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

by leave—I rise today to fully endorse the comments of the chair and the report Trading north: inquiry into the role of Australian agriculture in Southeast Asian markets. This report builds on the seminal Moore report, which establishes a very firm and strong document to work from. The committee's efforts were based around enhancing and adding to that work. We already have very well-established, strong trading relationships with South-East Asia, but we can always improve those relations in the interests of both our nation and those nations in South-East Asia. As the report identified, food security is of critical importance to those Asian nations, and developing those enduring and ongoing trading relationships is just as important to them as it is to us.

I just want to do a series of thanks, particularly to those people who contributed to the report by making submissions and appearing before the inquiry to give evidence. I want to thank the committee secretariat on my personal behalf, noting the chair has already done that on behalf of the committee: Fran Denny, the committee secretary, Dr Bill Pender, the inquiry secretary, Emily Meggs and, let's not forget, Ben Vea Vea, who worked with us for most of this period. The chair has thanked the committee for the work on this particular report, but I want to go a step further and thank the chair for how she's conducted the committee over the term of this parliament. This will be the final report that we do. We did have some interesting times! Normally, ag is a pretty bipartisan and friendly committee. We had a short interlude where we weren't always getting on the best, but, to your great credit, Chair, you kept things on track, and we're all still good friends at the end of it. That's a great credit to you, so well done. To all the other committee members who are here today, thank you for the work that you've done over the course of this parliament. I really appreciate it, and I thoroughly endorse the report to the House.

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