Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

You are enjoying it? That is great! I will keep going. I will tell you about the current anti-dumping landscape. In the last three years—January 2012 to December 2014—33 investigations were conducted by the Anti-Dumping Commission, the ADC, which resulted in the imposition or extension of anti-dumping duties. Over the same period, a similar number of investigations were performed in Canada, the United States, the EU, China and Argentina. New Zealand carried out far fewer investigations, only five cases, and Brazil performed far more—132 cases.

In the last three years in Australia, January 2012 to December 2014, the largest portion of the investigation was made with respect to steel products. Some mates of mine worked in the steel industry in Victoria. The killer of the Australian steel industry was imported products, particularly from Asian countries. These countries are processing Australian products for Australian exported iron ore and bringing in steel at a far lower and cheaper price than the Australian manufacturers could do.

In the last three years, January 2012 to December 2014, a large majority of the measures either introduced or extended in Australia were applied to the metals sector, particularly steel products. A substantial number of measures were also applied to the electronic goods and the processed food and beverages sectors. In the last three years, the largest amount of antidumping measures either introduced or extended in Australia were applied in descending order to the products being imported from China, South Korea and Taiwan. We have a lot of stakeholder endorsements for these reforms—and you can understand why. Australia manufacturers—and I am sure there are many of them—would want to make sure that everything is about a level playing field. If these reforms can introduce and then make sure that there is a better and stronger level playing field than has previously been the case then they can only assist Australian manufacturers.

I can talk about other manufacturers in Western Australia. There was another airconditioning company out at the old Telstra building. They were an opponent of ours—they employed about 500 people at one time—but they, too, eventually had to close up shop. It was not because they were not good manufacturers, and it was not because the unions gave them a hard time. It was purely because they could not compete with the imported products. You could not establish whether those imported products were dumped because at that particular time the legislation—which is what these reforms will bring in—to find out whether those issues had an effect on those manufacturers was not in place. As I said, we have many stakeholder endorsements. SPC Ardmona CEO Peter Kelly said:

These reforms to our anti-dumping system are a significant step forward for Australian manufacturers and producers.

The Australian Steel Institute said:

These reforms will assist in leveling the playing field through a tougher approach to timeframes and remedies, and they will improve the process for Australian steel manufacturers through expanded information and support services.

The Australian Forest Products Association said:

We welcome the proposed changes to place a significant onus on foreign exporters to cooperate in anti-dumping investigations. The imposition of higher dumping duties and interim measures as soon as possible for those companies that do not comply with the Anti-Dumping Commission (ADC) is a particularly welcome reform.

As you see, industry is right behind these reforms. I refer again to my experience in manufacturing, because we also had another business—and it is a nice little story which I might finish off with—which manufactured a product that was Australian designed, Australian manufactured and Australian tested. It was a multi-packed style chiller, and we manufactured it in Bays Water in Victoria. One of my clients came to me one day and said, 'I just saw one of your chillers down on the port at Fremantle and it is marked to Carrier Inc. in Taiwan. I said: 'That's interesting. We don't send anything overseas via Carrier to Taiwan.' They were our opposition. I contacted my uncle, Bobby Dix, who was then the secretary of the painters and dockers union, and within 15 minutes I had Kim Beazley on the phone saying, 'How can I help?' Kim Beazley was very willing to assist. We eventually got that a guarantee from Carrier to say they would not copy it—they would not manufacture it—because Kim Beazley threatened to withdraw the Sikorsky helicopter contract. That is going back to the eighties, but it is nice little way to finish the story. I commend the bill to the House.

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