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

Since the Morrison government announced the Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Bill 2020, Labor has made it clear that we support its objectives. Traditionally, of course, diplomacy was the sole remit of national governments for as long as these have existed. Talleyrand and other famous diplomats in silk stockings didn't worry about subnational actors, because Napoleonic France, which he represented, wasn't a democratic or inclusive society with a federalist bent but a closed and highly centralised republic in which affairs of state were directed from the centre. Some modern societies are still organised like this.

In a great democracy like ours whose gifts we should daily cherish, we have to reckon with the daily tension of being representatives of our local interests and those of our nation. That was hard at the best of times, and our political and diplomatic records record this constant struggle of trying to get it right. It has become harder with the onset of globalised economic supply chains, labour mobility, and information and communications technologies which, many feared in the 1990s, were making national foreign ministries like DFAT redundant.

Around this time, state and territory governments, business councils, industry peak bodies and thousands of non-state actors in Australia and elsewhere began taking advantage of the amazing opportunities that Australia's economic opening and integration into global value chains—and I'll point out that these are products of the great Hawke-Keating reforms—offered to the Australian people. That has continued and will continue, because that's a feature of the world we live in, and it's as inescapable as the awesome computing power we all carry in our handheld devices on which we conduct business across time zones and countries. We can't have technology without the power it gives us all, and this bill goes to this fundamental proposition. We can't take on the wealth and power accrued by our citizens, thanks to growing technological and international economic opportunities, without also taking on and having to manage a growing risk with it. State and territory governments, for example, have become central actors in the advocacy and prosecution of their jurisdictions' trade and investment interests, to great effect. Often our state governments vie for the same market share abroad in a competition stiffer than the State of Origin. All's fair in love and trade. The Northern Territory's got the goods, and that's the horse that I'm obviously backing.

But there are clear and compelling reasons that Australia should speak with one voice internationally in the years to come, because when push comes to shove the most powerful tribes in the world are still nation-states like ours. The biggest ones, the great powers, still command vast economic, cultural, ideological, industrial and military power. Subnational actors—like big tech companies, the Fortune 500, transnational activist networks and independent entrepreneurs—independently and collectively account for more global economic activity than many countries on earth. At $2 trillion in valuation, if Apple were a country it would be the eighth-largest economy on earth this year, after France. It would come ahead of Italy, Canada, South Korea, Russia, Brazil and, yes, Australia, which would be at a projected 13th place in 2020. That's a humbling fact, but it's important to understand the national and global foundations that these economic giants enjoy. Apple is a global economic Goliath for sure, but it is still an American and Californian Goliath. You can see that in the 10 per cent of GDP it earns the US economy. It still depends on the arteries of the global economy, whose plumbing is laid by nations, as we all have rediscovered recently. The global economy still relies on the rules and norms that powerful nation-states negotiate, uphold or undermine through multilateralism, bilateral arrangements or unilateral actions.

Peace and security is one such global public good, and that's where no subnational actors can compete. That's why foreign affairs, defence, and trade and investment are national powers in the hands of the federal government. In a world that's not getting any less dangerous, when the threats to Australian national interests are growing, we need to have enough trust in ourselves, our institutions and our values to get behind national interests that are always so far above politics, as exhibits in the Australian War Memorial remind us.

That's why I support the principle of this bill: that foreign affairs should be a power that rests, in the final analysis, federally. This is a sensible national-interest proposition, and that's why I regret that this bill was so sloppy in its presentation. It was announced in haste before it was ready and before affected entities were consulted, just so Scott Morrison could change the headlines from the tragic neglect in aged care on the same day his minister walked out on scrutiny in the Senate.

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