Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Trade and Investment. Will the minister please update the House on responses to the campaign of misinformation being waged against the landmark free trade agreement between Australia and China? How will the agreement create jobs and growth for the people of Petrie and for all Australians?

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade and Investment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Petrie for his question. Of course Moreton Bay Seafoods, in his electorate, already exports to China a large number of prawns. The 10 per cent tariff on prawns will come down to zero under this free trade agreement. The member is doing much to promote these agreements within his electorate.

Mr Perrett interjecting —

The SPEAKER: I remind the member for Moreton that he has been warned twice.

I was asked how the agreement creates jobs and growth. I will give one example. Just last week I met the managing director of Fresh Select, John Said, a supplier of fresh produce to the Australian supermarket trade. John told me how Fresh Select is working with China Merchants, which is a major transport and distribution company in China, on a new business model for sending high-quality Australian food and beverages directly from growers and manufacturers to families in China. Produce will arrive from Australia direct into a massive warehouse in Shenzhen , which is already being prepared. Customers by the thousands will order online and be given an electronic access code. Their order will be robotically filled and couriered directly to their apartment block to be put into lockers on the ground floor for secure accessing by the code. Once accessed the locker is then available for another customer. The system provides an assurance of true Aussie provenance for purity-conscious Chinese consumers. It cuts out the middle men, who soak up margins, and it delivers a higher price to the farm gate. All through the supply chain this new premium market creates jobs and jobs and more jobs, not just in production but in packaging, transport and logistics, storage, finance and insurance—the list goes on. What excited me about this story is that a new major Australian business is being created today in the expectation of the free trade agreement passing and coming into force in January.

I was asked who is standing in the way. Just two nights ago we witnessed in the chamber the member for Bendigo declaring that it was alarming for consumers to think they could call an electrician to their home and not know whether that person knew what they were doing. This is a disgrace, this is recklessness—you are not in university anymore; this is real politics that has real consequences. Of course the member was following the instruction of the ETU, who robocalled my electorate passing on the same message. What happened?

Mr Hutchinson interjecting —

The SPEAKER: The member for Lyons.

The next two days I had many seniors ringing my office frightened about electricians they had had to their house in the last few weeks. What a shameful thing to have done. The facts are that NECA, the organisation representing 50,000 electricians, have said:

Based on our discussions … NECA is satisfied there will be no dilution—

(Time expired)

Mr Hutchinson interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lyons is warned!