Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a few remarks on this report both as a member of the committee and as someone who has a longstanding interest in our relationship with Indonesia in all dimensions but, in particular here, the economic trade and investment dimension. Before I entered the parliament, I spent some years as a senior executive in the Victorian economic development department and had staff in Indonesia, and I looked at trade matters and so on.

This report, I would say in summary, is okay, but it's not deep or comprehensive and doesn't really do the topic justice, I think it's fair to say. I have just a couple of preliminary words as to why I would say that. The choice of topic and also the timing are quite odd, or curious. The committee—without breaching privilege, of course—had many ideas, as you would imagine, for work we could've done, but the minister wrote to us and said, 'This is what we want you to do.' We're a committee; we take references from ministers. But a few of us, at least on this side of the House, did think that it was curious timing for such an inquiry into our trade relationship with Indonesia, because the government are currently trying to negotiate a trade agreement with Indonesia, which they say will be out by the end of 2017.

As it turned out, it was curious timing, because at some point someone realised they were negotiating a trade agreement with Indonesia, and there was a bit of a panic and pressure to wrap it all up quickly and say, 'That's enough of that.' People were a bit freaked out. We were doing this work in public while the government was negotiating a trade agreement. It is another example, I would say, of the incompetence of the government. Nevertheless, the secretariat did as good a job as you could expect in the time, given that hearings and analysis of submissions were somewhat curtailed, and did draw on desktop material that had been submitted by business and others to the Indonesia trade agreement inquiry. Whilst I don't think any member of the committee would claim this is a stunning contribution to public policy, to the work of the parliament or to our trade and investment relationship, it does say a few useful and important things.

I'd say at the outset that Indonesia is our largest neighbour, yet the potential of our trade and investment relationship is not fully realised. We have many complementary goods and services, and sectors—agriculture, obviously; mining; education; infrastructure; and other services. We are, respectively, the 13th and 16th largest countries in the world by GDP, yet we rank quite low in terms of our trade relationship. It's particularly important, of course, for Australian businesses, at a time when they are facing declining market share in other markets, to develop new markets and grow existing markets like Indonesia. Indonesia has a growing economy and an expanding middle class, yet in some areas I think it's fair to say our performance is stagnating, as we heard in the inquiry.

I'd use the example of international education, which we spent quite some time on in the hearing. The department at first was glowing: 'Everything's good here; we've had a four per cent growth.' I said, 'That's very nice. What's been the overall growth of the market?' 'Well, that's 15 per cent.' But then, when we drill into the raw numbers, from 2002 to 2015 they showed massive growth in onshore students in Australia, yet Indonesia basically dipped over that period and has slowly struggled back to its overall numbers being where it was 14 years ago. So enrolments dropped from about 21,000 in 2002, and climbed back to 19,000 last year. So those numbers aren't even back to where we were in 2002. If you have a deeper look at the numbers, so much of that growth has been in vocational education and training, which, to be frank, is a lower economic value when compared to higher education students, where we're struggling. Others could tell stories about goods, agriculture, mining and so on.

I will make a couple of comments on the trade agreement that, curiously, was being negotiated while this inquiry was sputtering along. Strong support for a forward-thinking innovative agreement was shown by submitters and indeed by Labor. The shadow minister is here and will make some remarks in a moment. But we must acknowledge that it's not a blank sheet. We're not wandering into some magical new land where a trade agreement will fix everything. As the inquiry showed, we already have—and have had for a long time—the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, which provides for tariff reduction and economic integration. Negotiations are underway for, dare I say, a much better, more comprehensive and potentially multilateral trade agreement—the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership—with 10 ASEAN and FTA partners. It's a very careful task, then, to try to negotiate another bilateral agreement to meet the Prime Minister's arbitrary deadline, where there's relatively little to do in tariffs—all the work is in non-tariff barriers, which are complex—while we actually have these two multilateral agreements.

Jobs and growth, as we all know, is a slogan that consists of company tax cuts to big companies and a few bilateral trade agreements, so it's politically important for the government to land something—anything, really—but care is needed because trade theory does make clear, as we also heard, that multilateral agreements are generally much better than bilateral agreements. Indeed—and this is heresy for some, who just rush like lemmings to sign up to any agreement the Prime Minister pulls out of the bottom draw in desperation—not every trade agreement is a good trade agreement. Trade theory would also say that, because of diversionary effects, some bilateral agreements can hurt economic growth. I won't go into the complexity for business here, for reasons of time, but the spaghetti bowl effect often means the more trade agreements you have with the same country the more confusing it can be for business to figure out. So we need to tread carefully.

