Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise in this debate on the Customs Amendment (Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement Implementation) Bill 2014 and speak on what truly was a historical agreement for this nation. In a past life, I spent nearly 14 years working for a Japanese owned trading company in Melbourne. I have spent a lot of time in that country over the years. I have many friends and colleagues there and have done a lot of business there over many years, mainly within the wool industry. This agreement truly is ground breaking.

I acknowledge the work that Minister Robb did with the South Korean free trade agreement—prior to the announcement of the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement. That was, indeed, an agreement of some note as well. If we are being brutally honest, it was about playing catch-up cricket, I suppose, with our competitors in that space—countries like New Zealand and the United States which had a distinct advantage. Let's make no mistake: we are competing as a nation, as an agricultural exporter, with countries like New Zealand and the United States. The agreement with South Korea was indeed noteworthy from the point of view that it set in place an opportunity for Australia to compete on a level playing field. Let's make no mistake about this: this was the single most protected agricultural importing market in the world, bar none, and we broke through. Minister Robb broke through.

I thought for a minute there that I was in a parallel universe. Those opposite had six years. There were white papers and there were media releases, but there was no agreement. Nothing happened, and they had six years in government. Member for Sydney, for goodness sake, I come from a regional area of Australia. The member for Sydney mentioned dairy. I will make one comment about dairy. Yes, they did not quite get everything they wanted—that has been well and truly made up for in the recent China agreement, mind you—but they got concessions, and one of the things that they got concessions for was cheese. Lo and behold, my state of Tasmania exports 95 per cent of all the dairy products we produce and much of it is cheese. The tariff free quota on cheese into Japan has increased enormously—so we are not complaining.

For six years we stood there and nothing happened. We were committed, but we were living in a parallel universe and nothing happened. It is about time and we are getting on with it. Did we get everything we wanted? No, we did not. But that is what happens in negotiations. You never get everything you want. I commend Minister Robb and all of those people who did magnificent work. And rice was mentioned rice. Even my 15 year old knows that rice is sacrosanct in that market. If there were one agricultural commodity that was not going to get through, it was likely to be rice.

Make no mistake, this is a huge win for our nation. Whilst the Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement was catch-up cricket, this was groundbreaking stuff with one of our most important customers. Indeed, Japan is Australia's second largest trading partner. As a result of a historic economic partnership agreement which was signed in April this year, more than 97 per cent of Australia's exports to Japan will receive—and here is the key word—'preferential' access or enter duty free when the JEPA is fully implemented. We are competing as a nation and we are an exporting country.

I touched briefly on dairy. The member for Corangamite—who sits here—also comes from a state where they manufacture dairy products. I think the majority of Australia's dairy products are manufactured in the state of Victoria. So, whether it be the by-products of milk powder, the proteins and different things—all of which now have preferential access into that important market—or whether it be dairy and the cheeses that I mentioned previously, whilst they did not get everything they wanted, they were all advantaged enormously there.

There are a number of things I could talk about. I could talk about, for example, the education services and the cooperation that will undoubtedly come with, for example, the University of Tasmania and the excellent research capacity that that the Japanese have in Antarctic research. I have no doubt that, as a result of these collaborative arrangements, and the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement, we will see further collaboration as a result.

My state is not a big producer of wheat, but we do produce a lot of malting barley—and indeed some very fine beer to go along with that malting barley. But what I wanted to focus on particularly, though, was beef and the benefits for the beef industry from this agreement. I do not believe there are too many beef cattle in the member for Sydney's electorate. But, nevertheless, beef was unanimously hailed as a success out of the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement. Significant concessions have been given upfront—and this is very important. Whilst the tariffs do reduce over a period of time, we have got substantial reductions in tariffs for beef.

When I look through this agreement, it could have been the Tasmania-Japan free trade agreement, because the benefits are there for seafood and the benefits are there for beef. Indeed, we have a Japanese owned feedlot in Tasmania that I know as a result of this agreement is planning to expand its commodity lines. Who do we compete with there? We compete with the United States. We are an expensive country, and there are the freight challenges that we have out of my state, and all of a sudden the feedlot in Tasmania is looking to compete with US beef into the Japanese market with frozen product. Their primary product, of course, is high-value chilled product. That is the main game for this country and certainly for my state of Tasmania. We do not have the scale of Queensland, notwithstanding the terrible drought they are having there at the moment, or the Northern Territory but we can put high-quality branded grass-fed and grain-fed beef into a very important market like Japan. It is not a particularly attractive issue, but the concessions granted on offal are significant as well.

The member for Sydney in her contribution acknowledged the most favoured nation status that Japan has given Australia in this agreement. What does ‘most favoured nation’ mean? It means that if at any time in the next few years the United States or any similar competitor to Australia exporting into the Japanese market get a better or more substantive agreement we can revisit our agreement immediately. These are well-negotiated and significant concessions, and again I commend the minister for the work he has done. This truly is a groundbreaking agreement. It has been a long time in the making—it started under John Howard, but for a while after that there seem to have been a parallel universe, in terms of the contribution of the member for Sydney. Nevertheless, this is something that we should as Australians celebrate. This is the second of three substantial agreements that this government has been able to negotiate since coming to government. Did we get everything we wanted? No, we did not. Will this be of substantial benefit to our nation, that is an exporting nation, and will it put more money in the pockets of farmers in the electorate that I represent? Absolutely—and that is the ultimate test. Yes we have to get behind a whole range of other initiatives that, again, the government was concerned about in respect of the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Amendment Bill, which we debated prior to this bill—allowing, for example, not just cows to access insurance but also the product that those cows produce, milk. That is pretty important as well. So there are some practical changes that the government is making.

This agreement is a game changer. After the announcement was made I sent an email to a number of colleagues I had worked with in Japan many years ago just to get their feedback. The press in Japan was very positive about this. Make no mistake, Japan has made enormous concessions—it has been a very protected market for a very long time. The thing that the Japanese customers and consumers were looking forward to most was being able to buy more Australian beef—and some of that beef will be Tasmanian. That is a wonderful story. I thank the House for the opportunity to make a contribution today.

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