Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a brand-new day, full of delicious possibilities—and they have got better. Those possibilities for our nation, for our small businesses, for men and women looking to pursue economic opportunities, have got better because today we will be passing the ChAFTA legislation: the Customs Amendment (China-Australia Free Trade Agreement Implementation) Bill 2015 and the Customs Tariff Amendment (China-Australia Free Trade Agreement Implementation) Bill 2015. This is the legislation that will bring into law the changes to the excise and tariff regimes negotiated skilfully and with great wisdom by the free trade grasshopper, the wise one, Andrew Robb, who now has the quadrella. The wise one has worked his way through the North Asia free trade agreements. He has now got the TPP underway. I would like to add one more. We need to get an agreement quickly with Hong Kong to complement the ChAFTA, because, for many Australian businesses, entry into the Chinese market is a wonderful opportunity, but the sort of expertise and capital to deal with this vast market may well be accelerated and supported by a very close economic relationship with Hong Kong. I was pleased to talk with some of their ministers in my previous role, from my previous vantage point in this chamber.

But today is a great day. Never before has there been such a great opportunity to expand markets. Those of us who have any feel for business know that there is no substitute for customers. You can have the greatest business plan, the greatest ideas, the greatest team, but if no-one is buying your goods or services or taking advantage of your know-how or seeking to include your input in their goals then that great business model will not achieve its potential. What it needs is customers, and this agreement—in fact all the North Asia trade agreements—opens the door to new markets of over 1½ billion people. This puts our home-grown businesses in the box seat to take advantage of these market opportunities.

Never before has there been a better chance for us to showcase the array of excellence in our economy: our world-class food; our wines; our boutique beers—and I know Mornington Peninsula Brewery is leading the charge in that respect; our products; and our know-how, where China are looking to take advantage of and engage our knowledge, our systems, our wisdom and our experience to improve economic outcomes for themselves, which, in turn, will improve economic outcomes for our economy. Services is a wonderful story—70 per cent of our domestic economy but only 17 per cent of our export income. There is enormous growth potential. That door has been opened wide, giving us the inside running to take advantage of these new markets.

It is also important to realise that the vast majority of exporters are actually small and medium enterprises. Ninety per cent of all of our exporters are SMEs. That is by number, but by value their contribution is only around five per cent of our export earnings, so again there is an enormous opportunity there to increase the engagement of SMEs in these economies.

What is terrific is that we are talking about a China-Australia Free Trade Agreement and having it passed in this place and having it not changed one dot. It has not changed at all. For all of those robocalls that the union put into my electorate, which caused great concern and fear amongst my constituents, I was happy to respond to with some factual information of—newsflash—this agreement has not been changed. The agreement stays as it was. So all of the fearmongering and race based condemnation of a wonderful market opportunity for our country proved to be nothing. It was a mountain of noise with no content. This agreement will pass this parliament unchanged.

What is interesting though is that we have just heard the member for Bendigo give a quite passionate condemnation of her own colleague the member for Gorton. Why was the member for Gorton so derelict in his responsibilities when he was the migration minister? He put in place all of the regime around market testing and benchmarking against Australian wages. He had all of that validated by procedure and policy, by systems and requirements. That seemed perfectly satisfactory to Labor when they were in office but now, when they are in opposition, these are an abomination, these are malfeasants, this is a poor effort to bring into effect the migration system that supports the movement of labour and skills to make sure our economic potential and our economy is met. So what we have seen is the government agreeing to codify, pretty much, what was put in place by the member for Gorton, which has been roundly condemned by his own party. That is interesting. It will be interesting at the O'Connor family Christmas dinner as the conversations play out between brothers about how all this works.

The thing to focus on is that this is a wonderful opportunity for our economy. I will explain this simply for the member for Bendigo, who could not quite see how trade equals jobs. Trade equals new markets and new investment. Those new markets and those new investments lead to increased economic activity. The horsepower, the skills, the wisdom, the knowledge and the talents to take advantage of that economic activity and give it meaning and turn it into higher incomes and prosperity for the future are jobs. That is people, that is improved prospects for livelihoods and better incomes.

There is so much more I would like to say, but I am keen for my colleagues to also have the opportunity to contribute to a great success today. What I would say to Australian men and women of small business and family enterprises is: engage with this opportunity. We have a better opportunity than any other country at this time. The door is open for us. We can get into that market first. Those opportunities are not reserved for us. We need to make them our own. We need to grab those opportunities. This is no summer romance. It is not a matter of spending a few weeks in China in the sun and going home with happy experiences, smiles and suntans. There are no walk-up markets and customers waiting for us. We have to win those opportunities. That is why the rest of the government's economic reform agenda is so important. That is why our mission to energise enterprise is at the heart of turning this outstanding diplomatic trade negotiation agreement into better outcomes for our economy and our citizens. I reckon enterprising men and women are up for that challenge. Great potential is within their reach.

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