Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I am pleased to inform the House of important progress that has been made in our efforts to conclude the Doha Round.

Last week in New Delhi, the Indian government hosted a trade ministers’ meeting, which was significant for two reasons. First, 35 countries attended, meaning that this was the most representative meeting of trade ministers since the Doha talks stalled in July 2008. Ministers were not just there in their own right, but also representing all the significant groupings within the WTO. Second, with India as the host, it represented the significant re-engagement of India, which was seen by many last year as an obstacle to conclusion.

Arising from New Delhi, significant and strengthened political momentum was injected into the Doha Round negotiations, with a direction to chief negotiators to intensify their efforts next week in Geneva. There was unanimous recognition that we are in the ‘end game’ of the Doha Round. There was unanimous support for a new and broad based commitment to intensifying negotiations to conclude the Doha Round in 2010—a commitment to not only focus only on the agriculture and NAMA issues, but negotiate horizontally across the range of Doha issues, such as services, rules and trade facilitation.

This outcome from New Delhi built on momentum from the significant re-engagement of the round since June this year. The outcome in instructing chief negotiators to meet next week is designed to enable significant progress to be reported to the G20 leaders meeting in Pittsburgh later this month.

The outcome of last week is another hard won outcome. It has come after long periods of strong and sustained advocacy by Australia. For the last 18 months this government has done everything possible to reactivate the Doha Round, to find a way through the obstacles, to work with key players, to find solutions. This government inherited less than ideal parameters in which to pursue Australian interests. This point was highlighted in the August edition of the Farm Policy Journal, which noted:

In 2001-2002, perhaps Australia could have negotiated differently within the Cairns Group and perhaps that might have made a difference

I have not used this as an excuse and just blamed predecessors. On the contrary we have accepted the legacy and tried to build upon it, to fight for gains for our industries and to fight for export markets that will result in more Australian jobs. But the legacy has meant that we have had to work hard to put Australia back at the centre of the world trade talks. We got very close to concluding the round in July of last year—we solved around 80 per cent of the major issues.

Last year the US and India were seen by many as the major players holding up a Doha outcome. Since then, Australia has been at the forefront of drawing these countries back into the negotiations—culminating in the outcomes in India last week. Progress since July last year has been difficult. The timing of the appointment of the new US trade representative and Indian elections have hampered efforts at quick resolution of engagement and quick resolution of outstanding issues. We took the first decisive road back to engagement at the Cairns Group meeting which I convened early in June in Bali, a meeting that is now widely acknowledged as having provided a new boost of political momentum to the Doha Round. A considerable amount of the credit for that re-engagement should go to the host, Indonesia—not only a strong Cairns Group member but also the Chair of the G33, the grouping of developing countries in the WTO. Despite its own elections in July, Indonesia saw the need to show leadership in the round.

The Cairns Group meeting also engaged the new US trade representative, Ron Kirk, and the new Indian commerce minister, Anand Sharma, for the first time—the latter barely one week into the job. That meeting in Bali started the momentum for the new political will needed to conclude—an instruction called for at an earlier London meeting of G20 leaders. The political will generated in Bali was further built upon at a meeting that we hosted in Paris, on the margins of the OECD. Collectively, the results from Bali and Paris fed into the L’Aquila, Italy, meeting, where leaders of the G8 plus an additional eight called for conclusion of the round by 2010. Then followed meetings of APEC in Singapore and ASEAN in Bangkok. These combined efforts prepared the ground for the successful outcomes that we had in New Delhi. Following that meeting, Prime Minister Singh told us personally that India is committed to concluding the round in 2010. He strongly supported us in getting the job done.

Progress has been evident on a number of fronts since July 2008. There have been two important factors in the way forward. First, the impact of the global financial crisis had a significant bearing. Leaders recognised trade is a key ingredient of the global recovery. Leaders have squarely placed their weight behind conclusion of the Doha Round, and the reasons are threefold.