In saying that not all trade agreements are good, unambiguously trade liberalisation has made Australia much wealthier. There's no doubt about that. But this goes to an important recommendation I'd like to turn in the report—recommendation 4. Let's have a little look at it. It says:

The Committee recommends that the text of the IA-CEPA should not include provisions which waive labour market testing, or which include ISDS provisions, and the final text of the agreement should be accompanied by independent analysis conducted by either the Productivity Commission or equivalent organisation.

This is important but somewhat surprising to those opposite, because yet again a government controlled committee has recommended adopting Labor policy. Even the dark lord, as I call him—Senator Abetz—was on board. He was on the committee and signed up to this. The Treaties Committee made a similar recommendation, which my friend the member for Fremantle will no doubt talk about: 'Sign up to Labor policy, Minister.' Labor at the last election made a range of commitments, but we made clear that we don't support agreements that allow exemptions from labour market testing or willy-nilly loopholes for foreign workers. We heard a bit about that from the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection with his trumpeted skilled visa reforms, which have turned out to be a scam, because there is no labour market testing, and they provide never-ending loopholes for trade agreements to jump through. So, unless the government is prepared to rule this out, we'll see more foreign workers come in through these loopholes, displacing Australian jobs with no labour market testing.

The hearing was interesting, because I directly asked a senior trade official from the department: has the government instructed you in these negotiations not to negotiate away labour market testing in this agreement? It was a yes or no question. Eventually we got the answer, which was no. Then I asked, 'Business have identified a range of things in their submissions; what have they been saying about labour market testing and their particular types?' We were told by the senior official, 'Business aren't talking to us about labour market testing; they're talking to us about being able to help Indonesia upskill its workforce, and we can do that in Indonesia.' I'm not sure what the government's ongoing reluctance to rule this out and adopt Labor's sensible policy is about—probably blind ideology.

The other important aspect of that recommendation that I will touch on in my closing remarks is that Labor believes trade agreements should be subject to a transparent, independent assessment of costs and benefits before signing. This is not socialist, leftie, radical stuff from this side. Recommendation 4, signed up to by government MPs, says this—although the government's view remains unclear. But, of course, a 2015 Senate inquiry said the same thing—that there need to be national interest assessments—because not every trade agreement that the minister dreams up over there is a good agreement. It should be assessed independently from those who signed up to and developed the agreement by the Productivity Commission. The 2016 treaties inquiry said the same thing. Of course, there are concerns about investor-state dispute clauses. They are controversial. It needs to be acknowledged there are some such mechanisms in the existing ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. But there is, as the department official admitted, a question of coherence, and the government's review, of course, remains unclear.

In closing, I would say that there is enormous potential in this relationship. I particularly note the best contribution to the inquiry from the Australia Indonesia Business Council. They made a submission, but they took the time to turn up to the hearing, and you could feel the enormous optimism coupled with the realism of the challenges. We're very different countries. We have different histories, different cultures and different economies. But, particularly to advance this relationship, it's not all about government. Government can put in place the frameworks, but the market, businesses and people—human beings—can choose where they go. This requires personal relationships and a deep understanding of the culture of the people who you're doing business with. It is time to think about what government can do to help build these relationships with organisations like the business council chambers because trust in Asia is so critical. If you don't trust and if you don't know, you don't do business. So I particularly applaud Australia's Indonesian diaspora because they are so, so valuable to our efforts to grow our economic relationship with Indonesia.

John McVeigh (Groom, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to speak on the report into the trade relationship between Australia and Indonesia by the Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth. It is an important report into this trade relationship between our two countries and very timely, given the Australian and Indonesian governments' efforts to finalise the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement by the end of this year. As the report highlights, while the Australia-Indonesia bilateral relationship is quite broad, our trade and investment is one area where there is significant potential for expansion to the benefit of both of our countries. Our trade relationship is relatively small—lower than that of New Zealand or Thailand, which have comparatively smaller economies. This is despite the fact that Indonesia's economy comprises more than one-third of total ASEAN GDP and is now approaching US$1 trillion.

