Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Customs Amendment (Anti-Dumping Commission) Bill 2013. Please!—the member for Indi claims that she is a friend of the manufacturing sector and the workers who work in it. She is a person, on that side of the House, who voted dozens of times for Work Choices to be imposed in that sector. If she was on this side of the chamber she would rip away the schoolkids bonus so that manufacturing workers would struggle to educate their children. She would raise their taxes. She would take away the family tax benefit increase and she would take away, from the parents of the manufacturing sector workers, their pension rises. So, the member for Indi should not come into this place and tell us that she is a friend of the manufacturing workers.

What support did the coalition give us in relation to the $300 million steel transformation plant which supports investment in steel manufacturing? They opposed it. They opposed the $5.4 billion new car plant. They opposed the $1 billion clean technology program. I spoke in this chamber in relation to 2,000 workers in my area who work in the manufacturing sector at JBS Australia, the meat processing plant. The coalition opposes the assistance that we are providing. The member for Indi has come into this place pretending to be—posing as—a friend of the workers. Please! Give us a break!

This legislation that is before this chamber is an important reform, and it responds to the Productivity Commission recommendations and analysis in relation to dumping. According to the Productivity Commission:

Dumping is said to occur when an overseas supplier exports a good to Australia at a price below its ‘normal value’ in the supplier’s home market. If dumping causes, or threatens to cause, material injury to local producers of like goods, then remedial action—mainly the imposition of special customs duties—can be taken against the imported goods concerned.

Similarly, countervailing duties can be imposed on imports which benefit from certain subsidies from an overseas government and which cause or threaten injury to a local industry producing like goods.

Similarly, countervailing duties can be imposed on imports which benefit from any of the specified group of subsidies 'and which cause or threaten injury to a local industry producing like goods'.

I set out that definition because that is what the Productivity Commission said in relation to dumping. We have signed a couple of World Trade Organisation agreements in relation to this, and they form the basis on which we carry out our obligations. They are article 6 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994, and an agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures which regulate measures designed to remedy material injury caused by subsidised imports, similar to the antidumping agreement I just mentioned. So we have some trade obligations in relation to this. There are those opposite who claimed that China was a market economy, and signed an agreement to that effect. In large part, we are dealing with the consequences of that.

I see the member for Oxley is here. He and I have visited a particular plant in my electorate on numerous occasions. Capral employs 330 workers across my electorate and his electorate in the Ipswich region. In the Blair electorate 13.5 per cent of the workforce is employed in manufacturing. And I think it is almost identical in the electorate of Oxley. So it is an important industry in the whole western corridor between Brisbane and Ipswich.

This legislation is important, and it comes about because we have taken a number of steps. There have been a number of tranches of legislation introduced and passed in this place—I accept that that has been done with the concurrence of the opposition—in relation to antidumping measures.

So we are supporting jobs in the manufacturing sector. We know that they are under significant pressure from the high dollar and international competition. And we know there have been developments in the global markets which make it difficult. But in this debate we should not get the idea that it is free trade or fair trade. It is not either-or; it is both. We want our manufacturing sector to be strong and prosperous. We are talking of about a million workers who work in this sector, particularly in states like Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

We have taken a number of measures. I have spoken in this place on numerous occasions on previous bills in relation this. We have boosted the capacity of Customs and Border Protection Service investigations by putting in serious money. We have seen investigations almost treble in the last two years in relation to this particular issue.

We believe that international trade should not disadvantage our domestic markets and disadvantage Australian workers. We are undertaking this particular measure. The genesis of this comes back to the referral to the former Victorian Premier the Hon. John Brumby who conducted an inquiry into this issue and came back with a recommendation to Minister Clare that we establish an anti-dumping commission. We are doing so by this legislation. This particular legislation is going to be located in Victoria and it will make sure that there is a commissioner with staff, and we are also going to provide additional assistance by way of financial support. The review into anti-dumping arrangements recommended what we are doing by way of legislative changes today. This is part of the package of reforms that we are undertaking. We announced in December last year that we would make some further changes, and I know that Minister Clare announced on 6 February a new Australian anti-dumping commission. He introduced legislation to establish the anti-dumping—

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