• There is a new realisation of the importance of trade and how central it is to the global economy. Trade is an economic stimulus. Historically, world trade has grown three times faster than world output and each successful trade round has enhanced that multiplier effect.
• World leaders know that Doha offers the best insurance policy against the trend to protectionism, insurance that the world trading system will be reformed and insurance that a robust rules based system will prevail.
• Doha benefits will significantly boost the development of the world’s poorer countries—through tariff reductions and opening of advanced country export markets, particularly on agriculture.

Because of the importance of trade and concluding Doha, world leaders stand ready to become engaged to achieve that objective. So what we have is significant buy-in to the political will needed to achieve this result.

The second point I wanted to make here is that we also learnt the lesson from placing too much emphasis on just one ministerial meeting. As important as the meeting of ministers was in Geneva last July, it seemed to place all our eggs in one basket. It was a significant meeting because the political engagement got 80 per cent of the way there. The remaining 20 per cent has remained elusive ever since. To bridge the gaps we agreed that there should be more frequent engagements by ministers, in an informal way—to reinforce constantly the political will and to give continued and strong direction to negotiators—and in effect to establish an iterative process between political will and the technical solutions to outstanding Doha issues.

Our senior negotiators will meet in Geneva next week with clear instructions to do just that—to resolve issues or to narrow the gaps. The forward agenda will focus on key agriculture and NAMA issues. But it is also accepted that we need to intensify progress across the Doha landscape—services, rules, trade facilitation and other areas. This is the progress that we will report to the G20 leaders. This is the momentum that we must maintain at every opportunity remaining this year—as part of an intensified effort to conclude the round.

I think it is important to use this opportunity to address a couple of issues raised in two recent commentaries on Doha and on trade protectionism initiatives. The August edition of the Farm Policy Journal, which I referred to earlier, makes two key arguments that I wish to respond to. First, it suggests that what is on the table on agriculture is worse for Australia than existing trade opportunities. But nothing could be further from the truth. Doha offers enormous potential gains to Australian workers and Australian businesses, not just Australian farmers. For our farmers, what Doha offers is this:

• Cuts of up to 70 per cent on developed country tariffs
• Reductions of between 70 and 80 per cent in domestic support subsidies for major subsidisers such as the EC, Japan and the US
• For the EC this would mean a reduction from around €118 billion per year to €23 billion per year in support measures
• For the US this would mean a reduction of farm support from US$48 billion to US$14 billion
• The complete elimination of export subsidies by the end of 2013

On this point, last Thursday I met again with EC Commissioner Fischer-Boel to continue our push for the EC to end its dairy export subsidy program—a program that endangers the interests of our dairy exporters. Whilst we seem to have had some success in limiting the impact of these detrimental policies, the fact is that the subsidies still remain. Only the conclusion of the Doha Round would ensure the eradication of these sorts of policies and mean that they cannot be used in the future. That is what I mean when I talk about strengthening and building the insurance policy against the future use of policies detrimental to our farmers.

Beyond the agricultural gains, Doha would mean real market opportunities for our industrial producers and for our service providers. It would mean breaking down behind-the-border barriers to trade. It would make overseas investment easier and more reliable. It would mean jobs for Australians—and it should be noted again here in the House that one in five Australian jobs is generated by businesses involved in trade. Quite simply, the benefits from the Doha Round would be unparalleled and unequalled by any other trade agreement.

• The WTO has said that the round would bring benefits of $150 billion per year in increased trade through reduced tariffs alone
• A recent report by the US based Peterson Institute estimated that the annual boost to the world economy, the world GDP, from Doha could be between US$300 billion and US$700 billion
• Concluding Doha is an economic stimulus that does not require government spending
• Concluding Doha, quite frankly, takes us beyond arguments about exit strategies because it is about building an ongoing and sustainable strategy

With the growing momentum for the conclusion of Doha, and the emerging signs of economic recovery, it is time to strive for more than an ‘exit strategy’ from the global recession. It is time to strive for the higher goal of sustainable economic growth—growth that can create ongoing employment and deliver higher living standards.

