Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the amendment moved by the member for Makin to the Customs Amendment (Anti-dumping Measures) Bill (No. 1) 2015. In the beginning of my contribution, I want to briefly touch on a comment that we hear from parliamentarians, including the PM, quite often: 'We want to be a country that makes things.' It is a catchphrase that is just thrown out there. I will say that it is a seven-word slogan. So it is a step up from a three-word slogan. With 'We want to be a country that makes things', we are up to seven words. But, as a government and as a country, we need to be doing more than just mouthing more slogans when it comes to manufacturing. We need to ensure that we have strong manufacturing and that we are in fact a country that makes things.

There are three things I believe that, as a country, we should do to support our manufacturers, to support those businesses, and to support the people they employ in those businesses. Yes, we have got an antidumping bill before us, and that is one thing that government can do. A very simple thing that government can do is buy the things we make. What I would like to see from this government are government procurement policies that are being put forward where the government takes a proactive step to buy the things that we make. If we want to be a country that makes things, then let's show leadership and buy the things we make. I speak specifically about everything from defence manufacturing to the toilet paper that we have here at Parliament House. There is such a wide variety of things that we manufacture in this country, and we need to show leadership in our domestic market by buying the things we make.

I have just returned from a political-exchange delegation to Japan, where I had the great honour of talking to the Vice Minister of Defense about the fantastic Bushmaster, which is manufactured in Bendigo. I talked to the Japanese government about why they should buy the Australian Bushmasters; we as a government and country have purchased 1,000 Bushmasters. This demonstrates how good we are and how good this vehicle is. I did not know how many toilet papers we have bought but, if I had known, I would have been able to speak about those.

One of the things we can do to support manufacturing is to buy the things we make. Another thing government should start looking at, apart from antidumping, is in terms of government procurement when we put out to tender big chunks of money for capital works projects. The Prime Minister has said he wants to be the Prime Minister for infrastructure. There are a lot of dollars on the table for construction. There are a lot of materials and labour required, so let's see some leadership and have local content in those contracts. Talk to the states; talk to local government about how they can help secure local manufacturing jobs by putting local content in government procurement documents. This is another way the government can help support local manufacturing businesses and local manufacturing jobs.

The third way the government can help local manufacturers and those they employ is to have a strong antidumping regime., making sure we have a robust system so that our manufacturers and the people they employ are competing on an even playing field. This is what the antidumping legislation should be focused on. Dumping occurs when goods imported to Australia are priced lower than their normal value, which is usually the comparable price, in the ordinary course of trade, in the exporter's domestic market. Where the price in the ordinary course of trade is unsuitable, the normal value may be determined by using comparable prices from exports to a third country or the cost of production plus selling the general administrative expenses and profits.

There are already established terms about what dumping is, and previous speakers have spoken on those. Previous speakers have also mentioned that dumping is not a prohibited practice, under the WTO agreements. The WTO agreements say, however, that countries which believe they are subject to antidumping can introduce bills, like this one, to introduce schemes, like those of the former Labor government, to ensure there is an even playing field. The current Australian antidumping legislation is based on the WTO Agreement on Implementation of Article VI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994,and the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures.

This WTO agreement seeks to bring together nations that have similar costs—for example, Canada, the US and the EU. It allows those countries to establish a system of ensuring that cheaper product from overseas is not dumped unfairly on their markets. This is an urgent matter. We need to make sure that we are not sitting idly by and watching otherwise competitive, profitable local industries—providing sustainable jobs in our local communities—succumb to rampant trade malpractice employed by other nations and other companies in those nations. The consequences of inaction to adequately address dumping will be the loss of not only those businesses but also those workers, their families and their communities who are too often subject to loss of employment.

What we have seen, so far, is a lot of people speaking from the outer suburbs and regional areas. They know the impact that cheap product dumped on the domestic market can have on jobs in their local areas. My electorate is no different. We have a large pine plantation at Woodend. Some of that has started to be harvested and over the next five years it will continue to be harvested. One of the concerns of local workers in that industry is the cheap imports that are being dumped on the market and what they will do to value price—and the pressure it will put on the company to process its timber into the wood we need for our frames.

