Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The Labor Party support the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Bill 2015 and we will facilitate its passage through this House and the other house. We support this bill because this bill facilitates Australia joining the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The Labor Party have said consistently that Australia should join this bank. We were saying this consistently way before the government. While the cabinet was in meltdown, while the foreign minister was arguing with the Treasurer and while the Prime Minister was dithering about whether to join this bank, the opposition was saying very clearly that it was an easy decision—Australia must join. Australia should join this bank because it is the right thing to do. Australia should join this bank because China has shown leadership in setting up this bank and the rest of the word should join. But the government dithered; the government could not make its mind up. The foreign minister said we should not join, for reasons known only to herself. The Treasurer, to give him credit, knew that we should join, but he could not carry the day in the cabinet. On the other hand, the Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and I were of one mind immediately—this was an easy decision. This is a great opportunity for Australia. It is a good opportunity for the world to come together to deal with the infrastructure gap in Asia and to work together on the development of Asia. But, no: while the Labor Party was lending bipartisan support to this from last October, the government could not make up its mind.

I was amused to see in the second reading speech the Treasurer boasting:

On 29 June this year, I gave effect to the government's commitment to join the AIIB by being the first person in the world to sign the bank's articles of agreement in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. My signature was followed by those of representatives of 49 other countries.

He was boasting that we were first. Well, he was the first to sign because Australia comes first alphabetically. That is why his signature was first; it is nothing for him to boast about. We could have been one of the first countries to join the bank when China invited the rest of the world to join. We could have been a leader, but instead under this government we are followers. We had to wait for other countries to join and then we decided to join afterwards. We joined after the United Kingdom, New Zealand, South Korea, Germany, France, Italy, India and Singapore—all of these countries showed leadership. Australia could have been in at the ground floor. It could have been in working with these other countries, setting the bank up, but, no, we had to wait to see what other countries like the United Kingdom would do. I thought we stopped letting the United Kingdom make Australian foreign policy decisions about 70 years ago, but under this Prime Minister and this government apparently we still wait for instructions from Westminster. We know this government is dysfunctional but its dysfunction impacts on policy. Here we had cabinet dysfunction impacting on policy and Australia missing a golden opportunity to come in at the ground floor and join this very important bank.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank will fulfil a very important role. There is a significant gap in infrastructure around the Asian region—around $8 trillion over the next decade is the widely agreed figure, which is a figure I certainly agree with. The bank represents an opportunity for countries of the world to come together and pool funds, and to provide authorised capital so that the bank can facilitate infrastructure investment. We will have a very substantial shareholding of about US$3.7 billion. I note that the second biggest shareholder in the bank is India at about US$8.3 billion and a share of 7½ per cent. Our shareholding is substantial, as is appropriate. This is not a matter that will be reflected in budget figures, but it is an appropriate shareholding for us to have as a very significant economy in the Asia-Pacific region. We certainly support Australia's involvement and we will facilitate, in every sense possible, Australia being as involved as is possible because we should be. But we should have shown much greater leadership than we did. We should have shown the leadership of a nation that understands the opportunities of Asia.

There has been a lot said about China in recent days in this chamber and in the public debate. There has been a lot of lecturing going on from the dispatch box opposite about China and how we need to work better with China. We are not going to take any lectures from a government which for months got this key strategic decision on China so wrong, a government which could not even make a simple decision to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. They have the gall to come in here and lecture the Labor Party about how to do business with China when you have had the Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and myself, on behalf of the Australian Labor Party, consistently saying since last October that this is a no-brainer, this is an easy decision. If we were in government, if we were in the cabinet, we would have signed up straight away because it was an opportunity to take. Members opposite need to understand what a strategic error they have made and the leadership this captain's pick of a Prime Minister has made waiting for other countries to show leadership and sending a signal to China that we just do not care about their development.

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