Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade. Would the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade advise the House of the importance of the Cairns Group meeting in Queensland next week? Would he also advise the House how Australia’s trade agenda and export performance are critical to our long-term prosperity? Is he aware of any proposals that might put this prosperity at risk?

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Leichhardt for his question and acknowledge that he has been integral, along with the organisations in Cairns, in helping prepare for the 20th anniversary of the Cairns Group ministerial meeting to be held in Cairns next week. I thank the member for Leichhardt and look forward to him participating in those events and meetings next week.

The Cairns Group was established by Australia 20 years ago as a key component to drive the agenda as far as agricultural trade liberalisation is concerned. It has a membership of 18 countries that all have a common view about liberalising the trade in agricultural products, and next week we will have the 20th anniversary of the meeting of that group in Cairns. The Prime Minister will join me in Cairns with trade representatives from many other countries across the world, including the Director-General of the WTO and two ministers from the United States—the USTR, Susan Schwab, and also the ag secretary, Mike Johanns. It is an integral part of the WTO and it is an integral part of Australia’s trade policy in trying to force open markets through the multilateral system. At the same time, we have been actively pursuing our bilateral agenda and providing opportunities in the international marketplace for Australia’s commercial interests, and that has fed into last year’s record level of exports of goods and services out of Australia of $192 billion. That has grown over the last 10 years from $99 billion to $192 billion.

But it has not just been founded on developing and opening up markets across the world and providing new opportunities for Australia’s exporters; it has been about providing a much stronger and better structured economic circumstance within Australia to make them more internationally competitive. We have maintained a strong economy for that reason. In the tax reform processes we have removed significant dollars, in terms of taxes, off our exports. We improved the inefficiency of the waterfront, which to many exporting industries has been the one and most significant reform that has delivered enormous benefits to them and allowed them to compete in the international marketplace. And, of course, we have provided for a more flexible workplace for the workers in export industries across Australia. I instance Queensland, the state where the member for Leichhardt comes from, and Western Australia particularly. We have seen unemployment drop nationally to 4.9 per cent. In Western Australia it has dropped to 3.6 per cent and in Queensland it has dropped to 4.5 per cent as a result of growth in exports and flexibility in the workplace.

This climate in Australia and the competitive nature of our export industries are threatened by the position that the Labor Party is taking as far as industrial relations are concerned. The Leader of the Opposition and the Secretary of the ACTU have said that they are going to rip up AWAs. They are going to reduce that flexibility and reduce that comparative advantage that we have in the international marketplace—the competitiveness that we have developed in the international marketplace. Now they are saying that they are going to reintroduce collective bargaining, and we saw the member for Perth trying to step away a bit from this in the media yesterday. ‘I’m happy to give it due consideration,’ is what the member for Perth said about the collective bargaining proposal of the Leader of the Opposition and Greg Combet, but we do know from the position taken on AWAs that when the unions say, ‘Jump,’ the Leader of the Opposition says, ‘How high?’ That is the position he has taken on AWAs, and we know the position he will take on collective bargaining, but what exporters also want to know is what work practices he is going to reintroduce back on the waterfront, where we have generated some efficiencies. What is he going to do to our exporters on the waterfront? It is a stark choice for the electorate in Australia: you have the coalition government that wants to stand with and work with job creators; you have the Australian Labor Party that wants to work with the job destroyers in this country.