Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's no surprise that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected trade worldwide. It's highlighted our need to diversify and solidify our trade portfolio. It has also shone a light on our internal strengths and limitations and, more importantly, our trading opportunities. As always, the fundamental principle should be about putting our national security first, and this remains so. I stand in order to thank the committee that I sat on, the Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth, including the chair, the member for Dawson, George Christensen, and the member for Cooper, Ged Kearney, who is the deputy chair of this committee. The committee has released the report, Pivot: diversifying Australia's trade and investment profile. The committee had originally undertaken an inquiry into the assessment of diversification of our trading services and it became very clear during that inquiry that, in fact, we needed to look more to diversification of trading partners, and that initiated the inquiry that commenced early in COVID, in February. This inquiry become even more important and even more urgent as COVID emerged. The recommendations of this report are focused around three key themes: diversification of trade, monitoring foreign investment, and protecting our national security interests. We know that trade has long been a driver of Australia's wealth, and exports are a key pillar of that. In fact, Australia is regarded as an export nation. We have long been beneficiaries of the opportunities created by trade through growth, jobs, increased competition and improved living standards.

I have a bunch of women in my office at the moment—young women from the Australian National University who are in their first and second years and are here to talk as a female voice in the house of parliament. I have been listening to them about their excitement for their future and their excitement over their degrees. We were talking about how we want them to be job-ready for the future. It's important when they're at university that they think about what their future will be, but, as a government, it's equally important that we think about how to ensure that our economy is ready for 21st century jobs and that we improve and diversify both our trading services, to make sure the jobs are there, and our trading partners, so that we can be sure that we will continue to be a strong trading nation.

We know how important international relations are in this modern and globalised economy. Our most important trading partner, as everyone knows, has been China in recent years. It has been a productive and fruitful trading partnership that has delivered prosperity for both nations. But our trading relationship with China has recently come under the spotlight. There are tensions in our trade relating to our exports, and this has been concerning not just for Australian exporters, not just for Australian businesses, but, indeed, also for the people of Australia. I'm certainly hearing that loud and clear from my constituents in Higgins.

During the inquiry, we heard widely from experts versed in diplomacy from right across the political spectrum about our over-reliance on China as both a foreign investor and a trading partner. It was clear from many witnesses that we heard from that a prosperous relationship with China will undoubtedly and necessarily continue for decades to come. This is not about reducing that strong and prosperous trading partnership. We heard strong words of caution about being over-reliant on one single form of trading partnership, and that is what this report has been about: diversification of trading partners. What we heard from witnesses was the concept of a China-plus approach: continuing our strong trading interactions with China, but also developing alternative trading partnerships so that we have a China-plus approach to our trade and exports.

Supply chain constraints revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic have made it abundantly clear that we need to diversify our trading partners and shore up our internal manufacturing capacity. This is important, and I think Australians know this, because there have been quite significant interruptions to our supply chain, including for PPE early in the pandemic. I'd like to congratulate the Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, for the wonderful work he did in ensuring that we had enough masks and gowns to deal with a very rapidly-evolving situation, followed by ensuring that we secured our COVID tests. As we now know, we're also having to deal with a COVID vaccine supply issue. Again, because of his early work and his identification of this strategic threat, he was quick to move to have onshore manufacturing of our COVID vaccine. I'm very delighted to say that in the coming weeks the AstraZeneca vaccine will be manufactured onshore at CSL in Melbourne. That is because Australia recognises that we need to have formal and solid trade links and we need to make sure that our supply chains remain that way.

On both points, Australia needs to not put all of our eggs in one basket. We understand that overreliance on any one trading partner is just not sustainable, particularly should the trading partner no longer need or want the same level of our exported goods and services. Recommendation 1 of this report suggests maintaining our current trading relationships as well as working to expand them with other major players. This recommendation also focused on diversifying our range of exported goods and services. Recommendation 13 in this report also speaks to significantly increasing our sovereign manufacturing capability. The Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Karen Andrews, has been driving the Modern Manufacturing Initiative to ensure that the six pillars of our modern manufacturing future are front and centre of the strategic direction of our government. They include energy, space, defence, food and ag, health, and resources and critical minerals.

This modern manufacturing capability needs to be a sovereign capability. We have already seen this play out through our demonstrating strong resilience and adaptability through the COVID pandemic, with pivoting towards the making of our own supplies of PPE and, now, as I said before, the onshore manufacturing of the COVID vaccine. This endeavour is further supported by recommendation 14 of the report, to ensure adequate domestic supplies of key resources such as fuel and medical supplies. I fought hard to make sure our supply of panadol or paracetamol from India was kept in line. We had to apply quite a lot of diplomatic pressure. I thank the Minister for Finance, who was the previous minister for trade, Simon Birmingham, for the excellent work that he did to ensure we would have critical medical supplies coming to our shores in a timely manner.

The Australian community has also raised concerns about the level of foreign investment in Australia. I have heard this firsthand from some within my community. I know this is important, because people have been concerned about our interactions with other trading partners. Lastly, and perhaps most critically, is the consideration that must be given to all matters of national security. That remains a top priority in redesigning and reinvigorating trade and investment in Australia. Australia has worked hard in building a culture and a country we can all be proud of—one that is impressively multicultural and welcoming. This must remain and continue. In fact, every MP in this House, I would argue, enjoys the citizenship ceremonies right across this country, where in a bipartisan way we celebrate the multifaith, multicultural diversity and rich tapestry that is our nation. We need to support and continue this, but we also need to make sure that we are clear-eyed and open-minded about potential risks. Recommendation 6 of this report suggests taking steps to increase industry awareness of our national security and national interest risks in relation to trade and investment.

I've also heard from my electorate that there is a growing concern about foreign influence in our world-class education institutions. That is why recommendation 9 of the report resonates. It asks the government to work with the states and territories, industry and the university sector to investigate new options to increase domestic funding for universities and university research. I'm proud of my advocacy in this capacity, having previously been a university professor and knowing that there is cross-subsidisation of universities from international student profitability into the research sector. I fought very hard to make sure that there is some funding—$800 million of funding—being put towards research to help the universities through this transition and overreliance on international students. But we also need to ensure that universities publicly disclose the receipt of funding, including for research, from foreign state linked bodies and individuals. We also need to make sure that the veto powers contained in the Australia's Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Act 2020 allow restrictions on foreign state linked funding to Australian universities where such funding is considered not to be in the national interest.

In conclusion, I thank the committee chair, the member for Dawson, the deputy chair, the member for Cooper, and my fellow committee members and all those who made submissions on this incredibly important issue. I commend this inquiry report to the chamber.

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