To give a scale of the difference between product dumped on our market and what we are able to produce locally, we are not just talking about wages cost: we are talking about product that is so cheap that even in the country of origin—China or parts of America—it is less than the cost of production. It is very hard for our domestic manufacturers to compete with product so cheap that it is being produced at a loss in the country of origin. It is not about us having high wages in this country or a high Australian dollar, it is about a coordinated effort by some companies and countries to dump cheap product on our market.

The sustainability of Australian manufacturing is under threat because of this cheap product being dumped. It is vital that government adopt a strict rule-of-law approach to illegal practices that is consistent with our World Trade Organization entitlements. It is important for us to defend our local industries; it is in the national interest. Local industry is worth defending. Australian manufacturing employs five times as many people as mining—five times as many! When you include agriculture, which is another area where product is quite often dumped on our market, it means that seven times as many people are employed in agriculture and manufacturing as they are in our mines. So we are talking about a significant chunk of Australian workers whose jobs are at risk if we do not get the antidumping scheme right.

One of the arguments that is being put forward is that it is okay to have these cheap products come onto the market because they provide a better deal for consumers. This is simply an illusion, because the short-term prices remove local jobs and local industries. Prices will increase as local competition is killed off. Dumping cheap products is a deliberate strategy. Once the local competitors are gone, the price of that product will increase—and that is just the way the market works. This is why it is so important that we follow the lead of other countries around the world when it comes to antidumping. They make sure that their local industries and their local jobs are protected.

I want to acknowledge the work that some of the industry leaders have played in this debate. They have been very vocal in this area for quite some time. I know that many in the government like to criticise the role of unions, particularly the AMWU, the AWU and the CFMEU. They have formed, in partnership with employers and industries, a joint initiative, a round table, to put on the record the need for very strong antidumping legislation rules to make sure that we are doing our bit to protect jobs. In many ways, this joint round table is doing the work of government. It is put putting out there why Australia should be exercising its rights under the WTO to standing up and protect our manufacturing. The round table is in response to an urgent concern of members who work in these industries about their local jobs and local products being undercut by cheap imports.

There are two ways that other countries and their companies are undermining our locally produced products: one is through the cheaper product coming in; the other thing is by having a number of subsidies, which in many ways support what is going on. A note to the people who are drafting the text of the free trade agreements would be: perhaps when it comes to the steel, forestry and other industries, there should be some discussion about the subsidies that some countries have for their steel and forestry industries. Their subsidies prop up these manufacturers, who then go on to dump their cheap products onto our market.

This bill is complex and involves a number of technical changes. Two parts outlined in the bill are controversial, and this is why I am speaking today to the amendments. The first is the abolition of the International Trade Remedies Forum. This forum was initiated to keep the conversation going. The forum is a stakeholder body comprised of representatives such as manufacturers, producers, importers, industry associations, trade unions and government agencies. Perhaps it is because the forum involves trade unions that the government wants to abolish it. As I have demonstrated, our trade unions have taken a leading role in standing up and saying that we need to do more as a country. We want to see our government do more to protect and support local manufacturing and to create that equal playing field. The forum provides advice and feedback to the government on the operation of the antidumping scheme, the implementation and monitoring of the government's reforms on antidumping and other information which may lead to further improvements in an antidumping system. Because we are dealing with overseas companies, because we are dealing with an international market, it is important to have a body or a forum like this to continually review whether the rules we have in place are doing enough.

All the speakers that I can see on the list for this debate have local examples which they will be speaking about. What is really important is that we keep the conversation going about how we can continue to ensure that we have the best antidumping regime for our country so that we can support local manufacturing jobs. If we want to be a country that makes things it is important that we not only buy the things we make, that we not only ensure we as taxpayers get the best value for our dollar about securing local content but that we also have the strongest antidumping scheme possible to create a fair playing field. This is important not just for the manufacturers and the companies but also for the people who work for them. There are five times as many people working in manufacturing than in our mines and almost seven times as many people working in agriculture and manufacturing— (Time expired)

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