Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2014. In doing so, I quote my good friend and colleague the member for Longman, who said this is all about a 'hand up' not a 'handout'. This bill delivers an extra $50 million over four years for export market development grants and fulfils an election promise to increase the funding. One thing we have been very good at since the election is doing what we said before the election we would do. Before the election, we said we would do this; now we are delivering.

The city of Townsville is home to me and my family. The export market development grants will help small and medium businesses reach their export potential. Townsville has over 10,000 small-sized businesses and over 700 medium-sized businesses. Townsville is trying to build itself as a major exporter to South-East Asia. One of my goals in this term of parliament is to truly internationalise my city, and international flights in and out of Townsville are the most important thing. We have a great, progressive port with a very good board on it now. We are looking to expand the services of the port. Additionally, one of the things previous administrations have done for Townsville is that over 30 years ago we became a sister city with Port Moresby.

The previous Labor Mayor of Townsville, Tony Mooney, has always said, 'I sign on the line and I make it my own.' The closest capital city to Townsville is not Brisbane; it is in fact Port Moresby. We are very close to Port Moresby. We need to develop our closer ties.

We are also home to the North Queensland Cowboys. The Intrust Super Cup is the next tier down competition. The Papua New Guinean Hunters are in the Intrust Super Cup. They play against Mackay, Cairns and teams from Brisbane, as well as Rockhampton. They are going pretty good at the moment, too. Papua New Guinea loves Rugby League. It is the only country in the world that has Rugby League as its international sport. We need to increase our cultural, sporting and economic ties with our closest neighbour, Papua New Guinea. It makes sense. I am very proud to say that the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, will be going to Port Moresby this weekend with a business delegation, of which I will be a part, along with the member for Ryan. We will make sure that we are putting our best foot forward. We will be going there as the Australian business delegation, but I am going there with one thought and one thought only—that is, to make sure that Townsville gets its fair bite of the cherry.

The Minister for Trade and Investment, Andrew Robb, has been very upfront about and very proud of this bill because he understands the need to get into export markets. He understands the need to invest time and energy into new markets. When Andrew Robb was in Townsville during the campaign last year, he addressed a large audience at breakfast in Townsville. One of the telling statistics of the tropical world—that is, between the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer—is that there are currently 500 million people around the world who would be classified as middle class. Andrew Robb told that gathering their that by 2035 the number of people who will be considered middle class will grow to 3.6 billion people—and most of them will be directly north of Australia. So the development of the northern Australia is key to the development of Asia, the delivery of services, the delivery of food and the delivery of education, and Townsville will be front and centre. We must make sure, when we are talking about the development of Northern Australia, we are talking about our relationship with Papua New Guinea.

Townsville invests heavily in Papua New Guinea. We have people in Townsville like Sir Mick Curtain, who has significant infrastructure projects and significant investments in Papua New Guinea . We must ensure we maintain those close ties. We have a wide-ranging engagement with Papua New Guinea. These EMDGs will make sure that we are able to further develop that. One of the YWAM ships, which takes medical treatments upriver in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, spreading medical services around the country, was in Port Moresby.

I was able to take a delegation from the Townsville Chamber of Commerce to Port Moresby, and the high commission was kind enough to organise a reception for us and the people of YWAM. All the people who came were from Townsville. So, we are in this space. Two-way trade between our two countries was over $5.7 billion in 2012-13. Deepening our economic ties is a major focus. Trade from Papua New Guinea to Australia is also a major focus. Peter O'Neill, the Papua New Guinean Prime Minister, spoke about the need to develop those micro business ties between the two countries to facilitate trade. That is how the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea saw it, that is how I see it, as the member for Herbert, and I know that is how the Prime Minister and the minister for trade want this to develop.

Townsville will play a major role in that, not only in direct trade but in the delivery of services. Townsville has James Cook University, a teaching hospital at the Townsville Hospital, military services through Australian Defence Force capabilities and training out of Lavarack Barracks, and vocational and educational training sectors and other professional services sectors. It is important not to think about trade as simply being about building something here and shifting it. Trade is about the exchange of money for the exchange of services or products. Townsville is a great base for a lot of fantastic professional people, from town planning and engineering through to solicitors and accountants. We should be able to export those sorts of services.

The grants about which we are speaking are about helping us to get started. If a business were to spend $20,000 trying to establish themselves in an overseas market, they would be able to get back $7,500 on one of these grants. That is up from $5,000. The other big thing is that we have speeded up the process of getting that money back. That is the key to it. It is one thing to say that these grants are available but—and it does not matter to which sector we are referring—we need to speed up the processing of the grants.

My dad's family started exporting pigs to Singapore and Malaysia in the late 1960s—that is how long the international live animal trade has been going on. They understood what it was like to go overseas to establish a new business. They knew the importance of understanding their customer. In Australia, a person who wants to sell something generally understands the road to the sale—meet and greet, establish a rapport, qualify the customer, examine the features, advantages and benefits of the sale, complete a trial close—'How does that sound?'—handle an objection in the trial close, handle any actual objections and close. That is how it works in Australia. When going overseas it is imperative to understand how they do business. When my family went to China for the first time, or even the first six or seven times, they did not even mention business. The trip was about establishing bona fides; it was about understanding your customer. That is where you need to understand what trade is all about. That is why this bill is important and that is why these EDMGs are so very important, because so much of the sales process is about establishing trust and establishing a relationship with that new client by letting them know that you are not just in there for the dollar; you are in there for the long haul.

It takes guts to start up a business in Australia. It takes guts for a person to believe that they have a good idea and that they are capable of being in command of their own destiny. I wish I had had the guts to do it myself, but I never did. I was a good manager but I never had the guts to back my talent and put everything on the line. If you can imagine how tough it is to start up a business in Australia, imagine how hard it is for someone to start a new part of their business in another country, where the only thing they know is that their product is good—they understand their product and they know that it is needed by the overseas market. It is necessary to establish a relationship with those customers from scratch and understand the way they do business. It takes time to develop those networks. As the member for Paterson was saying, we have to understand that these things take time and time is money. There are little bits and pieces that we can and should do to help businesses over that hump.

Whether we are talking about emerging markets, such as Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, India and China, or our mature markets, such as the US, Canada, Great Britain and other First World countries in the EU, we have to understand that it does take time to develop these relationships. We have to understand what it is that we are trying to do here. We have to back our business people and accept that they do understand what they are doing. We have to back these people because they have to spend a little to make a little—that is the key to this.

I am very proud to say that this government is serious about the development of Northern Australia. There will be a major forum held in Townsville at the end of this financial year and we will bring investors, heads of government departments and ministers together to make sure that we are talking about the development of Northern Australia, because that leads into what we are trying to do here. These small and medium businesses need help to get across that hump. That is all they need, because they have the products, they have the services, they have the work ethic and they have the people. This is what this government is doing—this government is backing business in Australia. When Tony Abbott said on the night of 7 September that Australia is open for business, he meant it. With this bill, Andrew Robb, the Minister for Trade and Investment, is delivering on that promise. I thank the House.

Debate adjourned.

See this speech in context