Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade and Investment) Share this | Hansard source

The coal industry says that every week of delay will cost it about $4.6 million in extra tariff payments on thermal and coking coal. The Financial Services Council warns that if ChAFTA is stopped it will cost our economy more than $4 billion and 10,000 jobs in that sector alone by 2030—to answer those opposite. A new collective of New South Wales oyster farmers from Australia's oyster coast are in China at the present time exploring further export opportunities off the back of the 14 per cent tariff elimination to be delivered by the China FTA.

The stakes are very, very high for these businesses in this member's electorate and many others. ChAFTA will create tens of thousands of jobs in the years ahead. Yet, in an act of what can only be described as economic sabotage, the most militant elements of the union movement are trying to stop this agreement from coming into force by running a brutal, dishonest, anti-Chinese campaign. Clearly, it is designed to distract from the daily reports of the corruption in these unions. Let me see what was in the paper today. The next instalment: Brian Parker, the top construction union official in New South Wales, allegedly told a project manager at a school building that—

See this speech in context