Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I present the following reports: Report 154, incorporating dissenting report: treaty tabled on 17 June 2015; and Report 155: treaties tabled on 11 and 12 August 2015.

In accordance with standing order 39(e) the reports were made parliamentary papers.

by leave—Report 154 contains the committee's review of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement and report 155 covers two treaty actions: Australia's denunciation of the Convention Relating to International Exhibitions and Protocol of Signature, Paris, 22 November 1928; and Australia's ratification of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank articles of agreement, Beijing, 29 June 2015.

The China-Australia free trade agreement has generated significant public attention. China is currently Australia's largest trading partner, with two-way trade worth $160 billion in 2013-14. One hundred and seven billion dollars of this trade is exports, and that number is going up fast. Our exporters stand to gain greatly from reduced export costs from this agreement, just as we expect businesses and households to pay less for our $52 billion of imports. Together with the trade agreements with Korea and Japan, ChAFTA will open up the major Asian markets to Australia's consumers and industry.

ChAFTA has been described as a watershed—a transformative agreement—and it is expected to deliver significant commercial benefits to a wide range of sectors. The committee found that many industries, including dairy, beef, wine and fishing, are expected to benefit substantially from its implementation. Our service industries, too, are set to capitalise on the opportunities presented by China's growing middle class and its ageing population. The committee is acutely aware that Australia is losing market share in the burgeoning Chinese economy because of China's existing free trade agreements. Some of these FTAs are with Australia's biggest and most important competitors such as New Zealand, Chile and ASEAN. The negotiation of an FTA with China appears the most realistic option to combat Australia's growing competitive disadvantage while getting ahead of other competitors like the US, Europe and Canada.

The labour provisions in ChAFTA have been the subject of much debate. The core issues involve Australia's immigration framework for temporary workers. This is an area of law where the detail really matters, and the committee was presented with often diametrically opposed views. Adding to the confusion, a number of separate issues tended to be conflated, both in the public perception and in the evidence to the committee. No-one is disputing the need to give priority to Australian workers and to be absolutely confident that foreign workers have the required skills to do a nominated job. The real question is whether the current framework achieves this, even with the overlay of ChAFTA.

After careful consideration, the committee is satisfied that the safeguards within Australia's existing immigration and employment frameworks will mitigate all concerns raised. The current framework ensures that companies that are sponsoring foreign workers demonstrate genuine labour shortages and that workers have the requisite skills to do the nominated job. It also ensures that foreign workers are subject to Australian wages and conditions. The additional layers of red tape that some are calling for are unnecessary and will simply make Australian businesses less competitive and less productive at a time when we need a competitive business sector.

The committee believes that the current safeguards are effective within the investment facilitation agreements or otherwise. However, we do make the proviso that the government organisations that are responsible for ensuring compliance must be adequately resourced. The committee wants to ensure that the full benefit of ChAFTA is realised by Australian businesses and industry. Our existing free trade agreements are underutilised, with only 19 per cent of Australian exporters making use of them. To achieve the promised economic growth and beyond, which we believe is possible, more steps must be taken to increase uptake. To this end we have recommended that work on alleviating non-tariff barriers be prioritised and accelerated. We also recommend that increased effort be made to educate and support Australian businesses and industry to understand and access free trade agreements. The committee supports ratification of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

Turning to report 155, the committee also inquired into the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Articles of Agreement. The primary purpose of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is to address the need for infrastructure funding across our region. A multi-trillion-dollar shortfall for infrastructure spending in Asia is expected in the coming years. New infrastructure will drive growth and jobs, providing opportunities for Australian trade and business. If Australia becomes a founding member of the AIIB it will be able to influence key decisions and policies as the bank becomes established. The committee supports Australia's ratification of the treaty actions in this report and recommends that binding treaty action be taken.

Before I conclude I would like to thank the committee members and the previous chair, Mr Wyatt Roy, for their engagement and hard work during these inquiries. On behalf of the committee I commend these two reports to the House. I move:

That the House take note of report 154: Treaty tabled on 17 June 2015

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a statement in connection with the tabling of the report.

