Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I am here today speaking from my electorate office in Brand, supporting the Customs Amendment (2022 Harmonized System Changes) Bill 2021 and the Customs Tariff Amendment (2022 Harmonized System Changes) Bill 2021 on behalf of Labor. The purpose of the harmonised system changes bill is to amend the Customs Tariff Act to implement the outcomes of the World Customs Organization's sixth review of the harmonised commodity description and coding system, which I will call the 'harmonised system', which is scheduled to commence internationally on 1 January 2022.

The parliament is also considering at the same time the Customs Amendment (2022 Harmonised System Changes) Bill 2021, which seeks to amend the definition of 'tobacco products' in the Customs Act 1901. This second bill is required because the first bill provides that e-cigarettes and vapes will have their own classification code under the international harmonised system. Consequently, one of the oldest acts of this Australian parliament, the Customs Act 1901, must be amended to reflect this change, and the emergence of these new tobacco related and consumption products.

The amendments will ensure these products continue to be subject to the existing regulatory requirements such as tax and excise required of all tobacco products under the Customs Act. Labor will support both these bills but, in so doing, Labor has moved, through the member for Paterson, a second reading amendment because it is important to recognise that international trade will be crucial to Australia's post-COVID-19 economic recovery, and the government's inability to secure a variety of vaccine deals has left Australians dangerously vulnerable, particularly those in trade-exposed industries.

My comments today reflect principally on the Customs Tariff Amendment deal, which concerns the harmonised commodity description and coding system. The harmonised system allocates classifications and descriptions used to identify all tradeable goods. The World Customs Organization maintains this system, and WCO members, including Australia, review it on a five-yearly basis. The coding system changes to reflect emerging technologies and changing trade patterns, and also seeks to monitor trade in dangerous and lethal components or products. The system plays a very important role in helping to monitor goods that can be exploited to the detriment of their country of origin and the wider global community.

For those who are unaware—and I accept that may be many—the Customs Tariff Act provides an eight-digit classification with a six-digit international classification, supplemented by two digits for domestic purposes. These additional two digits are made use of by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for their very important analysis of trade. I note that tonight is census night, which the ABS is running, and I encourage everyone to participate. Of course, it's our obligation as citizens to participate, and I know everybody will. It's a very important night for the ABS and an important night for Australia, and it's important that everyone is counted.

I will go back to the harmonised system. Especially as the world changes and technology advances, so too does the classification of the goods we trade. Codes for new goods are added, some goods are reclassified and other goods codes drop off the list. For example: typewriters were once on this list and now, since the fifth review that the WCO carried out some five or six years ago, they are not. They can still be traded, but it will be done under a different code, a broader code.

Examples of the changes to the codes in the harmonised system that reflect changing patterns of consumption and trade around the world include new coding for edible insects, which are evidently becoming increasingly popular on international menus. I have to admit I've yet to see edible insects on the specials lists in the local restaurants here in Rockingham, but that is not to say that that day will not come! The harmonised system will now contain coding related to yoghurt containing added spices, coffee or coffee extracts, plants, parts of plants, cereals or baker's ware. Although I've not tried yoghurt with coffee, there are many yoghurt products on our supermarket shelves containing cereals or parts of plants and they will now have their separate coding.

We have all seen the rapid expansion of broccolini across the menus of Australia and this trend is evidently global, as the harmonised system has expanded the relevant coding subheading to ensure that all varieties of broccoli are grouped together. This is a sensible reform which now sees cauliflower grouped with broccoli, bringing all the products of the Brassicaceae family together under the one code in the international trading system.

