James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

I join my colleague the member for Casey and other coalition speakers in welcoming the Customs Tariff Amendment (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Expansion) Bill 2024, indicating our support for it and, I suppose, also welcoming the United Kingdom to the world of having sovereignty over their own trade policy, because, indeed, it has only become an option for them in the last few years, since they left the European Common Market, to make decisions like entering the TPP framework.

Teddy Heath's decision in 1973, from memory, to enter the European Common Market was a really dark day for the Commonwealth of Nations and particularly for this great country and the economic relationship that we had with the United Kingdom. Many Australians, and particularly Australian businesses, saw that decision of the United Kingdom as one that saw them turning their backs on Commonwealth nations like Australia that had had a very deeply intertwined economic relationship with the UK until that point. My grandfather was the general manager of Mount Isa Mines, and in the fifties, sixties and seventies Australian companies, particularly mining companies, transacted all their sales through London. The London Metal Exchange was where Australians sold copper to the Japanese and so on and so forth. We were very interlinked with London, and, whilst we are happy to have the economic independence that we have today, it was disappointing to see the UK market closed off to so many Australian producers through the UK's decision to enter the European Common Market.

What that has been for decades is a complete protection racket for poor-quality producers against efficient producers like Australia. For decades and decades, Australian produce, particularly agricultural produce, struggled to compete in the European market, including in the United Kingdom, because it wasn't a level playing field. The protectionism, the tariff situation, the subsidy situation and the rationing of production—all of the various instruments that were available under that Common Agricultural Policy to all members of the European Economic Community, which became the EU and still operates to this day as a common market—conspired against Australian producers. Then, of course, we had the situation where trade wars would start to occur between North America and Europe, and it was a race to see who could protect their industries the most. Australia often got deeply caught in the crossfire of that and was majorly impacted by that crossfire.

To be fair, governments of the Labor persuasion, like the Hawke government, really called that out quite effectively, with things like the formation of the Cairns Group—which Australia led, of course, which is why it is called the Cairns Group—a group of like-minded nations that wanted to see trade liberalisation and see things like the TPP come to fruition but, more importantly than that, see the World Trade Organization come into its establishment. That happened with the Uruguay Round from 1986 to 1993 and the signing of the GATT in 1994. In 1995, the WTO finally came into existence, superseding the GATT 1947 regime, which had been relatively ineffective in achieving what everyone, particularly Australia, wanted it to, which was a fair and even playing field for the free trade of goods.

This country has never been frightened of competing out there in a free, deregulated global marketplace. In fact, we know, as a nation of—I think we're about to tick up to 27 million people in population. We are a comparatively small country with great abundance and the ability to produce certain commodities, in particular, in dramatic surplus to our domestic needs. That means that we need export markets and the opportunity to sell what we produce here not just to ourselves but to any nation around the world that wants to trade with us. We've agreed that the reciprocity of that means us equally not protecting industries in our country that might struggle to compete on a level playing field with others.

The breakdown of that protected trade tariff structure that commenced in the 1980s caused some collateral damage and some challenges to certain sectors in this country, and I worked in one of them myself, in the textile sector. We lost an enormous amount of textile manufacturing here in this country. As soon as the tariff walls fell, that obviously meant that countries with a comparative advantage in textile manufacturing—which in particular, regrettably, is the cost of labour—were able to easily compete and provide the same goods at a lower cost than Australian manufacturing. But we recognised—in particular, the Hawke and Keating government recognised—that the trade-off was going to increase the wealth of this country. Whilst we wouldn't sew together as many T-shirts as we had in the past and we might not, unfortunately, have the scale in our economy to maintain an unprotected whitegoods sector, for example—we've even lost the car industry in the decades since—the economic dividend of free trade would still mean that Australians would be wealthier. That has proved to be absolutely 100 per cent true. The economy that we are in right now, the strength of our economy and the abundance that we have in this nation are thanks to free trade and not being fearful of competition but embracing it.

This legislation that we have before us provides an opportunity for us to make the changes in our domestic legislation that we need to to accommodate United Kingdom joining the TPP. Some might wonder at the United Kingdom joining a Pacific trade forum, but it's always been the principle of the TPP that, where people seek to join it and where they are prepared to sign up to the framework that the TPP has in place, absolutely anyone is welcome. It's regrettable, frankly, that there aren't more people in the TPP than there currently are. It's regrettable that there are parts of the world, particularly our great friend the United States—in their politics, both Democrats and Republicans have really shifted quite a bit from what their attitudes to free and open markets were in the years and decades gone by. Both sides of politics in the United States have gone down a path of embracing increased protectionism. We in this country, thankfully, have not had the same intent or inclination from our political discourse—quite the reverse. There hopefully is consensus amongst the major parties in our national politics that free trade and open markets have been an overwhelmingly good thing for Australian industry, Australian jobs and Australian wealth, in particular in our resources sector and our agricultural sector.

We are one of the few nations on the planet to have a trade surplus with China. It is quite remarkable. There are hardly any countries that can say they have a trade surplus with China, and we have an enormous one with China. That's in an environment where we import a lot of product from China. So immense and so significant are our exports to China that they dramatically outweigh what we buy from China, and that's an overwhelmingly good thing. We've had strong trade surpluses for a long time now, particularly under the previous coalition government, that have endured, so far, under this government. Trade surpluses clearly, obviously and patently provide a dramatic uplift of wealth to our nation because we're selling more product to other markets than we're purchasing into our economy from other markets. The wealth of this nation is dramatically served by us embracing and achieving the dividend of free open markets.

This bill welcomes the United Kingdom into the TPP. It doesn't have a dramatic impact on our economic relationship with the United Kingdom because we have a free trade agreement directly with them, but it brings them into this community and this vehicle, the TPP. That is a big opportunity to continue to have its membership expanded. It would be great to have other genuine membership candidates come into the TPP—membership candidates that understand, respect and want to embrace the principles of the TPP.

It would also be good—I might indulge in my final few remarks—to see the World Trade Organization process and the next round of negotiations have some life breathed back into them. It is very disappointing that we haven't had any significant progress when it comes to the WTO rules and framework and further liberalisation of the multilateral system since the Uruguay Round. There's not been that significant progress we hoped would have happened in the intervening 30 years since the WTO came into existence with the successful conclusion of Uruguay. There have been some unsuccessful rounds and unsuccessful attempts to see further liberalisation of trade.

We in Australia are consistent and have a very strong record of always seeking and embracing opportunities in good faith to engage in trade liberalisation. We know it's good for the wealth of this nation. We know that free trade, open markets and open economies also provide a great collateral benefit of peace. When we're trading with each other and when we're integrated from an economic point of view, there is dramatically less incentive for conflict. So many conflicts were caused because of protected markets and a lack of free and open interaction economically between nations, and we know that trade liberalisation will achieve the reverse impact there.

I welcome the entry of the United Kingdom. I commend them for joining the TPP. I hope there are other opportunities for similar bills to be brought to us when other good-faith negotiations or applications to be in the TPP progress to this stage. With those comments, I commend the bill to the House.

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