There is tremendous potential for Australian businesses to participate in Indonesia's rapidly growing economy, which is expected to continue to grow at over five per cent per year in the near term. But it is a market not without its challenges. So I think there is real work to be done to update the Australian mindset to recognise the opportunities that our nearest Asian neighbour provides us. If current trends continue, Indonesia will move into the top 10 economies in the world by 2030 and is expected to be the fourth largest by 2050. The growth and evolution of Indonesia's economy will see expanding opportunities, such as those in health care, tourism, education and agricultural products—all of which are prime examples of where Australia is well placed to get more engaged in a trade relationship with Indonesia.

I am very passionate about our country's relationship with Indonesia, and that's partly based on my own background. Well before politics, I was involved in trade relationships in my own business in the area of farming, particularly cotton exports out of Australia and reciprocal imports of knitted and woven product based on Australian cotton. I've also had the great honour of being involved in beef trade and, certainly, in the live cattle trade resurrection as the former Queensland minister for agriculture following federal Labor's well-known trade and economic debacle in that regard.

Alongside other Queensland ministers I was well informed, holding side discussions with President Widodo, at the G20 world leaders forum in Brisbane in 2014. Therefore, based on that experience and my knowledge of Indonesian business and trade relationships, I very much welcome business community submissions to this inquiry, as reflected in the report, which highlighted the need to improve the trade relationship in a way that recognises our shared trade goals and leverages our individual strengths so that when we work together we become a joint regional powerhouse.

In terms of the recommendations of this particular report, I note a number of things. To help business achieve its objectives as suggested in the report, it recommends:

… the Australian government develop a campaign to actively promote the business opportunities presented by this partnership.

As I've outlined, that is something that I very strongly support.

The report's second recommendation is that the government prioritise the development of infrastructure in northern Australia that strengthens maritime, education and tourism services partnerships with Indonesia. Many of us know that the lack of infrastructure in northern Australia is an impediment to trade, as was noted in many submissions to this report, and that is something we do need to recognise. These are concerns very much shared by the Australian government, which recognises the need for greater investment in northern infrastructure to capitalise on our proximity to Asia—hence our government's efforts, together with Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, that are currently underway. I saw those firsthand as a member of the former Northern Australia Ministerial Forum in considering the long-term need for investment and development across the north of our country.

The committee's third recommendation, that the partnership focus on the reduction of non-tariff barriers to trade, is an important one also. It is not only tariffs that limit the opportunities of Australian manufacturers and agricultural producers to send their products overseas, including to Indonesia. The committee heard that non-tariff barriers, including variable customs procedures, red tape and import licensing arrangements continue to limit the ability and the appetite of Australian exporters to engage with the Indonesian market. We need to take a comprehensive look at those barriers to trade that we should address, and we should look at how we address them and in which fora we do that. We need to maintain our own standards, whether they relate to quarantine or product safety, for instance, most definitely, and we recognise that our trading partners, including, in this case, Indonesia, pursue their own legitimate public policy objectives at the same time. But it is in Australia's interests and the interests of our trading partners that measures to support those legitimate policy objectives don't hamper trade. The government have heard calls from industry to tackle such blockages, and the government are doing what we can, using the full range of options that we have, whether in the World Trade Organization, bilaterally or through the mechanisms that our trade agreements establish.

The report's fourth recommendation, unfortunately, appears to be what I consider a grab bag of ideas that look pretty abstract when applied to the real world, and I would caution against supporting those. The committee recommends not waiving labour market testing in the economic partnership agreement. Australia has longstanding existing commitments to waive labour market testing for certain categories of Indonesian professionals, including under the 1995 WTO agreement on services and in the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement concluded in 2009 and signed by Labor when in government. Australia will continue to honour its international obligations, as should others. At the end of the day, negotiations with Indonesia are about expanding opportunities for Australian workers by growing the trade between us, not by taking away Australian jobs.

The committee also recommends not including investor-state dispute settlement in the economic partnership agreement. It is completely appropriate that the Australian government consider investor-state dispute settlement provisions in free trade agreements on a case-by-case basis, with a focus on our national interest. Australia has previously agreed to investor-state dispute settlement with Indonesia, including our bilateral investment treaty and the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA, to which I have referred, both of which Australia and New Zealand are parties to.

