Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister outline the importance of free trade to ensuring a vibrant economic future for Australia? What are the advantages to the Australian economy of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other free trade agreements?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. The future of our country, the destiny of our country, lies in us being a successful trading nation. We are a great trading nation today. We are engaged with the whole world. We have better capacity to be engaged with the world than almost any other nation, because we are also the most successful multicultural nation in the world. There is no nation better equipped—whether it is via the composition of its people, its education or its attitudes to innovation—to grasp the opportunities of the global economy than ours is. But obviously trade barriers had existed. What the government has done—what trade minister Andrew Robb has done—is open up one door after another in a remarkable series of achievements: Korea, Japan and China, and now the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It alone is the single largest multilateral trade agreement for over 20 years. Everyone had given up on multilateral agreements. They thought they were all too hard. But, through perseverance, 12 nations have managed to do it.

Our future—of agility, of innovation, of technology, of competitiveness—depends on us having access to these great markets. If you consider China alone, in the lifetimes of everyone in this House—everyone, including the member for Longman!—China was a small part of the global economy. If you go back 40 years, China was barely participating in the global economy. If it is not already the largest it shortly will be the largest single economy in the world, and we now have the highest-level access to it of any comparable country. China is already our largest services market. Thanks to the work of the trade minister, our services exporters are getting the best access that China has given any country. They stand to benefit as every element of the Chinese economy evolves. China, as honourable members know, is an economy that was driven by investment, sanctioned by government and encouraged by government in every way. It is moving to a more conventional mix, where consumption will play a larger part—

Mr Perrett interjecting—

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

The member for Moreton.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and where services will play a larger part. We have much more to sell to China than the makings of steel: education, health care, design services, agriculture—right across the board. That market is open to Australia through the ChAFTA, if we can secure its passage through this parliament. That door is open, unless the Labor Party decides to keep it shut. Now is the time for Labor to abandon its fear campaign against China.