Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed. I'm pleased to make a contribution to add some words of support and provide a bit of context for our support. I do so as the vice-chair of the Singapore-Australia Parliamentary Friendship Group, along with my colleague, the member for Moore, Mr Goodenough, and also as someone who has a longstanding interest in good policy and the architecture to develop Australia's trade relations broadly, but particularly with South-East Asia. My former work, before I entered the parliament, was with the Victorian Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources, working in the trade and engagement area. I've led trade missions to South-East Asia in a range of sectors. So I have a great personal interest as well as reflecting Labor's long and strong support for good trade policy and trade agreements.

I'll try to focus on the substance of the issues. I'm not inclined, with my head cold, to respond to some of the propaganda which we heard interspersed with some sensible comments that somehow the world is black and white and everyone on the side of truth and righteousness over there loves trade and trade agreements, and that somehow we're all Neanderthals who don't. If you look over the last few decades and, indeed, the history of this trade agreement, there's been strong bipartisan support from the Hawke-Keating government, which was not much loved by the parties opposite when they were in government, but, as the years go on, we hear more fond remarks from the Treasurer and the Prime Minister about the glory years of Hawke and Keating and their economic contribution to Australia.

To the context for this trade agreement, Australia sits at the bottom of a region of 4½ billion people—the fastest growing part of the world. The world's economic centre is returning to Asia faster than at any time in human history. Indeed, that's been the norm—that the economic centre of the world was around north of us. This is full of opportunity for us—and some threat, as we're seeing. Importantly, these opportunities have to be seized. Good outcomes don't just happen magically. They require sustained effort over many years by all sides—all parties of government at the very least, both in trade policy architecture, the day-to-day efforts, trade missions and Austrade's work and so on, and the deal-making. These agreements can be fine as far as they go, but, ultimately, it's up to Australian business to take advantage of them, particularly in the case of trading with South-East Asia, to make best use of that incredible resource which we have as a diverse country—our diaspora populations. There's an enormous amount of research that indicates that migrant diasporas, including a wonderful Singaporean diaspora, many in my electorate who settled from the 1970s and 1980s and who started businesses and are trading with Singapore now, and that those cultural networks and the trusted relationships, with families moving backwards and forwards, are also critical enablers to take best advantage of the trade architecture which may be in place from time to time.

With that broad context, I think to be fair of bipartisanship in aims and sometimes differing objectives, I would also make the point that bilateral agreements can be good as far as they go. But, in trade theory, they're always suboptimal to good multilateral agreements. I don't think any sensible economist would dispute that a broader multilateral agreement is going to give you a better outcome over the long term than a series of sometimes patchwork bilateral agreements. We are in an era where, for a range of reasons, good multilateral agreements improvements have been hard to come by. But that doesn't mean that every trade agreement is a good trade agreement. That's a really important thing to note—that it's too easy when we might raise legitimate concerns about aspects to then play the silly partisan game which we heard in question time again today that, all of a sudden, when you raise a query or a concern about a trade agreement, like we did with aspects of many that have gone in recent times, somehow, therefore, you're against free trade and you hate the whole thing, which is just nonsense.

As the committee that looked at this made clear—and Labor is supporting this legislation; it implements a couple of the key aspects to the new and improved agreement, as they say; the tariffs and customs changes—importantly, we did make some comments raising concerns about aspects of the agreement. And they're not new concerns. They're things which we've said for some years. They're things which we took to the last election. They're things which we've said in the parliament. They're things which we've said consistently in relation to other trade agreements. They go to good scrutiny. So the point that I made was that not every trade agreement is a good trade agreement. You don't sign a deal just because you can get one. You sign a deal when you're absolutely convinced in a transparent and robust way that it's in the national interest. To that effect, Labor maintain our concerns, as we provided in the additional comments to the main report, about the lack of transparency in negotiation and, importantly, the lack of independent economic analysis.

Amusingly, perhaps for those who watch the parliament and the workings of the parliament, strangely it's not just Labor that says that—it's not just Labor MPs. We've seen in this parliament alone two government-controlled committees—that's right; controlled by those opposite—publish reports which back up the points which we're making here in relation to this bill and this agreement. On the Indonesia-Australia investment relationship and trade agreement, the trade and investment growth committee only a few months ago issued a report that said there should be independent economic scrutiny of trade agreements. This is a good practice and a good policy—that you shouldn't just sign these things because you're the government and you can. If you believe what you say and you believe the advice that DFAT is giving you, then you should have the confidence to put them to some external scrutiny—expose the assumptions. It shouldn't be that controversial.

That committee recommended that any future Indonesia-Australia free trade agreement should be subject to independent scrutiny—for example, by the Productivity Commission or a similarly competent body. Indeed, there have been other committees controlled by the government that have signed up to the same principle. In supporting this legislation, which is necessary to give effect to some of the customs and tariff aspects of the agreement, we do maintain our concern about the lack of transparency in negotiation and the lack of independent economic analysis across these sorts of agreements.

The second point, and a consistent point we make, is that the SAFTA update will undermine Australia's migrant visa program by failing to apply labour market testing for contractual service suppliers. In plain English, that means that, under this new and improved government agreement, jobs in Australia will be able to be filled by workers from Singapore without being offered to Australians first. It doesn't mean we're against free trade or against economic growth to maintain that simple, firm principle that we shouldn't trade away labour market testing rights. It is a globalised world and we welcome that. Interconnectivity is great economically and it's great strategically. Countries who trade are less likely to end up in conflict in the broader region. That's all true.

There are a couple of things we believe shouldn't be globalised without proper scrutiny. One is labour market testing and people's jobs. The other is the ISDS clauses that we've got great concerns with. Notwithstanding our support for this legislation to give effect to this aspect of the agreement, we are concerned that, yet again, another agreement by this government weakens labour market protection for Australian workers. It's no great comfort when they say, 'Oh, well, there's a theory here that says we might grow the pie in a couple of aspects of the agreement.' That's fine, but you could be the one who loses your job because of the way this government approaches trade agreements with an ideological bent. It's not a controversial view. Many of their own members sign up to this unanimously committee after committee. I do not understand the blind ideology that stops them from accepting it's a reasonable proposition.

I should have mentioned at the start that there is continued bipartisan support for this. As was rightly said, the Howard government first signed this agreement in 2003 and it was updated by the Gillard government in 2011. The continued attention to updating the agreement is welcome. The final point I'd make is that ISDS clauses have been in the SAFTA. In a sense, there are changes which we welcome. There are some improvements to acknowledge the right and the ability of governments to regulate in the public interest, and that's been one of our serious concerns about ISDS clauses broadly. This agreement does acknowledge that governments have a right to regulate to ensure protection of public welfare, including health and environment; that non-discriminatory regulatory actions to safeguard public welfare objectives are okay; and that government's action, which may be inconsistent with an investor's expectations, does not constitute an agreement of the minimum standard of treatment obligations, even if it results in loss or damage to the investor.

These things form an important part of the context for the specific provisions of the bill in relation to the new rules of origin for goods imported from Singapore and the new procedure to claim preferential tariff treatment for goods that originate in Singapore, and the transitional provisions around that. In recognising that there are changes and improvements is also to concede that there are problems, therefore, in the other ISDS clauses which this government continues to have operative and pursue in other agreements.

See this speech in context