Investor-state dispute settlement can be an important mechanism to protect the interests of Australian investors when investing overseas. The suggestion to apply economic modelling on all agreements, I fear, is also more theoretical than real. To begin, the government undertakes extensive prenegotiation analysis of all FTA proposals. This process is undertaken by drawing on the multifaceted expertise within the government and elsewhere covering trade negotiations, policy and economic expertise. Our trade agreements are negotiated on a case-by-case basis to open new markets for Australian exporters that will drive economic growth and create new Australian jobs. They have done just that to date. That is why parliament has voted them into law. Whilst significant negotiations, stakeholder consultation, economic analysis and modelling have been underway and will continue in order to finalise the Indonesia Australian comprehensive economic partnership, I am confident that if this agreement is presented to the Australian parliament, we will have ample opportunity to assess its contribution to our important relationship and partnership with Indonesia.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indonesia is our next-door neighbour and it is a big and important neighbour. It is home for more than 250 million people. In population terms, that means it is the fourth biggest country in the world. By the middle of this century, it will be the fourth biggest economy in the world, sitting only behind the United States, China and India. But, at the moment, trade and investment with our big northern neighbour is massively underdone. Indonesia does not even register on the list of top 10 trading partners for Australia. We trade more with New Zealand, a country of less than five million people, than we do with Indonesia, a country with a population of 250 million. The comparison is stark. There are more than 12,000 Australian companies currently doing business in New Zealand and there are less than 300 in Indonesia—12,000 Australian companies doing business in New Zealand, a country of 4.6 million people, and only 300—or fewer than 300—Australian companies doing business in Indonesia, a country of 250 million people. This is what I mean when I say that our trade and investment relationship with Indonesia is massively underdone, and why the free trade agreement which is being currently negotiated between our two countries is so potentially important.

That agreement has the potential to provide the foundation and framework to increase trade and investment between Australia and Indonesia and to make the most of the enormous growth that is expected to occur in this economic juggernaut in the decades ahead. Just one statistic gives you an idea of the potential opportunity that awaits us in Indonesia. Indonesia's a young country. The median age in Indonesia is 28.6—in other words, more than half the population is under 30. By 2030, 70 per cent of Indonesians will be of working age. That means about 130 million to 135 million potential consumers and a market worth almost US$2 trillion. Our challenge here, as we look at this opportunity, is how we build the foundations now between our two countries that will help to make sure that, as Indonesia grows in the decades ahead, it also creates more jobs here and more opportunities here at home for Australian businesses. If we do not, then other countries will—other countries in Europe and in North and South America. The opportunity is enormous and it is up to us to make the most of it.

The free trade negotiations between our two countries kicked off about seven years ago. They kicked off under the former Labor government. They were initiated by Julia Gillard and by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2010. We understand now that these negotiations are reaching a conclusion. The Prime Minister of Australia and the President of Indonesia made a commitment in Hamburg at the G20 that they would seek to finalise free trade negotiations between our two countries this year. We look forward to seeing the details of that agreement when it is finalised and we hope that the government can forge a high-quality agreement, because the opportunities here are so great, in particular for Australian farmers, for Australian universities and other education providers, for the tourism sector, as well as for increased investment in both directions.

We will wait to see the details, but one of the interesting features of these negotiations has been the role that business has played so far in helping to focus negotiations and identify the opportunities that are available here. The Indonesia-Australia Business Partnership Group was established in 2011. It is made up of business peak bodies from our own country and Indonesia. It includes the Indonesia Australia Business Council. It includes Asosiasi Pengusaha Indonesia, otherwise known as APINDO. It also includes the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Ai Group. They've done a lot of important work in identifying the opportunities to increase trade and investment between Australia and Indonesia and also in identifying some of the impediments and providing advice on how they could be overcome by this agreement. This is not something that happens with all of the free trade negotiations that Australia undertakes. It is unusual to have business leaders from both countries do this sort of work. I think it is constructive and extremely valuable. Hopefully the agreement that's signed later this year will be the better for the work that these business organisations have done.

