Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I always enjoy the contributions by the member for Perth, and I am disappointed that she left 1½ minutes on the clock.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement was finally signed on 4 February this year in New Zealand. Australia was represented by Minister Andrew Robb, who has been the deliverer of so much good news for my electorate of Lyons and certainly the state of Tasmania in respect of the trifecta of trade agreements that have been negotiated since the coalition came to government in 2013. The KAFTA and the Japanese economic partnership agreement, and more recently the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, have delivered enormous benefits to businesses in my state. It is very much in line with the absolute culture and focus that this government has on generating growth, creating opportunities, and for businesses to invest and, ultimately, employ, in our case, more Tasmanians.

We are, in our state, quite mature in the way that we view foreign investment more broadly—notwithstanding some of the issues that the member for Perth raised. I acknowledge her concerns, and these are issues that need to be clarified. But in large part, I sometimes misrepresented it in the way of a scare campaign. As I said, in my state, Tasmanians have been very mature about these sorts of issues in recent times. There are many practical benefits to come to my state as a result of that, and I will highlight a few of those in a minute.

This is a culmination of many years' work. This is a culmination that included work by previous governments, including previous Labor governments. The work that has been concluded by Minister Robb did demand a certain level of resolve. They have delivered what is a modern agreement. There are obvious benefits in tariff removals in respect of the commodities that Australia more broadly, but certainly my state, is obviously able to supply, and this is clear to most people. The tariff removals allow better access to those markets; therefore, they create additional competition and they create confidence for businesses to invest in their own businesses and employ more Tasmanians. But they also have unlocked the potential that really stands there for this country as a developed First World country. More than 70 per cent of the Australian economy is driven by the services sector, and yet a relatively small part of our exports are made up of services—somewhere in the vicinity of 15 per cent.

The opportunity that these agreements present for our services sector to deliver high quality services in a whole range of areas is quite tantalising, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region and, in the case of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, more broadly. There are opportunities for small and medium businesses as well, and there has been a real emphasis within this agreement to make sure that small and medium enterprises see and capitalise on those opportunities.

The procurement of government services in the trans-pacific partnership countries presents enormous opportunities for many Australian businesses that have the skills and capacity—for example, particularly in my own state, for those businesses that are providing environmental approval processes and those sorts of things. These are things that a developed, modern country like Australia, which has very stringent regulations around these spaces, has. These are the sorts of things that are going to be in very high demand in the countries that have signed up to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

There is still a lot of work to go. In each of those countries local politics will come into play in terms of seeing this agreement ultimately ratified and brought into law in those individual jurisdictions. For the record, those 12 countries are: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Last year I had the opportunity to travel to Vietnam, and it was interesting to see in the English printed newspapers the interest that country had in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Over the course of the week and a half that I was there, I noted numerous articles that referred to the negotiations that were going on at that time.

We already have the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement, so one might reasonably ask the question: what are the benefits for Australia—and Japan for that matter—in respect of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement? In respect of Australia, there are additional concessions for dairy exports that have been made in terms of access to that market, specifically in relation to manufactured dairy products, and that is a really good thing for Tasmania.

Over 98 per cent of the dairy product that is produced in Tasmania is processed locally, mainly up on the north-west coast. Tasmania is nearly the second largest producer of milk in the country. It is not quite there yet, but I think within two years we will probably overtake New South Wales as the second largest dairy producer. I have been made aware of plans and opportunities in my own electorate for expanded capacity in that area that will provide opportunities. So whether it is cheese, milk powder or other value-added products, those opportunities are very broad and wide.

In respect of agriculture more broadly the obvious beneficiaries for my state, in addition to dairy, are beef; wine exports, where there are significant reductions or elimination of tariffs into Mexico and Canada, Peru, Malaysia and also Vietnam; and seafood, notwithstanding the issues that we have at the moment with the POMS disease that has come down from New South Wales and is now, unfortunately, impacting on oysters in the Tasmanian jurisdiction. I spoke last night to Craig Lockwood from St Helens, and it is a real concern to them. But I am sure they will work through that, and they are developing resistance within those breeding stocks as we speak.

The elimination of many tariffs will benefit consumers in terms of the costs of goods that are available in this country. When I look at these things, I try to be aware of the concerns that are raised. I do not have an issue with those concerns being raised and debated—for example, by the member for Perth and others. That is right and proper, and it is what this place is ultimately about.

But from Australia's perspective—and I will bring it back to my local patch in Tasmania, to my electorate—ultimately it is about backing our own strengths. It is about focusing on those things for which our country has a competitive advantage. This agreement, overwhelmingly, provides the opportunity for our country to be able to capitalise on those things that we do comparatively better than similar countries which produce those sorts of goods.

I welcome this. I congratulate the minister. I also congratulate, particularly, the departmental staff who over many years have worked extremely hard to be able to deliver a modern agreement that will serve our nation very well into the future. It will provide opportunities for so many businesses. I guess that my ask of those businesses and those innovative people who I know are all over the electorate of Lyons is to seek out the opportunities. See this as an opportunity to have a much bigger market than the one that is on the doorstep. We are a small country by population size, we are big country by geographic size but we are perfectly located in the Asian region in order to take advantage of the growing middle class there, that has a high demand for the quality goods and services that Australia is able to produce.

See this speech in context