The second article I want to refer to from the Farm Institute journal calls into question the role of the Cairns Group. The Cairns Group occupies a unique position in the WTO negotiations, being the only agricultural negotiating bloc that brings together developed and developing countries. Despite this mix, it provides a united, strong voice in the WTO against further agricultural trade distortion. Regardless of criticisms of the conduct of the group in the past, no-one can question the leadership of the Cairns Group over the past 18 months. We convened the group regularly in the lead-up to and during the July 2008 ministerial meeting.

The Cairns Group meeting in Bali this year is widely considered to have kick-started the Doha negotiations. And most recently, in New Delhi, the Cairns Group statement delivered strong impetus to the important outcomes from that meeting. I have heard no calls from farming groups—the very people that benefit from our leadership of the Cairns Group—to discontinue the grouping or to walk away from the Doha agriculture package. The truth is that the Rudd government has no intention of walking away from the Cairns Group—a grouping we initiated over 20 years ago, a grouping that we have re-energised and a grouping which is helping Australia strive for the best possible Doha outcome.

Another publication that came out recently was a paper from the Lowy Institute which recommends further G20 action to counter protectionist trade policies. In particular, I note that the paper calls for greater domestic transparency to counter domestic pressures for trade protectionism—particularly on so-called non-tariff barriers. I agree. But I think we need to go further. This government takes the view that transparency of trade policy development is not just about exposing protectionism—it is also about greater transparency and understanding of the benefits of trade. Put simply, we need to highlight why trade is good, not just here but globally.

As part of my recent intervention at the OECD ministerial meeting in Paris, I urged that further analysis be undertaken by the OECD on the significance of trade as a stimulus both domestically and globally. How expanded trade brings benefits to an economy. How better to quantify that. In the same way that the Australian government recently released a study into the impact for Australia of trade liberalisation over the past 20 years.

What that Australian study showed was that trade liberalisation, along with the structural reforms of the 1980s, and intensified focus on Asia, had been significant factors, along with the fiscal stimulus, in cushioning Australia from the global financial crises. And these are some of the major reasons also why Australia has the fastest growing developed economy in the world. What the study showed was that, as a result of trade liberalisation:

• in the last 20 years, GDP growth has increased by 2.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent (relative to where it would have otherwise been) and
• average household income had increased by $2,700 to $3,900 per annum

We have got to build on that legacy. There is much unfinished business, not just with opening markets but also structural reform and lifting productivity. There is not any point opening markets if countries are not competitive enough and productive enough to take advantage of those openings. The reforms of the 1980s showed the importance of action on both fronts. In fact, the combination of Labor’s reform initiatives led to the biggest step-up in productivity the country has ever seen—delivering productivity gains of more than 3.3 per cent through the 1990s.

We have also widened the focus of our trade agenda beyond agriculture and product markets to include services and investment. Services constitute 80 per cent of the Australian economy and yet service exports represent less than 30 per cent of our exports. Investment is another area of huge potential. I regard it as the crucial new form of trade. Our challenge is to tackle the behind-the-border barriers to these forms of trade, but also to better facilitate investment flows, enabling businesses to get closer to the bigger economic markets and to engage better in global supply chains. So greater transparency by openness in these areas, coupled with greater analysis of the benefits of trade, would be enormously beneficial to our efforts to maximise the flow of a range of Australian exports.

As part of building-in the analysis, we need to build bipartisan support for trade liberalisation. That is why in this parliament I have initiated an organisation called the Friends of Trade, which invites members from all parties in the houses of this parliament to participate.

Of course, it is important to see our work on Doha in context. Doha is our trade policy priority, but that certainly does not mean it is our only priority. This government has managed to balance our drive for Doha with our drive for better regional integration and our drive for key bilateral agreements. Our renewed focus on Asian trade has been a critical part of the cushioning for the Australian economy during the global recession. Our reorientation of trade and diplomatic focus towards Asia gives us greater opportunity as Asia, now more than ever, is emerging as the centre of world economic growth. That is one reason why we have been negotiating greater access for Australian exporters to these markets and also engaging in commercial promotion.

