Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very happy to speak in support of the bills, which implement Australia's commitments under the Australian-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement and under the Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement. The free trade agreements with India and the United Kingdom are in their own ways of very substantial value to Australia. They are built upon the depth and quality of the relationship between Australia and India and between Australia and the United Kingdom. Those relationships include considerable person-to-person links. They include complementary trade and investment interests, an important shared history of international engagement and cooperation, and a shared commitment to dealing with a range of strategic economic and environmental challenges, none of which can be handled without concerted and collaborative efforts.

The suite of legislation we debate here today forms a key requirement for the timely ratification of these agreements, which the Albanese Labor government is absolutely focused on delivering. It is a further instalment of Australia's consistent performance as an active and reliable trading partner. I will pick up a couple of things that the member for Page said. In the last couple of months there has been a slightly odd effort by those opposite, some of whom know the process around these things well enough to realise that the effort they have been engaged is faintly ridiculous. The effort has been to somehow suggest that the current government isn't moving quickly enough to see the ratification of these agreements. Of course that's just rubbish. We have in this country and in this parliament a committee process that helps give us the highest quality agreement-making that the Australia community can expect. It does involve the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties. That committee, which I chair, expedited the consideration of these agreements and has ensured that the reports have been tailored in order for the legislation to come before the parliament and for the agreements to be ratified. So the idea that this has somehow been anything less then focused, timely action by the Albanese Labor government is just a made-up fairy tale perpetrated, prosecuted by those opposite.

Both of these agreements are especially timely at a point where Australia needs to enable trade diversification as much as trade growth. The effective ratification of the agreements before the end of the year will mean that Australian exporting businesses will get two closely successive tariff cuts. The first will apply on entry into force, and the second will occur on 1 January next year. That double tariff cut, needless to say, should be a welcome end-of-year prospect for Australian export businesses. They have faced choppy waters in the wake of the pandemic and, unfortunately, in the aftermath of China's geo-economic coercion.

For a range of sectors around this nation the double tariff-cut will provide either an immediate boost or the prospect, in the short order, of opening up new opportunities as we head into 2023 and beyond. In addition to the benefit of tariff reductions and increased tariff-free quotas in some areas, the India and UK agreements serve to diversify and deepen Australia's set of trading relationships. There's no doubt that within our Indo-Pacific region India represents an absolutely critical international partnership for Australia for lots of reasons, with a huge potential to be realised between our two nations in the decade to come.

It's worth noting that for India this agreement is the country's first free trade agreement with a major developed country in over 10 years. That goes to show how significant it is for India and how precious this kind of agreement is. It shows you the extent to which it is a long sought after and hard-won achievement. The negotiations on which it is based began back in 2011, more than a decade ago.

It has been the commendable work of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and ministers on both sides over many years which has led us here today. Putting the silly partisan games aside, I would like to acknowledge the work by the member for Wannon, the former Minister for Trade, who signed this agreement. He signed it in April this year and, indeed, he signed the UK agreement. He signed that agreement virtually in 2021 in the circumstances of the pandemic. I am sure that the member for Page, if he had his time again, and other people, would stand up and note that the negotiations began under the former Labor government back in 2011. They're being delivered, of course, by this Labor government—

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