Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Customs Amendment (New Zealand Rules of Origin) Bill 2011. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Customs Act 1901, a very, very old act. It is more than 100 years old. This act has been part of the laws of this nation since Federation, so today we are amending one of the original acts of parliament. The bill will amend the Customs Act 1901 to implement amendments to the rules of origin requirements under the Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement, which is a very important trade agreement between our two nations. The Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement came into effect on 1 January 1983 and it is fundamental to the Australia-New Zealand trade and economic relationship. According to the explanatory memorandum:

The Agreement is a comprehensive and wide-ranging agreement that provides New Zealand and Australia with liberal access to each other's goods, services and investments markets.

It is the umbrella for close collaboration across quarantine—which I want to touch on before I conclude—customs, transport, regulatory and product standards and business law issues.

The agreement reaffirms the close relationship between Australia and New Zealand. On 1 January 2007 the agreement's rules of origin provision underwent considerable change to permit both the change in tariff classification method and the regional value content method to be used to establish whether goods are of New Zealand origin. As part of the 2007 amendments to the agreement, both parties also agreed to perform a review of the new rules of origin within three years of these new rules taking effect. This review, which commenced in late 2008 and was completed in March 2010, resulted in amendments to the text of article 3, rules of origin, and the related product specific rules in annex G to the agreement. The modification to the agreement will lessen the administrative burden on business and will assist in the eligibility of duty-free entry of goods into both markets. The amendments will also provide greater consistency between the rules of origin in the agreement and those in other free trade agreements entered into by Australia.

Although the coalition does not consider this bill to be controversial, it still has significant effects on many agricultural industries within the electorate of Maranoa. I particularly want to make sure that we capitalise on our competitive edge as a nation. They may be our cousins across the Tasman, but charity begins at home. Wool production, for instance, is the second most common enterprise on Australian farms. In the eastern states most wool is grown west of the Great Dividing Range and the total wool produced in Australia amounts to some 370,610 tonnes, with Queensland contribut­ing over 10,000 tonnes of wool annually. Australia is the world's dominant producer and exporter of wool, accounting for some 67 per cent of the world's wool exports from major producing countries.

Australian wool growers have recently enjoyed an increase in demand and also, related to that, an increase in price for their product, which I can assure you is long overdue. That is due to a lower supply and much higher demand coming out of China. The late autumn wool market defied the trend of cautious international buying by jumping some 56 per cent over the past year at a time when the Australian dollar surged 20 per cent. So it is even more remarkable that we have seen this price increase and increased interest from the international sector sustained against the backdrop of a higher Australian dollar.

I want to touch on the wool industry because Australia and New Zealand are significant producers of wool and there have been some tariff issues in the past. I think we have disadvantaged ourselves a little bit to the advantage of New Zealand when it came to some of the made-up products, particularly suit products, and have given New Zealand an edge over Australia when it came to using Australian made fabrics to produce suiting and other apparel. The wool industry is important to both our nations. In the international arena, we have worked cooperatively in the past but now, through Australian Wool Innovation, we are again seeing a cooperation which had perhaps been lost for many years. And it is important we include New Zealand as part of that cooperation.

It was last year that His Royal Highness Prince Charles launched an initiative aimed at increasing demand for British wool and wool from the Commonwealth, obviously including New Zealand. The wool project will see diverse groups from across the wool sector, including textile designers and the carpet and fashion industries, work together to improve public awareness of the benefits of this very sustainable product. Prince Charles has long been concerned about the low prices farmers have been receiving for their wool, so last year his Royal Highness brought the wool industry together, including New Zealand producers, fabric makers, carpet industries and textile designers, to see how they could work together globally to put wool onto a more sustainable economic footing.

I was very pleased to see the Governor-General involved in this wool initiative, which includes not only Australian wool but New Zealand wool, through the Australian Wool Innovation launch at Admiralty House in Sydney earlier this year. This initiative will see a world wool day later this year—in the first week of October, I think. I hope that this parliament takes up that opportunity—although we are sitting not that week but the following one—to participate in world wool day because wool is one of the great products of the world. It is sustainable and it is also a product that was very much instrumental in the early development and economic growth of this wonderful nation, Australia.