As Minister for Trade I have visited China six times, Indonesia four times and Singapore and Thailand multiple times. I have also visited Japan, Malaysia, the Gulf and Vietnam. We hosted the Malaysian minister here last month as part of that bilateral. I have just returned from India and plan to be back there again at the end of this month. I plan also to travel to Japan and Korea next month. It is Asia where there is growth and huge opportunity in dynamic markets. Australia and New Zealand have recently signed a free trade agreement with the 10 ASEAN nations, and that comes into force on 1 January next year.

Last month in Bangkok Australia worked together with others to push for track 1 status of an examination of a new Free Trade Area spanning the 10 countries of South-East Asia, the ASEAN countries, plus India, Japan, China, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia. This East Asia Summit-wide, or ASEAN+6, would cover three billion people and have a collective GDP of over $US14 trillion. This complements our strong push for bilateral agreements with key trading partners in the region, and I speak here of China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Pacific Islands through Pacer Plus and the Trans Pacific Partnership members, as well as prospective members to those structures. I also hope that this list of negotiations will soon include the launch of bilateral negotiations with India and Indonesia.

I note that a significant factor in this regional engagement is the recalibration on ‘aid-for-trade’ to trading with developing countries. In our view our trading agreements with those countries are more than just agreements. They have to also involve capacity building—ensuring that those developing economies are able to participate more comprehensively in opportunities that more open markets should provide. This can also open new opportunities, of course, for Australian business in the services, investment and value-added aspects of our traditional strengths, beyond just resources—meaning that our competitive advantages are on show in a much greater way.

In conclusion, it is with great optimism that I report the positive outcomes from New Delhi last week:

• the re-engagement of India
• the unanimous recognition that we are in the ‘end game’
• the unanimous commitment to conclusion in 2010
• the translation of political will into specific instructions to senior officials to make it happen, and
• the commitment by ministers to remain involved in the process and, importantly, the commitment by world leaders to stand ready to also engage themselves

These outcomes would not have been possible without Australia’s strategic and sustained advocacy. The Rudd government will continue to use every opportunity to pursue our trade priorities across a range of fronts and will use every opportunity to make sure that we conclude a successful Doha deal. It is too important for Australia and the global economy. We persist in this endeavour with renewed determination.

Mr Speaker, I ask leave of the House to move a motion to enable the Leader of the Nationals to speak for 26 minutes.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Nationals speaking in reply to my statement for a period not exceeding 26 minutes.

Question agreed to.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the House for the opportunity to respond to the minister’s statement. Today’s statement has brought us up to date in relation to some of the trade developments, an interesting travelogue of the minister’s latest trips, and discussions about some of the meetings that are underway. I am a little disappointed that the statement seeks to rewrite history. This seems to be the week of the Labor Party rewriting history to accentuate its own role in the important events of the world and to take credit for anything worthwhile that has happened this century. Certainly the minister has shamelessly sought to reinvent history and to accentuate his own role in the progress that is being made—almost a eulogy written by himself. In an area where there has been a degree of bipartisanship in relation to trade policy, I think that it is appropriate for a minister to give recognition that these sorts of discussions go over very long periods of time and that some credit deserves to be shared around. It does not all belong to one individual. The more important thing, however, is not to talk about who should gain credit: whether there is any credit due is also a matter open to conjecture.

I would like to talk about some of the issues and in particular the arrangements and the progress being made towards the Dohar Round. If it is in fact true that countries are really committed to bringing the Dohar Round to a conclusion, it is important that the government take on board some of the key concerns that there are in this country about the current state of negotiations. I think this is the third, fourth or maybe fifth time that the minister has come into the House with a ministerial statement telling us that we are just about to achieve the outcomes in Dohar. We have heard all about the important progress, injection of momentum, intensifying efforts—those are all phrases I suspect he has used four or five times himself in ministerial statements to this parliament. I have used some of them myself in earlier statements. It has been going on for a while. But now we are at a stage where he says we are coming to the endgame.

