Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Customs Amendment (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Implementation) Bill 2021 and the Customs Tariff Amendment (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Implementation) Bill 2021 give many members in the House the opportunity to rise to talk about the way that Australia has been able to forge an incredible reputation for itself as a trading nation and, as the previous member stated, how we have excised ourselves away from the protectionism that we had in place through the sixties and seventies. We opened up to the world and we certainly opened up to China and many other Asian countries. Many of those countries are represented in the RCEP agreement, and it's great that we continue to hone these agreements in ways that are going to give our exporters access to lower tariffs and favourable arrangements when they can prove that the goods that they are trading are, in fact, originating goods that have come solely from any of these 14 countries.

The work that we have done in recent years in China with the ChAFTA, Japan with the JAEPA, and Korea with the KAFTA has been with substantial agreements. They have continued over the years to give our exporters more and more favourable opportunities as the years go on. That's effectively how our trading reputation and trading situation have got to where we are at the moment. In agriculture we talk about a nation that can grow enough food for 75 million people, and this year is going to be a bumper year with our grain harvest, our dairy production and our fruit harvest. Many of these companies that exist within the Goulburn Valley have very strong markets overseas, and the need for us to have word-leading trade agreements is absolutely paramount for their success.

We have only recently signed the UK trade agreement, a brand-new agreement that we've been working on as Britain has been exiting itself from the European Union. Over the last four or five years we have been working extensively with the European Union to try and bring about a free trade agreement with that block of nations as well. As you can understand, that's taken an awful amount of time and negotiation. But if we are able to land a free trade agreement with the whole European Union I think it would certainly give Australia its third biggest trading block.

In the Goulburn Valley, within my electorate, we have companies such as Unilever, who have a base at Tatura. SPC is an iconic Shepparton preserving company—a factory. We have Campbell Soup, Freedom Foods, saputo, Parmalat, Bega, Kagome tomatoes. We have canola refineries making canola oil—sending that off overseas—based in Numurkah. We have Fonterra and Kyvalley Dairy. It is incredible how many food and dairy processing plants we have within the Goulburn Valley and nearly all of them are reliant upon strong and robust trade agreements.

A phrase that has come to the fore of trade negotiations and trade speak recently is 'a rules based order'. Unfortunately the reason why we talk so much about a rules based order is that we do in fact come up against some countries—one in particular—that tend to shy away from some of the rules that are in place. So we do in fact need to have these very strict and very tight rules that will give our exporters the confidence they need, and give them the comfort that they need, so that they can plan for their futures in a way that when fruit that hits the wharf in another country we know that it's going to be accepted. If the food and the processed food is of a high quality we expect it to be accepted. We expect the financials to be reciprocated. But we do have a range of issues with that. We just have to continually stress the importance of a rules based order when it comes to our trade. With these bills that we are dealing with here today we will see the honing down of this term, which is an RCEP originating good, and that's going to give our traders that extra incentive, as the preferential rates for the customs duties are bought into effect. That's going to be a significant saving for our exporters.

As the previous speaker also noted, we have been through an enormous change in the last 50 years in relation to trade and how it has significantly impacted our standard of living and the way we go about doing things here in Australia. Unfortunately in the last decade we have lost a motor vehicle industry, but prior to that we had an incredibly prosperous motor vehicle industry. We have also lost a whole range of other industries—like with our wool. Unfortunately we've got this situation in Australia where we produce about the 95 per cent of the world's fine wool, but we send 95 per cent of that fine wool over to China where it is processed and sent around the world as a processed yarn. We buy back very expensive Italian suits—with our own produce. These are some of the challenges that are now facing us. Are we able to go back in and put our toe back in the water in relation to some of the processing and some of the manufacturing jobs and industries that we have let go over the years? Are we able to go back and reinvigorate some of these manufacturing industries that are going to give us that opportunity to value-add and get a far better slice out of all of this food and fibre that we produce here in Australia?

I think that, if we can continue to hone our agreements that we have in place and build on new ones—there are many agreements that we have such as the comprehensive and progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership that we have with another 11 or 12 trading nations there. There are other countries looking to come in and join the CPTPP, and that will again give us greater access under different arrangements as well.

It's a very bright time for Australia. I want to commend the work that Minister Birmingham did when he had this portfolio, and now Minister Tehan takes over the mantle. It's a very exciting time for Australia, and we have this incredible opportunity as more and more countries look to get hold of our high-quality exports as these developing nations move into the middle class. I think Australia has much to benefit from if we embrace the trade opportunities that are available.

But, as I said earlier, it is critically important that we have the safety net of these rules based trading agreements. We simply cannot afford to get overexposed—which we probably already are—to some nations that then refuse to follow through with the original agreements that have been in place for a number of years. Look forward very much in the next short while to us finalising the deal with the European Union. Having those 26 or 27 countries come on board with that pact will also open up an incredible opportunity for many of our major industries. I think it will really add to our GDP but will also add to our quality of life if we are able to create a whole range of new markets of the substantial populations that exist throughout Europe.

I look forward to these bills going through the House. I look forward to the opportunity for us to continue to put new trade agreements in place, improve the ones that we already have and make sure that into the future there are going to be great opportunities for us both to import and, in this instance, effectively to create the export markets that we have done so well with to date. We look like we will be able to do that in the future even more so with improved arrangements such as we are talking about here in this bill.

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