Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I present the committee's report entitled Report 139—Treaties, tabled on 11 December 2013, referred on 15 January 2014 and tabled on 11 February 2014, and I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.

Leave granted.

The report contains the committee's view on six proposed treaties: the air services agreements with Croatia, Serbia and Vanuatu; tax information exchange agreements with Brunei and Guatemala; and a protocol to the 2007 World Wine Trade Group agreement on requirements for wine labelling concerning alcohol tolerance, vintage, variety and wine regions.

I can advise that the committee supports ratification of all of the treaties discussed in this report. While the treaties in this report are largely non-controversial, there are two matters I might explore very briefly here. The first relates to the air services agreements. These are bilateral agreements that allow airlines from each signatory to offer services in the other's market. The agreements are negotiated under the multilateral convention on international civil aviation, under which international safety standards for civil aviation are promulgated. If a state does not meet an international standard it must notify the convention's governing body, the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

In the bulk of cases these notifications relate to safety standards that are either higher than that required or are to the same standard as that required but are administered differently. In a small number of instances, the notifications relate to a safety standard that has not been met. Negotiators from the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development do not check the notifications of states with which Australia is intending to make an air services agreement. The committee considers it imprudent for the department's negotiators to not at least make themselves aware of the differences notified by states with which they are negotiating.

The second matter relates to the tax information exchange agreements discussed in this report, which may be the last considered by the committee. The Australian government will henceforth be relying on the multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, which enables the transfer of more comprehensive information on taxable income between states. The committee has a long history examining tax information exchange agreements and has been impressed by the reduction in tax avoidance achieved through these agreements.

The committee would like to take this opportunity to commend the good work of the staff of the ATO and the Treasury who were involved in negotiating and administering these agreements. On behalf of the committee, I commend the report to the House.