Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs ) Share this | Hansard source

I thank members who participated in this cognate debate on two bills—the Customs Amendment Anti-Dumping Improvements Bill (No. 2) 2012 and the Customs Tariff Anti-Dumping Amendments Bill (No. 1) 2012. As members have said, they represent the third tranche of legislation that implements the government's reforms to Australia's antidumping system that were announced by my predecessor in June of last year. These reforms are designed to provide better access to the antidumping system for the Australian industry and to ensure any applicable remedies are available as quickly as possible.

As I said when I introduced these bills, the fourth and the final tranche of legislation to implement the antidumping reforms that were announced last year will be introduced in this session of parliament. The fourth tranche will contain reforms in three broad areas. It will further amend the subsidies provisions of the Customs Act to ensure they better reflect the WTO agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures. They will establish an ant circumvention framework in Australia and they will also strengthen the provisions that deal with non-cooperation.

In putting together this legislation, we are working closely with industry through the International Trade Remedies Forum. This group met here, in Parliament House, last week. I told them amongst other things that the reform does not end with the implementation of the fourth tranche of legislation, and I will be working with them on more reforms to improve our antidumping system.

I thank opposition members for their support for these bills and I commend them to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.

See this speech in context