Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As the member for Goldstein, it's a great pleasure to get up and endorse the words and the vision of the member for Fairfax in supporting this motion. Can I start by recalling my incredible disappointment in the previous speaker and his speech. I fully understand that Labor MPs struggle with understanding the common benefit to the entire Australian community from freer and more open markets and trade agreements. The last time they were in government, they were led by a trade minister—the most failed trade minister in Australian history, I personally think, in Craig Emerson—who failed throughout his entire tenure. He spent all his time waxing lyrical and distancing himself off to Geneva under multilateralism, with a lack of understanding of the benefits of what can be done in compounding the benefits of bilateral agreements towards multilateral agreements. We heard this all the time. It was insufferable for somebody as passionate about free and open markets as myself to see the failure of the Labor governments and what they delivered for the Australian community versus the actions and outcomes of the coalition government.

That is what has transcended since there was a change of government from Labor to the coalition—not just that but the ambition that we now share for what we can do for our country. Yes, we've had 27 years of uninterrupted economic growth. Last year we had $48.3 billion in surplus and $5.7 billion in May alone—a record. But it's not just dollars and cents that bring about the benefits of freer trade. Of course there is the export of goods, but, increasingly, the opportunity that we can secure for our free trade agreements is greater market access for investment and for our service exports.

This is a trend since the beginning of Federation: the vast majority of Australians are employed in service based industries. To realise the potential of that human capital and what we can take to the world, and to build their skills and opportunity, whether it's engineers to build new buildings or architects or legal services or financial services—a sector that was nothing but in the crosshairs of the Labor opposition at the last election—we are backing these industries to grow and achieve market access. They are not just building the economic capacity of the country; they are building the skills, the knowledge, the experience and the exposure for us to be globally competitive in our goods and services, least of all because one of the great unsung benefits of freer trade is the potential for the transfer of technology. And Australia has largely been a technology taker—not always, but often. So our capacity to integrate newer technology into our businesses and our systems to make us more competitive is a critical part of the national conversation. That's why this government is so aggressive in continuing to pursue FTAs and bilateral agreements—and now, increasingly, regional agreements not just through the TPP but across many of our neighbour partners. And the Prime Minister has a big focus on what we can do to reform the World Trade Organization so that it meets the ambition and capacity of the 21st century. Of course, the WTO was set up as a successor to the GATT on the basis of much of the politics of the 1990s. And we know, through the leadership of countries like Australia since then, that the discussion has shifted and that the rules need to shift in part with it to make it relevant for our times. We shouldn't discount its potential and its contribution, particularly against the backdrop of what it can be for dispute resolution. To be fair to the Labor members sitting on the other side, they did that in the late eighties and early nineties, through the late, great Bob Hawke. I call upon them to relive that spirit and see the potential of what we can do through FTAs and multilateral instruments, and to build the economy that Australia needs for the future.

So now is not a time not for remorse or simply raising our concerns about why things cannot be done; it is a time for looking at why things can be done. We have secured trade deals with so many of our trading partners in the region. We are now looking further afield—in particular, across the Pacific to South America—and there is so much further to go. (Time expired)

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