where we have redirected and recalibrated trade policy to start turning it around: trade liberalisation at the border complemented by economic trade reform behind the border. Why is that? Because there is not much point opening up markets if the economy is not competitive enough or productive enough to take advantage of those openings. That is why we have persisted in the market access opportunities.

Let us go to some of these trade questions. The shadow minister says we have not paid any attention to bilateral trade agreements. That is just plain wrong. His was a government that in 12 years produced three free trade agreements. We have produced two in nine months: the one from Chile, one of the most comprehensive—

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