Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I present the committee's report entitled Report 143: Treaties tabled on 17 June and 15 July 2014.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—The report I have just presented contains the committee's view on five treaties tabled on 17 June and 15 July 2014, including an economic cooperation treaty with Papua New Guinea, three treaties amending bilateral treaties for the protection of migratory waterbirds and an amendment to Australia's free trade agreement with New Zealand.

The Treaty on Economic Cooperation between the Government of Australia and the Government of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea will change the focus of Australia's relationship with Papua New Guinea from development assistance to a trade partnership. Papua New Guinea has experienced a decade of growth that is expected to continue with a significant resource project, PNG Liquefied Natural Gas Project, which is just getting underway. Two-way trade between Australia and Papua New Guinea is worth nearly $6 billion a year and Australia's investment in PNG is worth more than $19 billion a year—equal to Australia's investment in China.

Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that a recent review of the treaty's predecessor, the Treaty on Development Co-Operation between the Government of Australia and the Government of Papua New Guinea, found that our contemporary relationship would be better reflected in a treaty that emphasises economic cooperation rather than development assistance. The new treaty sets out a framework for bilateral cooperation in the areas of trade, investment, business relations and development cooperation. Significant provisions include obligations to support bilateral economic relations; undertakings to improve trade investment and business cooperation; promoting a favourable environment for trade and other economic linkages; providing protection for intellectual property rights and improving cooperation and consultation on sanitary and phytosanitary measures and technical barriers to trade; and supporting increased business links to encourage investment and private sector interaction.

While the proposed treaty changes the focus of the relationship from development to economic cooperation, it will continue to govern our development relationship and it explicitly articulates a shared commitment to the prevention and the detection of fraud. The committee supports this treaty action.

As previously indicated, the report also reviews amendments to three bilateral treaties protecting migratory waterbirds. The bilateral treaties with China, Japan and Korea are part of a network of agreements aimed at protecting wetlands used by waterbirds that migrate from as far away as arctic Siberia to Australia and New Zealand. The migratory route used by these birds is called the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. According to evidence taken by the committee during its inquiry, the flyway is generally in decline. Migratory shorebirds, in particular, are experiencing a significant decline in numbers.

The amendments to these three treaties involve the addition or removal and the amendment of species from the list of species each treaty protects. The amendments reflect improvements in the scientific knowledge about migratory species in the flyway, and species that have been found not to migrate between the treaty parties have been removed while others that have been found to migrate have been added. The remainder of cases reflect advances in the understanding of taxonomy of the species. Given the flyway's declining health, the committee hopes that the treaties will begin to fulfil their intended purpose of protecting species using the flyway. The committee supports these amended treaties.

Finally, the committee reports on a proposed amendment to the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement to reflect changes to Australia's media ownership laws concerning foreign investment. The agreement is a comprehensive bilateral free trade agreement covering nearly all goods and services traded between Australia and New Zealand. Both parties to the agreement can nominate exceptions to the requirement for free trade in services by listing those exceptions in an annex to the agreement. One of the exceptions listed by Australia applies the limit on foreign ownership of television and broadcasting services set out in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992. All limits to the foreign ownership of television and broadcasting services were removed from that act in 2007, meaning the exceptions listed in the annex to the agreement do not serve a purpose. The amending treaty action will remove those listings from the agreement. The committee supports this amendment. Report 143 also contains a statement relating to minor treaty action. On behalf of the committee, I commend the report to the House.

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