Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The current Leader of the Opposition has left us with many great quotes. I think, Madam Deputy Speaker, the one that stands out to me was during an interview on Meet the Press June 2005 when the free trade negotiations with China first commenced. He expressed his scepticism and he said, 'What is it that we are going to sell China in the future that we are not selling them now?' Madam Deputy Speaker, I will give an example of what: an orange.

With the Leader of the Opposition's great foresight back in 2005, we were not selling a single orange to China by way of export. Last year, we exported $30 million worth of citrus fruit to China, including oranges—something like 18 million kilograms of oranges and mandarins. That is before the duty and tariff reductions of the free trade agreement take place. We are going to see tariffs of between 11 per cent and 30 per cent, which are currently imposed on our citrus fruit, come down to zero over eight years.

I saw an interesting article the other day about the importance of Brand Australia, and there was an example where Chinese counterfeiters were actually taking Chinese oranges and labelling them 'made in Australia', 'produce of Australia', thinking that they could get a higher price for them. This brings me to the point of the importance of Brand Australia. Chinese consumers will pay a higher price for goods that they know are made in Australia because we have a good reputation. But we have to realise the risk that that reputation is being put at.

The risk to our reputation, the risk to that Brand Australia, is coming from the xenophobic campaign against the Australia free trade agreement by the current opposition members. To support this, I quote none other than the former ALP president, Warren Mundine: 'The union campaign against the China-Australian Free Trade Agreement, like protectionist arguments of old, is dressed up in economics to protect Australian jobs. It is a nonsense. It is built on misinformation and lies, and federal Labor is indulging in it.' He goes on: 'The anti-China free trade agreement campaign makes false claims against safety standards, workplace conditions and migration laws being eroded.' He continues, 'Labor is losing its way. I have lived under the shadow of racism for my entire life. The bigoted, anti-China free trade campaign makes me deeply angry. It is embarrassing watching Labor dance around while they oppose it.'

Brand Australia is being damaged by the campaign, by the people who sit on that side of Australia. They are damaging our national interest simply on a xenophobic campaign and I call on them to put the interest of our national first before their political interest and get behind us and support this China free trade agreement. (Time expired)

See this speech in context