The sad fact is that we are coming to the endgame because there is nothing left on the table. The Farm Institute was right, frankly, when it raised questions about whether the deal was still worth doing. If we are at the end of the game, it is because there is little or nothing left. The ambition of the Dohar commitment has been lost. All of the ambition of the Dohar Round has been lost. When the coalition committed to this process we had strong and ambitious goals in mind, as did the other parties who entered into these discussions. We expected real, genuine breakthroughs in relation to trade. We expected a real reduction in subsidies in both secondary and primary industry. We expected real gains in services. We expected that there would be not only reductions in subsidies but also reductions in trade barriers—real reductions that actually meant that world trade could flow freely.

We were hoping to achieve objectives that would have delivered billions and billions of dollars to world trade and to the growth in world economies, not just what is left at the present time. We are being asked now to grasp thin air, to be grateful for some water being taken out of the tariff systems. But in reality there is so, so little left on the table that people are saying they might be able to get to some kind of an endgame. Is this a merciful end, or is this an end that is actually going to be worth while to the participating countries?

I note that the minister says that this is a hard-won outcome. What is the hard-won outcome? More talks and more meetings. I know you have got to have meetings. We have been meeting for seven, eight or nine years now in relation to these issues, and it takes time talking to achieve results. But sadly the results have been achieved, the progress has been made, by inventing new tricky words, developing new exceptions, removing some key things off the table altogether. So in reality we come to a position where there is just so, so little on the table.

The minister said in his statement that we have solved the round—80 per cent of the major issues since the breakdown in July last year. How many of those issues have been solved simply by backing away, by backing down, by taking them out of the agenda altogether, so that in fact there is so, so, so little left? I am concerned that, instead of providing a new boost of political momentum into the Dohar Round, we are in fact walking further and further away from the real objective that the leaders in Dohar set for themselves, and that was a genuinely reforming world trade agreement. It would deal with some of the issues that were overlooked at Uruguay or could not be fixed at Uruguay so that we would end up taking a substantial step forward.

The Farm Policy Journal makes some very key points, as the minister said in his statement. In his statement he said that Australian farmers should take comfort from what is already on the table in relation to the Doha Round, and he identified cuts of up to 70 per cent on developed country tariffs. But those are not real cuts. Those are not cuts in the applied rate; they are cuts in the bound rate. In fact, they still leave space for some tariffs to even go up. The reality is that there will be very little real benefit in actual reduction of tariffs. The minister has changed his rhetoric a little over recent times to say that the benefit of doing this is that tariffs will not be able to go up so much in the future. So we have given up on the ambition of reducing tariffs; we are now thankful that they are not going to go up quite as much as they might otherwise have been able to go up.

Then he said there are going to be reductions of between 70 and 80 per cent in domestic supports via the subsidies from countries like the EC countries, Japan and the US. Again, that is not an actual reduction of 70 or 80 per cent in their subsidies; there will still be options for them to even increase support in many instances, and certainly the drafts open up new, creative ways to enable countries to increase their subsidies. So it is simply flippant to try and placate intelligent farm industry commentators by suggesting that they are going to get 70 or 80 per cent cuts to tariffs and support when in reality that is not going to happen. There is just so much space in the agreement, there are so many exceptions, so many special provisions for sensitive products and special products, that many of the biggest subsidies in the world, many of the strongest tariff barriers, will remain unchanged—and unchanged permanently.

The other comment is that there would be a complete elimination of export subsidies by the end of 2013. That, of course, was agreed years ago in Hong Kong. It has not stopped the subsidies in the interim. We see them re-emerging at the present time. If we were able to get rid of all export subsidies, that would be a worthwhile achievement, but you cannot then turn around and negotiate a whole stack of special provisions and the like—exceptions to the rule—and think that you have achieved anything.

