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

What Andrew Robb has done with this free trade agreement with Japan is a fantastic thing. Just before the election in 2013 Andrew Robb addressed a capacity crowd at a lunch in Townsville. The words he said that day will stay with me always. He said that in the tropical world—that is, between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer—there are around 600 million people who would be considered to be in the middle class and by 2035 that number is expected to grow to 3.6 billion. Most of those people will be directly on top of North Queensland, so it is important to be able to get free trade agreement signed. We have signed free trade agreements with Korea and China and there are more to come.

My region, my state and our country are perfectly positioned in that space. What we must do, though, is remember that this is not just about food and fibre, it is not just about mining. This agreement and the agreement with China have also freed up the services economy. We have got a bunch of school kids up behind the glass and I say hello to them. You can only sell an asset once; you can sell something to an overseas country once and you can trade those sorts of things. But Australia is a service based economy. When you kids graduate from high school, go to university or get yourself a trade—if you go into the Army and become a logistician—the great things that you learn will put you in good stead to feed into this service based economy, to be the representatives of Australia and take our economy further. This is not just about food and fibre. This is one of the things that Andrew Robb has been saying all the way through. It is about our services—accountants, solicitors, town planners, architects, builders and our construction industry. All those people will feed into this. It is the people who run nursing homes, our nurses. All those trades that you kids will do when you leave school will feed into what this free trade agreement tries to do.

We have to understand where we are in the world and the opportunity that we have in this space. We have an opportunity to service 3.6 billion people, most of whom live directly above us in the Asian zone. That is the massive opportunity that we have. What we must also understand is that just signing a free trade agreement does not mean that the job is done. A free trade agreement is just an invitation to the table. All a free trade agreement does is give you an opportunity to impress. When you run a dairy farm and want to make sure that your top-quality cheese, yoghurt and milk gets into these markets, you get an opportunity through a free trade agreement to present to people in these markets. But you still have to close the deal. You still have to use your ability as a salesperson and the quality of your product to get that job done. A free trade agreement allows you deliver your product for the price they are prepared to pay and make a profit along the way. The Minister for Trade, Andrew Robb, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister are doing a great job into space. We are in this game and it has taken 10 long years of hard work across three or four parliaments to get this work done. We are doing it because, when I am older, I will need you guys to look after me. That is why we are doing it. It will make sure that you guys will have the opportunity to get in there and have a real go.

I am from Townsville. Townsville has two Japanese sister cities—Shunan, which is located in Yamaguchi Prefecture, and Iwaki. In that space, we are reaching out on a cultural basis. This is not just across coal, wheat, grapes or wine; it includes our arts, our culture. We have a massive ability to provide for people in this space. This free trade agreement is a great thing for Australia. The work that Andrew Robb has done in this space has been fantastic for our country. The work is still going on and it will be perfect for when you guys start to leave school. That is the message that I want to hear. My son is in grade 7. When he leaves school, when he gets in this space, I want to make sure that the has an opportunity to make a real name for himself when he goes overseas. I thank the House and I support this legislation wholeheartedly.

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