Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about trade, engagement with our Asia-Pacific region, and Darwin's and my electorate's role as a regional hub. I'm happy to speak to the re-introduced appropriation bills, but what I'm not happy about is the government's self-congratulation on economic issues over which it has no control. We saw it last week, when my parliamentary colleague, the member for Fairfax, could not help himself, trying to take credit for this year's record monthly trade surpluses. We all like to see a trade surplus, but inferring that they're somehow the work of the Liberal Party is a bit rich. These record trade surpluses, for the record, are due to a near doubling of the world price of iron ore, which is good news. It's risen from about US$69 a tonne to US$121 a tonne in the last six months. Like me, you've probably been to Karratha in Western Australia. All those iron ore ships are just queuing up there. It's great for our nation that that price is high, but the reason for the price being high and the trade surplus is more about Beijing's economic stimulus program and a dam bursting in Brazil. I hope neither of those have anything to do with the Liberal Party—rather, I hope that the dam bursting had nothing to do with the Liberal Party.

Australia is one of the world's great trading nations. We always have been a great trading nation, from when First Nations people in northern Australia were trading with other First Nations in our Asia-Pacific region right through to us supplying the British Empire with agricultural commodities. Of course, we benefited as a nation from the mining boom following the Second World War. We overcame challenges in the 1960s and 1970s, when our major trading partner at the time, the UK, started preferencing its European neighbours ahead of us, its loyal Commonwealth cousins. But there was good news again with the Labor Hawke and Keating governments. The deregulation of our economy opened our markets to the world. Today the Asian markets to our north are absolutely vital for us. Japan was our leading merchandise export destination until the extraordinary economic growth in China saw it claim the top spot 10 years ago. Fifty per cent of our entire merchandise exports go to China and Japan, largely in the form of those raw materials. Nearly a quarter of our merchandise imports come from China alone. Twelve of our largest 15 trading markets are in Asia, and the Asia-Pacific region accounts for over 70 per cent of our total trade value.

As I told the House last week, Territorians pay close attention to trade. Our proximity to the growing Asian markets is one reason. Another is the deep and enduring links that we have with our neighbours to our north. These markets are vital for the economic development of the Northern Territory and Darwin in particular, long and rightly regarded as Australia's northern gateway to Asia. That's why I'm very pleased that the Leader of the Labor Party, Anthony Albanese, has appointed me to lead a trade task force for the Asia Pacific. In this role, I will be working closely with the shadow minister for trade, Madeleine King, and the shadow minister for northern Australia, Senator Murray Watt.

Labor has played a major role in advancing and advocating for an open global trading system, reducing trade barriers, which creates more competitive industries and generates high-skill, high-wage jobs for Australians. Our party has an equally long history of recognising and acting on the immense economic opportunities presented by Asia's rise to become the heart of global economic growth. We strongly support an open, rules based, multilateral trading system under the auspices of the WTO, as well as trade and investment liberalisation through APEC.

High-quality global, regional and bilateral trade agreements which include major Asian economies have been a key driver of Australia's success story of consecutive economic growth over 20 years. But we must ensure that the agreements continue to be high-quality trade agreements. We mustn't assume that Australia can continue to benefit from Asia's economic growth without working harder to seize the opportunities which our region presents to Australian workers, consumers, businesses, exporters and investors. This is particularly important at a time when the rules and norms of the global and regional trading systems are more contested, politicised and securitised than ever in living memory.

Australia stands to gain from deepening its trading agreements, people-to-people and business-to-business links, outward and inbound foreign direct investment, and, importantly, the Asia literacy of Australian workers, businesses, students and exporters. Labor's trade task force for the Asia Pacific will consult with everyone—unions, exporters, business councils. We will hold industry forums and report to the Leader of the Australian Labor Party and the shadow trade minister on what our nation needs to do to increase our trade engagement right across our region.

