Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Will the minister update the House on how the Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement is giving new export opportunities for Australian businesses and creating jobs for hardworking Australians? Is the minister aware of any risks to these opportunities?

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Forde. Like others on this side of the House he is passionate and has a strong desire to see businesses in his electorate benefiting from the preferential market access that the coalition has been able to deliver. In fact, on 12 December 2016, it will mark two years since the Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement, or KAFTA, came into force and since then we have seen numerous businesses significantly increase their exports. The fact is that KAFTA is gifting opportunities for Australian exporters and this side of the House is very focused on maximising those opportunities and driving Australian jobs as a result. If you take, for example, Reid Fruits. Reid Fruits have increased their cherry exports to Korea 30-fold as a direct result of the agreement.

Speaking of cherries and speaking of gifts, and given that it is Christmas, I thought it might be a good idea to have a look around at all of the Christmas trees that are in the building, and I noticed that there was a CFMEU Christmas tree. And there was, in fact, a number of gifts under this CFMEU Christmas tree. The first gift was a gift for the AWU; the gift of the Cleanevent agreement, which saw Australian workers and waiters lose many of their entitlements, because the Leader of the Opposition wanted to trade them away. The second gift that was under the CFMEU Christmas tree was a gift from the plumbers union. We know the Labor Party are very fond of gifts and gift cards this time of year—they were actually using gift cards to pay for Labor Party memberships. There was another gift under the CFMEU Christmas tree; a gift for Sam Dastyari. Senator Dastyari got an all-expense-paid trip. There was another gift as well, a gift for the Leader of the Opposition; a formerly undisclosed $40,000 gift from Unibilt for campaign workers. And we know the Leader of the Opposition loves Christmas gifts. That is the reason he has already given a gift to Senator Kitching. Now, we all hope we receive a gift—and had the member for Isaacs actually follow through on his word and resigned—but we have to keep waiting for the time being. And, of course, the biggest gift of all was the gift for the Australian Labor Party: $11 million from the CFMEU under the CFMEU Christmas tree.

So what we know is that while the Leader of the Opposition pretends to be Santa Claus to the people of Australia when he is outside this House, the fact is that when he is in this building the only gifts he is interested in are gifts for the CFMEU and the Australian Labor Party. I did notice that there was actually one more gift under the CFMEU Christmas tree. It was a gift for the former member, Craig Thomson. Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!

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

Before I call the Leader of the Opposition I remind all members to refer to members by their correct titles. That does include senators. Senators should be referred to as senators. I should have pulled the Leader of the House up. Senators need to be referred to by their correct titles as well. I noticed the Minister for Trade and Investment pulled himself up on that but I just make that point to the House.