Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This whole business about anti-dumping is nothing to do with trying to substitute tariffs for an anti-dumping regime. It is nothing to do with trying to protect industry in Australia. It is all about trying to give all of our manufacturers—our food suppliers, our growers of fine foods, grains and fibre—a fair go, because, of course, small and large manufacturing businesses are a major creator of jobs in this country. A definition of dumping is where you have a product imported below the comparable price at home or below the costs of production.

As our previous speaker said, and made the point very well, it is often an extraordinarily difficult thing for an Australian manufacturer to prove exactly what the price of the product is at home, especially if there is not a comparable product being offered in, say, China or Greece. Also, how do you demonstrate and research the actual costs of production in a country which has a managed economy—for example, a country like China? A company is expected to have the resources to go out, research and prove that they have had material damage occur and that the cost of production of the product that is being dumped, they allege, is in fact a real below-the-cost-of-production situation.

This legislation being debated today, tries to go a little further in the battle against the problem of dumped product in Australia, but it is a work in progress. As each of the speakers on the coalition side have said, we need to make sure that it is a properly resourced program, and we need to understand that this still does not go far enough in giving us world best practice in terms of an anti-dumping regime which is easily administered, fair, totally transparent, has appropriate time frames and makes sure that there cannot be vexatious activity on the part of someone who simply wants to reduce competition in their market.

In this bill there are four key areas of change. The first is to time limits set for the minister to make a decision after receiving a recommendation, reducing the overall time frame to conclude an investigation. That is good, as long as the company bringing the action has sufficient support and resources to do the detailed work of proving the action. It is intended that the time limit will provide, subject to extenuating circumstances, for the minister to make a decision within 30 days of receiving a recommendation.

The second major change amends the legislation to reflect that the minister may consider any impact on jobs or any impact on investment in the domestic industry producing like goods. This is an important change. In determining whether the Australian industry has suffered material injury, the minister may have regard to any impact on jobs, including new changes to the terms and conditions of employment of the workforce of the relevant manufacturers producing like goods, such as the number of hours worked, the incidence of part-time employment and any impact on investment in the industry producing the like goods.

The third major area of change is updating subsidies provisions. There is an amendment updating and reflecting the full range of actionable subsidies provided by the World Trade Organisation Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures and the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. These are typically called the WTO agreements. The WTO agreements limit the kinds of subsidies that can be the subject of countervailing measures, and the coalition also supports that change.

The fourth area of amendment is to clarify that the definition of 'interested party' includes industry associations, trade unions and downstream industry members, whether or not they are the importer. It is intended that section 269T of the Customs Act will include industry associations directly concerned with the production or manufacture of like goods in Australia. Unlike the existing inclusion of trade organisations, the industry associations would not need to have a majority of members directly concerned with the production or manufacture of like goods. The section will also include trade unions directly concerned with the production or manufacture of like goods in Australia. Unlike the existing inclusion of trade organisations, the trade unions would not need to have a majority of its members directly concerned with the production or manufacture of like goods.

Finally, this amendment includes the downstream industry members, being manufacturers or producers that use the goods, the subject of the application or like goods as inputs to the production or manufacture of downstream products. This is an important recognition that dumping does not just injure the party whose products are in direct competition with the dumped goods but that damage is also done to like goods in what is always in Australia a highly competitive market.

Lest we think that dumping is not a major problem in Australia, let me remind people that 34 per cent of fruit and 19 per cent of manufactured vegetables consumed in Australia are imported. Australia imports a greater value of processed fruit and vegetables than it exports. We have an enormous volume of imported product. This anti-dumping legislation is not about knocking out competition. It is about making sure that when product comes into Australia it comes in at a fair price and is not priced in a predatory way which is likely to do serious damage or even knock out of existence an Australian product which is priced absolutely according to Australian labour and input costs.

Dumping is of course a serious problem. It is not the only problem confronting us in Australia. One of our problems is this government's contraction of the resources available for Customs and for biosecurity and quarantine services. Where we have been told that with this anti-dumping legislation there will be extra resources for Customs—that there will be 14 new staff—it is very disappointing to find that, no, there will not be 14 additional staff; there will be the redeployment of 14 positions somewhere else in the agency to be put into this anti-dumping area. That is a concern because just today we saw the apple fire blight protocol finally presented as a fait accompli by this government and we see there an incredible diminution of biosecurity activity when it comes to making sure that there is a very limited possibility of fire blight getting into Australia on fresh apples. It is the case that the New Zealand government and New Zealand pome fruit industry will be responsible for monitoring and managing the quarantine requirements that this government has put on them—and they are very limited indeed—in exporting fresh apples from New Zealand to Australia.

In this area of anti-dumping, one of the greatest difficulties our often very small companies have is how to find the time and resources to go into a country—for example, an economy such as China—and prove that the product that is wiping them out domestically is priced in a certain way in that country. Customs will have some additional staff to assist them, apparently, but I have great concern that this is not going to translate into real extra support.

A lot of the manufacturers in my electorate are struggling to survive right now and they tell me that a number of things are making it difficult for them. These include the pressures of the supermarket duopoly, where they are pressured to supply house brands in direct competition with their own branded product, which causes enormous difficulty. Their own branded product has to compete with the premium, middle or cheap end of that home-brand product category. They invariably also mention the problems of bringing about a successful anti-dumping case. My food manufacturers have tried with products as diverse as canned peaches from Greece and tomatoes from Italy. The problems they have had in trying to prove those cases, while all the time experiencing the unfair competition in their market, have often led them to think twice and conclude it is just not worth the effort. This is a serious problem for a country like Australia, particularly at present when the dollar is so attractive when it comes to importing product.

If you take this inadequate anti-dumping legislation and add the amendments in front of us, which will be passed with coalition support, this country still has an inadequate anti-dumping regime. As I said before, we also have the problem of too much unconscionable behaviour and market power exercised by our supermarket duopoly concerning their suppliers in Australia. Next we will have the carbon tax imposts. These will make the costs of production of all of our manufactures, whether in the food or other sectors, higher compared to imports, which will not have the carbon tax imposts even though they will have produced emissions during their manufacture in other countries. Of course, we have the ongoing problem in this country of less flexible workplace regulations brought about by this government, which make it very difficult to manufacture product which has to respond to seasonality.

It is a very difficult time for our manufacturers in Australia. I had hoped that we would have had with this government a world's best practice anti-dumping regime. I had hoped that we would look at the European, American, Canadian or even New Zealand legislation, picked the eyes out of all of that and produced a system that was transparent, was not open to abuse, was quick and timely and came at minimum cost to those who were aggrieved and bringing anti-dumping action. Unfortunately, what we have is a little bit of tweaking of the legislation. There is a promise of extra resourcing, but I am afraid that promise is not likely to really deliver any great support to vexed parties. We still have not addressed the issue of a reversal of the onus of proof. I would very much like to see that investigated. Instead of our companies, without any real hope of achieving a good outcome, somehow having to demonstrate the cost in the home country of a like item or the cost of production, why shouldn't the party importing the product into Australia have to prove the value of the product or the cost of the production of the product under consideration?

We really have not got this right yet. We will have to wait for the coalition to come into government. I just hope that not too many companies are damaged in the meantime, because this is not about protection—it is not about trying to substitute anti-dumping tariffs for subsidies or other tariffs—this is about fair trade and fair practice. It is about trying to produce a level playing field.

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