Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the member for moving this motion and agree with a lot of what is in it. This country's wealth was born in the early 1980s—I'll even acknowledge Paul Keating as Treasurer—when Paul Keating embarked on a lower taxes, lower tariff economic model. From that, and followed by the Howard government and others since, those policies have driven the wealth and the growth of this country and given us a quality of living that we have now enjoyed for over 40 years.

One of the great unsung achievements of the previous coalition government, between 2013 and 2022, was in the Fee Trade Area agreement. I've just seen a former trade minister walk in. Through that time, we had goods and services that were covered by a free trade agreement go from 20 per cent to—and the minister here did the two deals; the UK deal and the India deal—80 per cent. That's been a great thing; that's been no small thing.

There's a big test here for the Labor government. They don't have a good record in nailing free trade agreements. The EU trade agreement is going to be a test for them. I also note that these free trade agreements have encouraged growth in our export areas. Because we have extra markets for things that we export, there has been a hell of a lot of investment in the areas that we excel at exporting. Currently, those areas are coal, gas, iron ore and ag. Those four areas combined are probably generating, give or take, depending on the prices of those commodities--let's round it out at $400 billion. That would generate—this is back-of-envelope stuff—over $100 billion a year into the three different levels of government income, whether it be royalties, company taxes or pay-as-you-go taxes for those who work in those areas. Those areas of funding our country right now, and the investment has gone into those areas because of the free trade agreements that have been driven largely by a coalition government.

I note, though, that the union movement and parts of Labor don't like free trade agreements. Last year, members of the CFMEU said before a committee that they don't like free trade agreements and they think they take Australian jobs—albeit one in four jobs is related to an export industry. Work that one out. So, I note that there are areas within Labor that do not like free trade agreements. In fact, I remember speaking to Andrew Robb, a great previous coalition trade minister, who said that his job was to do three free trade agreements in his first 12 months. The South Korean trade agreement was ready to sign because the previous Labor minister wasn't allowed to sign it because there was an ISDS provision in it.

This is good news in trade for our country. I certainly wish the current minister well in negotiating a good deal. What will a good deal look like for Australia? It's always a sticking point, and I've had many amicable conversations with the minister, but he can't surrender on whole beef, sheep, rice, dairy and sugar quotas. He's saying he's not going to surrender on that. We have to get good access for our agricultural sectors. The quotas are really important, and, within that, there are things we need to look out for. Just quietly, I don't think New Zealand's deal with the EU was a great deal for New Zealand. The EU can't impose their farming practices on us. We have a very different farming sector. We have broadacre farming. We do a lot of things differently from Europe, because they don't have the space to do it the way we do. They even divide up grass and grain fed beef. We have to have access for both those different categories and not surrender the way New Zealand did. Mind you, New Zealand don't have a lot of grain fed beef. That being said, we cannot agree to some of the things New Zealand did. I've made that very clear to the minister as well. And we can't import the farming practices that the EU use, because ours are just not equivalent.

Another thing that has been mentioned is GIs. I've met the prosecco growers in the King Valley in Victoria, and I've spoken to the minister. Not only do we not want to give that up; we can't grandfather it. What do I mean by grandfathering? It means allowing existing producers to use terms like prosecco or feta or any other GIs, but new producers can't. That doesn't work either. How do you onsell a business if the new owner potentially can't use that? So they have to be ruled out completely. This has to be a good deal. This deal will stand for long time. It has to be a good deal for the Australian community.

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