So I am looking forward to seeing how these amendments enable us to work with the New Zealand wool industry. I am of course interested in cooperation with many other New Zealand industries, but I am particularly interested to see how this will play out with our cousins in the wool industry, whether in textiles, apparel, nonapparel or design. I will be interested to see how we can—not only here in the Australian and New Zealand wool industry, from the producing and processing sectors right through, but also globally—push our advantages and the uniqueness of our wool fibres into other markets. I wanted to link the issue of wool into this bill because I think it is important that we work together in this industry. In the past, we worked together through what was called the International Wool Secretariat, but now we have Prince Charles's wool initiative pushing wool, through the Commonwealth countries, around the world. I think his initiative has certainly given things a great impetus.

Recently, in New York, London and Europe, I saw the effect of this wool initiative. I saw how wool is being increas­ingly seen by consumers as a sustainable product. I think the initiative is going to continue to help our wool producers—as well as New Zealand wool producers—and that part of the wool industry which is beyond the farm gate. It will help us to promote wool from Australia and New Zealand and to promote our competitive advantages, particularly in processing. It will help us to promote that we are able to produce not just the raw product but the manufactured product and to export these products into other countries.

As I foreshadowed, I turn now to quarantine. It is important that we have this free trade between our two countries, but quarantine becomes a significant issue. The issue I refer to here is the proposal to import apples from New Zealand into Australia, although I know that a final decision is not due until next month. The only apple industry in Queensland is in my electorate of Maranoa, down on the Granite Belt in Stanthorpe. If the decision under this agreement is to allow New Zealand apples into Australia, it will be the first time in 90 years we have seen apples imported from New Zealand into Australia. The restriction which has always kept New Zealand apples out of Australia has been a quarantine restriction. That is because New Zealand has a disease in apples called fire blight while Australia does not. If, through a breakdown in quarantine, we saw apples with fire blight brought into Australia and then saw fire blight accidentally ending up in our apple and pear orchards, we would decimate our industry. There are only two ways you can control a fire blight outbreak. One way is with very heavy herbicide use. The only other way is to destroy the tree totally—in other words, cut it down.

I know that the apple growers of my electorate, and pear growers across Australia, are very concerned about the protocol under this quarantine agreement. Unless something changes and New Zealand apples are not allowed to come in as a result of the decision to be made in August, the protocol means that New Zealand apple orchardists will themselves be clearing their apples for export into our markets here in Australia. The apple growers in my electorate of Maranoa, in the Granite Belt, and pear growers across Australia are very concerned at the protocol that is in place. We believe that this is terribly important, notwith­standing this free trade agreement, and that the risk remains too great. To orchardists in the apple and pear history, fire blight would be what foot-and-mouth disease is to the beef industry. We should take it just as seriously as we take foot-in-mouth, because one of the great advantages we have, and one of the great pleasures we enjoy in this country, is the fact we have clean, green food. It is one of the things we seem to take for granted. I think consumers across Australia are so lucky to have this clean, green, high-quality food at an affordable price. If we were to find under this free trade agreement that New Zealand apples were allowed into Australia and there was an accidental—and it would be accidental—outbreak of fire blight in our apple and pear industry, it would be directly related to the protocols, which I believe are too lax and run an unnecessary risk. I say to the Prime Minister and to the government: think again about allowing apples from New Zealand into Australia. The risk is too great. Fire blight would decimate our industry and the many family farmers who produce these wonderful products for us.

They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away. I say, 'Let's make sure we keep New Zealand apples with fire blight away.' Other than that, I support this bill. But, in the next month or so, we have to make sure that we continue our campaign to ensure that the government has listened to the industry and that it understands the risk of accidental entry, under quarantine rules as they are proposed, of apples from New Zealand into Australia. This could lead, as I said, to the decimation of our industry. Once again: an apple a day will keep the doctor away. Let us make sure that we keep New Zealand apples away while ever there is a threat of fire blight being brought into Australia.

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