The task force will review existing policies and develop policies to deepen Australia's trading, investment, educational and people-to-people links with the region. It will also examine proposals developed by Australian and regional policy-makers, think tanks and academics to develop plans of action for Australia to lead efforts in promoting the multilateral trading system and potential reforms to the WTO. The task force will work with state and territory governments and councils to find potential synergies that could feed into a future federal Labor government's trade and investment engagement strategy with Asia.

The Northern Territory government is pursuing an ambitious international engagement, trade and investment strategy. We have huge trade opportunities in defence, agribusiness, energy, international education, minerals and tourism, to name just a few. We also have a huge competitive advantage with our proximity to Asia and our proximity to the equator. As it turns out, for space launches it's very handy to be close to the equator. We have ample land, water and mineral resources. We have local expertise. We have great people-to-people relations within our region. We are a young and culturally diverse population. Darwin truly is the gateway to Asia.

I will be working with the Northern Territory government, and with industry groups in the Northern Territory, in Western Australia and North Queensland, but also around the country. But this is clearly very important for northern Australia. It is a nationally significant region of our country that has great benefits for the rest of the nation. That's why I urge the federal government to make investments in the North: to bring forward the funding to rejuvenate Kakadu; to fund the ship lift; to start spending some of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, or the NAIF; and to fund the City Deal for Darwin. These are nationally significant projects recognising the strategic and economic importance of northern Australia for the whole of Australia.

What we need to do now, and why I've chosen to speak on these topics during this debate on the appropriation bills, is we need to convince the Morrison government that this is a national priority. Labor went to the last election with a coherent and costed policy for Darwin and the Territory. For example, one specific proposal—building a ship lift—is of great value for both military and civilian use. Rather than ships going to Cairns or Singapore, they'll be able to stay in Darwin, where they're based, for routine maintenance and refits. This means jobs for Territorians and a significant improvement to our range of Defence infrastructure in the north. A ship lift in Darwin Harbour or in the Top End will create a whole marine services industry around it. The present Defence facility at HMAS Coonawarra is actually not big enough to lift the future offshore patrol vessels, so it is due to be decommissioned in the next couple of years. So I'll continue to take every opportunity to urge the Morrison government to take up the proposal and to build the ship lift. I think, in these last couple of sitting weeks, I have already mentioned the ship lift quite a few times, and I will continue to advocate for it.

I see the trade task force as also being, like the ship lift, nationally important, because trading with our region is the future of our country. I want to continue to build relationships in the region, and I have a fair bit of personal experience in doing that. Many years ago now I set up a small Australian charity in Timor-Leste to improve maternal health outcomes and to build schools in remote areas. Through my work in Timor-Leste and Indonesia out of the Top End, I met people like my friend Colin McDonald QC, who has long fostered Australia-Indonesia friendships through the Bali artist camps. But it's not just Asia; it's the Pacific as well. We will focus our attention on our friends in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands as well. I want to commend the Prime Minister for travelling into the Pacific on his first overseas trip. There is no doubt that targeted and sensitive aid engagement with our near neighbours is incredibly important. It's an important means of building positive relationships, and clearly this is a matter of strategic importance, as well as it being important for us to be good neighbours.

Another area that intersects our strategic and economic interest is building a disaster response and emergency management capacity from Darwin into our region. We all know that the region to the north of Australia can be quite unstable geologically, and there have been some political changes to the north that we've been able to respond to, one being the East Timor process of self-determination. We were able to respond to that out well of Darwin. So Darwin is crucial. I'm very proud to represent Darwin and Palmerston here in the federal parliament. The weather is heaps better than down here, and people tend to get sick less often!

Finally, I want to invite all members to attend our Facing North function on 9 September here in Parliament House. It's the first sitting day of the next sitting period, on 9 September, a Monday night. My fellow Territorians will once again be showcasing to everyone down here in this place our talents as Territorians and our potential for the nation. Please put it in your diary—9 September—and come and learn a bit more about Australia's northern gateway to Asia.

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