There are a number of other issues that I also hope this agreement addresses when it is finalised later this year. Some of them were picked up in this report. This report that we are debating here is a report of the Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth. The committee were asked by the government to inquire into Australia's trade and investment relationship with Indonesia, and they have made a number of what I believe are very important recommendations. One of them is a recommendation that this agreement, the free trade agreement with Indonesia, should not waive labour market testing. I agree. Labour market testing is a pretty simple concept. Before a company can bring in a temporary worker from overseas, they should first have to check and see if there is an Australian who can do the job. Waiving that in this agreement would mean workers from Indonesia can come to Australia without the company they're going to work for first having to check if there's an Australian who can do the job. This is the sort of stuff that makes our constituents angry. It's not protectionism; it's just common sense that, before you bring in an electrician, a carpenter or a plumber from overseas, the company seeking that person to do the work should first have to go through the basic task of seeing if there is an Aussie who can do it. The report recommends that the free trade agreement with Indonesia does not waive labour market testing. We agree, and we hope that the government do too. From the contribution we just had from a member opposite, it's doubtful that they will. It also indicates that they just don't get it: they just don't understand how simple a concept and how important a concept like labour market testing is to the Australian community.

The report also recommends that the final text of the agreement should be accompanied by independent economic analysis conducted by the Productivity Commission or an equivalent organisation. This is just another sensible, practical but important recommendation. It's not a new idea. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has recommended this before, as has the ACTU. It has also been recommended by a number of committees in this place: the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, the Senate inquiry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade's review of the treaty-making process in 2015.

The important point here is that public scepticism about trade, open markets and globalisation is real and increasing. You see evidence of it in the election of Donald Trump last year, in Brexit even and in the rise of Hansonism and the vote that One Nation got at our last national election. This sort of independent economic analysis of a trade agreement, once it's struck between our two countries, helps to respond to these sorts of concerns. That's important because public trust, public faith, public confidence and public support for free trade and open markets is important. One in five jobs in Australia is directly related to trade. More trade means more jobs and more high-paid jobs. We need to be able to say, when we are debating a free trade agreement, that we know—not just because the government says so, but because the independent analysis proves it—that this is going to provide a meaningful, real benefit and more jobs for Australians.

I hope that the government listens to this recommendation and implements it not just here but in the other trade agreements it is negotiating. This is a good report, and it's a bipartisan report. It's not just the Labor members on this committee that have recommended that this free trade agreement with Indonesia not waive labour market testing and should be subject to the scrutiny of independent economic analysis—the government members have too. Both sides have said this. Unfortunately all the evidence to date, and we just heard it again, indicates that the government is going to ignore its own members and the recommendations in this report. If it does that, it will be a mistake. The free trade agreement with Indonesia, currently being finalised, is an enormous opportunity for our two countries. We shouldn't be afraid of independent analysis of it, and we shouldn't have to trade away the right of Australian workers to get the first crack at a job before overseas workers in order to get a great deal done.

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm glad to have the opportunity to speak on this committee report by the Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth. I thank its members for what is a compelling and comprehensive examination of our current and potential trade relationship with Indonesia, especially at a time when we are in the process of negotiating the Indonesia-Australia regional economic partnership agreement.

The broad observations made at the outset of this report are fascinating and they reinforce the great significance of our relationship with Indonesia, not least because Indonesia is becoming a powerhouse in the Asia-Pacific. Indonesia is the fifth largest nation by population and it has the 16th largest economy. But, from the Australian perspective, we need to hold onto the projection that Indonesia is expected to be the fourth largest economy in the world by 2050. Australia is currently the 13th largest economy, and yet our trade with Indonesia—our next door neighbour—is such that neither country at the moment is a top 10 trading partner of the other. That gives a sense of the potential in the trade and economic relationship between our two nations.

The shadow minister talked about the great example provided by the Australia Indonesia Business Council of the disparity in terms of Australian companies currently involved in Indonesia and New Zealand. New Zealand is comparatively small, with four million people, and yet there are 12,000 Australian companies that have an involvement on the ground there, and only 300 in Indonesia. Another measure of that disparity is in the quantum of that investment: $86 billion worth of investment by Australian companies in New Zealand, and only $11 billion by Australian companies in Indonesia.

