Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support and thank the member for Adelaide for bringing forward this motion on this very important issue not only to Australia as a whole but to the miners and farmers in my electorate of O'Connor in particular.

I cannot speak on trade agreements in this place without mentioning the great Bert Kelly, the modest member who represented the seat of—I'm going to have to refer to people more knowledgeable than me about Bert Kelly's seat, but he was certainly a South Australian member who fought for free trade back in the 1970s when it was very unfashionable in this place. I also want to mention Labor member Peter Walsh, who was the finance minister in the first Bob Hawke government. He was from Doodlakine, near Kellerberrin in my electorate of O'Connor. He also fought very hard for a free market for Australian farmers.

The current EU free trade negotiations will replace a 50-year-old agreement. That agreement was made in a very different time, back in the early 1970s, when the European Union had a butter mountain and an ocean of milk and other agricultural products that they were very much oversupplied in. The deal Australia got at that time was very poor not just by international standards but certainly by the standards compared to our neighbours, such as New Zealand. This negotiation is a great opportunity to put those wrongs to right. I applaud Minister Farrell for the work he's done thus far.

To put numbers on the benefits to agriculture and the farmers in my electorate, at the moment we currently sell $4 per head of agricultural produce or food to the European Union. They sell $200 per head of food to the Australian people. The average tariff on agricultural produce is 14.2 per cent. Going into specifics, on dairy that's 32 per cent, on sugar that's 27 per cent and on meat that's 19 per cent. At the moment, with the Western Australian meat market in freefall due to the current government's policy on live exports, we're seeing animals that have virtually no commercial value at the moment. It is critically important to Western Australian farmers that we get access to sell more meat into the European Union. If all tariffs to the European Union were eliminated, that would mean an additional $31 billion in GDP to the Australian economy.

What do we have in return for the European Union? Of course, we have critical minerals. That is something that Western Australia has in abundance. Last week, I was very pleased and honoured to introduce the shadow minister for resources, Senator Susan McDonald, to many of the operators in my electorate in Western Australia. We went to the Kathleen Valley lithium plant, which is nearly up and running, and we also visited the Lynas Rare Earths plant in Kalgoorlie, which is also nearing completion and moving into the production phase. These are important elements that will be required for the transition to more renewable energy, and they are also used in a lot of our high-tech gear, such as mobile phones. At the moment, the Chinese control in excess of 90 per cent of the world's critical minerals. Therefore, Australia has a very strong bargaining position.

One of the things I urge Minister Farrell to be very cautious of is allowing the European Union to impose their farming practices on our farmers. We have glyphosate, which is a very, very important chemical for the Australian farming sector. Some may say it is probably the most important investment in agriculture since humans first started to plant crops. It is critically important that we don't allow the European Union to impose their values in relation to glyphosate on us, and also in relation to methane emissions and nitrogen. We have seen Dutch farmers driven to the wall and, basically, rebel against their governments. We have to be eternally vigilant about not allowing the European Union to impose those practices on our hardworking farmers.

See this speech in context