The other thing that we need to take into account is that, even if the Doha agreement were negotiated and agreed on its current text, according to the minister’s statement the Director-General of the WTO has said the round would bring benefits of $150 billion per year. I have heard him make that statement, and he has been making that statement now for 12 months or so. So, as the round stands now, watered down as it is, the benefits that could come are $150 billion per year. Let us put that in a little bit of perspective. That compares with world trade in 2007 of $17 trillion. In 20 years time, when the Doha Round is fully implemented—and that is provided that there is not more watering down between now and the end of 2010—world trade, without any intervention, will probably be about $30 trillion, so we are talking about a $150 billion benefit on $30 trillion worth of trade. So all of these eight years, all of these negotiations, will deliver less than half a per cent of benefit to world trade. That is hardly a triumph. That is a triumph for the talkers and the negotiations and the diplomats over the traders. That is not going to deliver massive new benefits to the world economy.

When the Labor Party and the Prime Minister are talking about Australia’s government’s $300 billion debt, which they are committed to, that is some small, manageable amount—$300 billion is seen as a small, manageable amount for a country of Australia’s size to be able to pay back. But the total benefits to the entire world of the Doha Round are projected by the director-general to be only $150 billion. When the Minister for Trade is talking about $150 billion worth of trade benefits, that is a huge benefit, but, when they have $300 billion worth of debt, that is a small, trifling matter that nobody needs to worry about. Of course, if there is anyone who has a vested interest in talking up the outcomes of the Doha Round it is Mr Lamy, who is in his second term now as director-general. It has been his lifetime’s work. It has been an important work. But even he has to acknowledge now that the best he can hope for from the agreement, assuming there are no more backdowns, is half a per cent to world trade. I wonder, if we had put this amount of effort into many other things, whether we could have achieved that much benefit or maybe even more. Therefore the Farm Institute has a right to say: ‘Let’s have a look at some of the structural factors. What best can we do to make sure that the world is able to move forward?’

I do not think there is any doubt that all of the trade ministers now sitting around the table know in their hearts that we have to find a better way in the future to progress these sorts of issues. The bilateral agreements can sometimes make progress, but in other instances they have actually gone backwards and therefore cannot assuredly be a reliable path. Regional agreements also, in some instances, such as the Australia-New Zealand-ASEAN free trade agreement, have actually led to some backtracking from where we otherwise could have been. We need to be making constant progress, and I acknowledge that this is not easy. I acknowledge that the task is thankless and that the progress is incredibly slow, but what I grieve about today is how much momentum has been lost, how much ambition has been lost and how little there will be if in fact there is an agreement at the end of all of these activities.

I will also comment, in relation to these issues concerning trade, that the minister referred to his meetings in Delhi, Bali, Paris, Singapore, Bangkok and Pittsburgh, six visits to China, four to Indonesia and numerous other events around the world. His frequent flyer points score is certainly going up, and it is the job of a trade minister to be in those places. But we also know that it is important that we recognize that good trade policy also begins at home. If we are going to be able to take advantage of any gains that might be made in Doha and any gains that might be made in other trade agreements, we have to put in place an environment in Australia that actually encourages industry, that gives us an opportunity to grow our exports.

While the minister was overseas, or while he was here, his government tried to force through an emissions trading scheme, which will place a huge burden on Australian exports and make our costs more expensive than those of other countries. He talked about the importance of agriculture and the comments of the Farm Institute. This same institute has done some excellent work on the impact of an emissions trading scheme on Australian exports; the fact that Australian food processors will have to pay carbon taxes, where other food processors will not, and the fact that the cost of exporting out of this country will be so much greater.

In his statement he spoke about productivity reforms, but while he has been out of the country the unions have taken back the running of the workplace. Today, the wine industry is the latest to express concern about the government’s new award modernisation process, which will increase the cost of picking grapes by up to 200 per cent. We are proud of our wine industry; it is one of our major exports, and one of the areas where I hope the minister might still hope to get some gains out of the Doha Round. And yet he is imposing these heavy cost increases upon them through the government’s new industrial relations arrangements.

Then, of course, there are new taxes, particularly the increase in the export inspection charges, which are likely to go up by as much as 1,300 per cent. If the trade minister were really interested in ensuring that Australian traders had the best opportunity to participate in world markets, he would talk very sternly to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry about his proposals to increase export inspection charges.