Leave granted.

Essential features of the Australian way of life—work for all who want it and a fair day's work for a fair day's pay—are today threatened as never before, and young people in particular confront an axis of financial evil: insecure work, housing unaffordability and student debt. One of the key causes of this threat is the proliferation of temporary migrant worker programs, which barely existed just 15 years ago but have mushroomed in the past 15 years to the point where we now have over a million people in Australia on temporary visas that give them work rights. While the downside of these programs has never been higher, this government is in the business of surrendering forever our democratic ability to regulate and reduce them. It is my strong conviction that trade agreements should be about tariffs and quotas; they should not be setting our migration policy, our policy on health and safety, our food labelling policy and so on. This is both the right and the obligation of democratically elected governments.

It has not been easy to get to the core of the China free trade deal. Misinformation from its advocates is everywhere. First we were told that the China FTA does not change existing protocols about labour market testing. That is rubbish. This FTA puts an immediate end to labour market testing for engineers, nurses, electricians, motor mechanics and a total of 215 occupations that are currently subject to labour market testing. It also puts a permanent end to labour market testing for a further 400 occupations. Then we were told that the China FTA is the same as other FTAs that have been signed, so it would be racist and xenophobic not to sign this one. But the China FTA is not the same as other FTAs. In the Chile FTA the definition of contractual service suppliers refers to 'high-level technical or professional qualifications, skills and experience'. This was watered down in subsequent deals to persons with 'trade, technical or professional skills and experience', with the words 'high-level' and 'qualifications' being omitted. The ASEAN and Malaysian FTAs, which Labor signed in government, provided labour market testing exemptions in the 457 visa program for very limited categories of foreign nationals. The China deal gives labour market testing exemptions to all Chinese nationals in the 457 program.

And there is more. The initial period of entry for contractual service suppliers in the Japan and Korea FTAs is one year. It is four years for the China FTA. The China deal has no labour market testing for Chinese 'installers and servicers' in the 400 visa program; other deals do not. The China deal has a memorandum of understanding on investment facilitation arrangements; other deals do not. The China deal has an investor state dispute settlement provision; the Chile deal does not, and the Japan deal does not. The China deal has no labour rights chapter; the China deal has no environment chapter. The China deal has a side letter that removes mandatory skills assessment for 10 skilled trades, including electricians, motor mechanics and carpenters; other deals do not. The China deal has a memorandum of understanding that provides young Chinese with 5,000 work and holiday visas each year; other deals do not—there is no reciprocal arrangement for young Australians to work and holiday in China. Rather than genuinely debate these serious concerns, the government seeks to shut down debate by throwing around offensive and inaccurate jibes like 'racist' and 'xenophobic'. The unions who have raised these concerns are much more multiracial and multicultural than this government will ever be.

The one lame argument we hear when we expose the truth that labour market testing is being removed is that labour market testing is not important and that temporary migrant worker programs are protected from exploitation by minimum salary requirements. But every second day we hear a tale of exploitation of temporary migrant workers which shows these requirements are worthless. Migrant workers get ripped off all day, every day, uphill and down dale. Now that Labor proposes to lift the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry comes out and says, 'No, we don't agree to that!'

Each new trade deal undermines workers' positions and rights a little more than the one which preceded it. And make no mistake: if this deal is ratified without the protections which Labor has suggested, it will create a precedent for other countries such as India. Traditional allies like the US and the UK will not tolerate China and others getting labour market testing exempt 457 visas when their nationals do not get the same privileges—nor will other Asian countries. The discrimination line will be used to extend 457 labour market testing exemptions right around the world, and labour market testing will fizzle out and die.

So trade agreements are being used as a battering ram against the working pay and conditions of Australian workers, and greedy employers and agribusinesses are complicit in this attack. If the new Prime Minister is genuinely different from his 'Dr No' predecessor and genuine about a new era of glasnost and perestroika, he will agree to accept the measured and reasonable safeguards which Labor leader Bill Shorten has proposed. If he does not, the China agreement should not proceed.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 39(c), the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.