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

I'm not a member of this committee, but I've got an interest in trade policy, and last term I did spend a couple of years on the trade and investment growth committee so I took at the report. Honestly, 12 months of work and this is what they come up with. You don't know whether to laugh or cry. It's great bag of platitudes, some motherhood recommendations but the most ridiculous thing, the astounding thing, is it reads like the Liberals haven't been in government for the last eight years. They've just discovered all these new problems and things that need to be fixed. It's astounding. It's almost like there isn't a trade crisis, like there are not still 53 ships stuck off the coast of China. The last time I spoke on trade we thought that was part of the comeback strategy—'Come back home. They don't want you!' We've stuffed up the relationship so badly they don't want the ships. They're still there.

International education is smashed. It's our fourth largest export sector, worth more than 240,000 jobs in this country. There are more jobs from international education than there are from the mining sector or the agriculture sector. What industry support has international ed had? Zero. Last week we heard $1.2 billion of cheap flights to marginal seats to support bits and pieces of the tourism industry, if they're lucky enough to be in marginal seats, but not a dollar for the international ed sector—just platitudes in this report.

Anyone speaking on this would run out of time to talk about the good bits, but let's just have look at diversification. The government have made a great new discovery. In their eighth year they've discovered that we're a bit dependent on China, our largest trading partner. The previous speakers talked about COVID—it was all revealed because of COVID. What nonsense. Since the government came to office our dependence on China for trade has increased, that's nothing to do with COVID. When this government was elected 26 per cent of our trade was with China. It's now 35 per cent. It's 35 per cent and they have discovered a new problem. Maybe the member for Dawson's strategy to deal with diversification is to do everything he can to talk down and insult our major trading partner. The report title here is: Pivot: Diversifying Australia's trade and investment profile. He's got a whole website calling it: 'the China inquiry: enough is enough'. That's his strategy for diversification, talk down our biggest trading partner and the others might look a bit even as the country gets poorer.

It is true that we're facing a serious and growing trade crisis with China but the focus on this crisis—I should say the current short-term boost in iron ore exports—obscures the reality that trade performance under the Liberals has been patchy at best and has stagnated or gone backwards on key metrics in their eighth year. Export diversification in simple terms is: don't put all your eggs in one basket. Like I said, it has become more concentrated. The latest global data—they don't like hearing about data and facts; it confuses the spin and the marketing if you talk about data and facts—the International Monetary Fund's export diversification index, showed that Australia's export diversity is now ranked at 84th globally. That's a level that was last seen in this country in the 1960s. They have been in government for eight years and they have just discovered there's a problem.

But let's have another look. This a good dot point, isn't it? Enhanced diplomatic capability to identify and secure new supply chains and markets—that's terrific, that would mean not cutting DFAT. The government cut another six diplomats this is year, including two from Papua New Guinea. I agree with the member for Dawson's dot point there. But what they have been doing in every year of government is cutting our diplomatic capability. It's like Fantasy Island. It's another universe. Enid Blyton might've been the ghost writer of this report.

Then we get to recommendation 2—the government, so the committee thinks, 'should create greater trade opportunities for Australian exporters'. Well, that sounds like a good idea doesn't it? Good on you, government. But then we get to the first dot point: we're going to deliver on our India Economic Strategy. That's a terrific idea. It cost you $1.5 million three years ago, in 2018—commissioned from Peter Varghese, the former secretary of the foreign affairs department. Guess how many recommendations the government's implemented three years on from the report? Any bets? One out of 20. The only thing they have done is open a new office in Kolkata. They have done nothing on the other 20 recommendations, the serious meaningful ones. The Prime Minister announced this with great fanfare. He loved the announcement, but he hasn't actually delivered. But it's good the member for Dawson is saying, 'We should implement a report we got three years ago.' That'll fix the problem! He also says, 'We should encourage people to make greater use of free trade agreements and eliminate non-tariff barriers.' Well, that's a good idea, isn't it? But there is no honest auditing of the outcomes of these free trade agreements. It was Andrew Robb who stated, 'We don't have an economic policy, so let's do free trade agreements everywhere we can.'

Anyone who knows about trade theory would tell you that you want global agreements, and, if you can't get global agreements, you want regional agreements. Only then—sometimes, maybe—do you go to bilateral free trade agreements. Trade economic theory shows they will actually often confuse the market and make things more complex and raise costs. But the government is scared to undertake a proper analysis of the impact of their free trade agreements. They just want to keep announcing them. They never go back and look at whether they've achieved anything or whether they have grown or harmed the economy. They just want to announce new ones. But non-tariff barriers are not a new issue. If you talk to any of the businesses in my electorate in the great Dandenong manufacturing precinct, they'll tell you, it's not free trade agreements they want. Tariffs are not the issue in the vast majority of markets; it's the non-tariff barriers, the cultural issues, the standards and the dodgy checks at the borders. This takes hard work and it takes agency capability. And yet, they keep cutting the departments that are supposed to do this work. It's just nonsense.

Then we get recommendation 4. This is terrific! It says:

… the Australian Government increase its encouragement of key Asian languages and cultures for K-12 students, to create better understanding and Asia-capability for future generations.

It's good that we understand that flying to and from Manila all the time is not actually increasing the nation's aggregate Asia capability—that's a good start. But the hypocrisy is profound. This was the government that, eight years ago, scrapped the Rudd-Gillard government's initiatives that have been doing this very work for those six years. The Rudd-Gillard government, the former Labor government, had the National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program and they had the Becoming Asia Literate grants to schools, which actually did this work. This is the government that scrapped it. The Prime Minister has been in the cabinet for all of those eight years, and now we've got government muppets saying, 'It's a good idea to encourage people in future generations to learn Asian languages.' It is a good idea. But there is a say-do gap. You say it's a good idea, but all you do is cut the funding and not act on the reports and the recommendations. Why should any Australian believe anything is going to be different because of these nice platitudes and words?

This recommendation is a good one too. It says we should:

We could have a raffle! We could start having fundraisers for universities! This is the government that, year after year and budget after budget, has done everything to cut and try to cut billions of dollars from university funding. Now they're saying we need to go and do more sources. I heard the previous speaker, the member for Higgins, say with a straight face, 'There's been an over-reliance on international students.' Well, that's because the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, two years ago, were out there telling the universities to go and recruit more international students as they took another $1.1 billion out of the university funding. What hypocrisy.

You cut the university funding and then you said: 'You're too reliant. Go and recruit international students.' Then you said: 'You're too reliant on international students. What have you been doing, silly universities? Go and find some other money.' We could have a cake bake for the universities! That might be what he means. Who knows what he means? Maybe he means: do the only other thing the government has done, which is jack-up student fees. This is a government under which, in four years, we've seen student debt rise per average by student by 36.7 per cent. Their only university funding policy so far has been to cut the public funding and load the debt on to students and make the next generation pay. Maybe that's what they mean?

We've got the Sovereign Manufacturing Capability—he said 'capacity' but I think he probably meant 'capability', but that's the member for Dawson. But it's not a bad idea either. He is representing an electorate where manufacturing is still the largest single biggest employment sector. But maybe they could have not chased the car industry out of Australia. That would have been a good idea. Then we would have a whole industry there with modern technology and a supply chain. But, no, they did that.

This recommendation is good too. It says:

I actually think that's a good idea. I support the video game development industry.

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