The minister knows what the impact will be on world trade and Australia’s capacity to export as a result of these changes. A division of his own department, Austrade, has just made a submission to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee inquiry on the removal of the rebate for AQIS export certification functions. The issue is that the minister with responsibility for Austrade was, no doubt, aware of this submission, which takes a scathing approach towards the government’s plans to remove the rebate for the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service export fees. If the minister has not seen the damning comments from Austrade, let me place them on the record. This is from Austrade’s submission to the Senate inquiry just this week:

Austrade notes that the removal of the 40 per cent fee rebate for the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service export certification function increases costs for Australian exporters and, ultimately, could impact on trade growth in established markets and in new market opportunities.

Later, it talks about the cost recovery arrangements:

These changes have the potential to impact those Australian industries which regularly, reliably meet high export standards. These industries, in effect, provide the basis for Australia’s sound reputation for quality goods and services.

The worst-hit industries as a result of these quarantine inspection fee increases will be the very agricultural exporters the minister claims he is trying to help through the Doha Round discussions. They will have to pay substantial fees—in many instances, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars—that their competitors around the world will not have to pay. The subsidies on export inspection fees in other parts of the world will remain untouched as a result of the Doha Round, but our government now seeks to turn export inspection into a revenue-making function.

Let us talk about the uncompetitive position Australia is being placed in by this decision. Austrade notes in its submission that exporters in the US pay a flat fee of $50, while export certification in Canada is free. Our competitors sending beef or dairy products or fruit from Canada to the rest of the world pay no export inspection fees, but the Labor government is proposing to introduce fees which will cost thousands and thousands of dollars. That is not the kind of incentive that a trade minister who is concentrating on building Australia’s trading capacity could allow to go unchecked.

I congratulate Austrade, the premier organisation for promoting Australian trade around the world, for being bold enough to tell the truth to the Senate committee so that they are aware of the real impact of this cost. They are the front-line people on the ground, who know what is necessary to break into markets around the world. They are telling the government and telling the Senate inquiry that the imposition of these high costs will have an enormous impact on our export capability. I call on the government, if it is at all sincere in endeavouring to boost our trade performance, and if it really cares about eliminating barriers and putting Australian exporters on a level playing field with other countries—not Third World countries but Canada and the United States—to look at our export inspection fees compared with those in other parts of the world.

While I am talking about the importance of the issue that ‘good trade policy begins at home’, let me remind the minister of the Mortimer review on export policies and programs. That was completed well over a year ago, and we were promised a response by Christmas of last year, but we are still waiting.

These are key issues that an attentive trade minister needs to give direction on whilst he is in Australia. On his rare visits to Australia, let him look after some of the Australian industries that provide the products he is trying to sell around the world—give them a fair go and put them on a level playing field so that we do have an opportunity, if there is some new trade agreement negotiated, to at least be able to pick up any crumbs that might be left on the table.

I think that trade agreements have, in the past, delivered very substantial benefits to Australia, and they can do so in the future. I do not subscribe to the disgraceful comments of the then shadow trade minister and now Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who said in July 2006, ‘Doha is as dead as a dodo.’ I hope that the current Minister for Trade reminds the Prime Minister of his scepticism in 2006, and does it often. It was somewhat bizarre.

I think the minister should listen to the genuine concerns raised by the Farm Policy Journal article rather than devoting the time of the House to seeking to rebut them in this chamber. No-one could accuse the Australian Farm Institute of being anything other than supportive of trade. What they are critical of is what has happened to the Doha Round, the way it has drifted away to nothingness. It has drifted away to an empty table. The endgame is near because there is nothing left to fall off the table. There is nothing left to talk about. What we want is a real benefit with real gains to Australian industry.

May I conclude with an analogy. Dennis Lillee used to run a long way up to the bowling crease. Once he ran all the way from the fence. But, in the end, he did deliver the ball and he delivered it with great potency. The Doha Round has certainly had the long run-up, but I fear that what we get at the end is, at the very best, a powder puff, a no ball, something that has not delivered anything for Australian trade. If the minister wants to come back here and claim credit for a Doha Round, let him come back with real gains for Australian industry, not more backsliding and weak responses.