A new code has emerged to reflect the increasing volume of trade in truffles and certain varieties of mushrooms. Many will be aware of the high value of truffles, which is an indication of the challenges of harvesting them but also of their absolute deliciousness. The Australian Truffle Growers Association estimate that in 2020 Australia truffieres produced over 20,000 kilograms of truffles. They are produced in New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria, Tasmania and, of course, south-west Western Australia. Indeed, Manjimup in Western Australia accounts for 80 per cent of Australia's truffle production and is the largest producer of black truffles in the Southern Hemisphere. They are widely sought around the world, challenging the famous French black truffles. Earlier this year Manjimup hosted the 10th Truffle Kerfuffle, which is a festival celebrating all things truffle and other delights of the south-west of WA. It is held at the height of truffle season in June, which is an absolutely beautiful time to be here in the south-west of Western Australia. Ninety per cent of Western Australia's truffles are destined for export, and now this highly desirable product has its own code under the harmonised system.

Other products which have been given a separate code because they are increasingly present in international trade include 3D printers, smartphones and electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles. All are products that had not warranted such a classification under a previous review of the system. Surprisingly, solar water heaters, which many Australians have had on their rooftops for many years, have only now been coded separately, indicating the increased trade in these products globally.

What of the products that have declined? Like the typewriter that was the subject of the previous World Customs Organization review, answering machines are no longer much traded. In the mid-1990s, whole songs were written about the messages to leave on an answering machine. The De La Soul classic 'Ring Ring Ring' has little resonance today, but in 1991 this tune about an answering machine message was an absolute phenomenon. Like most pop phenomena, it became increasingly irritating the longer it went on. Now, like the album of 1991, De La Soul is dead. We may well say the answering machine is dead.

Also falling off a specific coding list to the more general codes are springs, including hairsprings used for clock and watch parts. Maps and hydrographic or similar charts of all kinds, including atlases, wall maps, topographical plans and world globes, are no longer separately identified as they are no longer traded in sufficient volumes. I know of a map shop that once had a sign declaring 'globes make good gifts'—evidently not so much anymore. Instead of world globes and the atlas that used to sit on the bookshelf of most homes we now tend to look to Google Earth or similar products. Consumer demands change, and international trade changes along with them. However, in saying that, I will note that the member for Paterson revealed to me today that, in fact, the last two things she purchased were a world globe and a map of the world to put on her office wall. So some things do remain the same!

Importantly the harmonised system is used in the monitoring of trade patterns to help conservation efforts. For example, in this review, the potential impact of the overexploitation of the African cherry tree in the wild because of the growing use of its bark by the international pharmaceutical industry will be monitored by the application of a dedicated code for this product. Many would be unaware that these new codes will help facilitate the monitoring and control of substances restrained under the chemical weapons convention and goods required for the production and use of improvised explosive devices.

Adjustment of the harmonised system also monitors substances that deplete the ozone layer, controlled by virtue of the Kigali amendments to the Montreal Protocol. The Montreal Protocol was an excellent example of the world working together on a massive environmental problem of human creation, and it should be pleasing for all that care for the environment to see international trading systems working and adapting to ensure trade in the ozone-depleting chemicals is actively monitored. As you can see from these examples, the harmonised system works to do much in international trade, including monitoring substances that endanger lives and the environment.

International trade is demonised in some activist circles to the extent that issues raised are sometimes not credible, are sometimes entirely unbelievable and are sometimes regularly untrue. At the same time there are many legitimate concerns surrounding the international trading system raised sensibly by thoughtful individuals and groups. It is important these concerns are addressed by governments and the international trade policy community. Equally I believe it is important that we recognise the good work done in the global interest by institutions, such as the World Customs Organization and all the nation states, including Australia, that are actively involved in those negotiations.

The coded harmonised system is an important and wholly undervalued tool in the global effort to curb the development of chemical weapons and improvised explosive devices and the re-emergence of products that endanger the ozone layer, and these are just three examples. There are more, as an examination of the explanatory memorandum associated with this bill will reveal.

I'd like to take this chance to thank the member for Blair for encouraging us to take a deeper dive into the harmonised system, enabling me to share this new knowledge of mine with the parliament today. To conclude I will say that Labor will support the changes proposed in the bills to appropriately adjust the harmonised system of commodity coding that enables international trade and so much more. I commend the bills to the House, and I commend the second reading amendment.

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