The committee report is also instructive in its observations about Australia's approach to trade agreements in general. To some degree, my perspective on that and my interest is as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties. As the shadow minister and the member for Bruce observed, both the JSCOT and the JSCTIG—which I will take the liberty of calling the committee that has produced this report—are in broad agreement about some of the risks and shortcomings both in substance and process of the government's approach to settling preferential trade agreements, and there are three particular points I would like to touch on: independent economic analysis, the question of trade and jobs—which is really an issue that needs to be looked at a lot more closely than is currently the case—and the issue of ISDS, or investor-state dispute settlement provisions. Recommendation 4 of this report states that the final text of the Indonesia-Australia regional economic partnership agreement, which is currently in negotiation:

… should be accompanied by independent analysis conducted by either the Productivity Commission or equivalent organisation.

In the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties report 165, on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, there was a similar recommendation, recommendation 2, which stated:

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government consider implementing a process through which independent modelling and analysis of a proposed trade agreement is undertaken by the Productivity Commission, or equivalent organisation …

The report of the trade references committee of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee in June 2015 was called Blind agreement. It made a similar recommendation, recommendation 8, which says:

The committee recommends that a cost-benefit analysis of trade agreements be undertaken by an independent body, such as the Productivity Commission, and tabled in parliament prior to the commencement of negotiations or as soon as is practicable afterwards. The cost-benefit analysis should inform the government's approach to negotiations.

We have seen from multiple committees, over several years, a clear recommendation to government, and it is a commonsense one.

Unfortunately, the minister for trade, in responding to the JSCOT recommendation, has indicated—the government member for Groom said earlier—that the government has no interest in doing that. How can the Australian public, the Australian parliament or the Australian government be confident that these agreements are what they're cracked up to be, that they're worth entering into, on balance, without an informed view, without a view supported by appropriate high-level independent economic analysis? The answer is: they cannot have that confidence. That is why we on this side of the House have been pushing for that change to be made. Those on the government side have been fiercely resisting it.

It does matter because there is plentiful evidence that trade agreements tend to overpromise and under deliver. I know that in report 165, on the TPP, there was plentiful evidence that the assessment of a range of trade agreements in recent times has substantially overestimated the benefit that accrued from them. We also know that governments have a habit of talking up and misrepresenting the value of trade agreements. We have heard from this government that trade agreements are going to be enormously productive of jobs in the Australian economy when, by its nature, liberalising your economy, especially if you are a developed nation, does not tend to create jobs, it tends to see jobs go to areas where labour is cheaper. That is one of the things you deal with through proper transition arrangements and by expanding your economy in other areas.

The TPP was cited, on numerous occasions, as one of the ways in which this government was going to deliver the as yet still distant jobs and growth that we desperately need. There was no independent economic analysis of the TPP, so there was nothing to give us confidence that it would be productive of jobs in the Australian economy. In fact, the only assessment of jobs that was relevant to the TPP was by a Tufts University paper that assessed that over the first 10 years of the TPP it would likely cost 36,000 jobs in the Australian economy.

There are two further aspects of the committee's report that I would like to touch upon, contained in recommendation 4, about ISDS and the waiving of labour market testing. They both represent an extension of trade agreements outside what you would think of as being their traditional remit. These days we talk about trade agreements; they really are trade and investment agreements and they cover a range of other matters. In the case of ISDS, there is a real risk with those mechanisms that we cede our policy and government making sovereignty, that we allow foreign companies to have access to tribunals to dispute Australian policy and Australian government decisions.

It is, effectively, a discrimination against the Australian based companies. It has no demonstrated benefit, in terms of attracting investment, and it puts us at risk. In the case of waiving labour market testing, it means, through a range of recent trade agreements, that people can come in under contractual services, provide a category that covers some 650 professions—

I think the shadow minister for trade suggested to me the other day that in time to come that may well cover something like 70 to 75 per cent of all jobs in Australia. There is no justification for having an arrangement that means workers, temporary labour, can come into this country, without first ensuring that there is no Australian labour available to undertake that task. That is a simple thing.

I won't say more about the report other than to again thank the members for a strong majority report and for making the recommendation strongly and clearly that those things should be changed in both substance and process by which we approach, negotiate and enter into preferential trade agreements. Thank you.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 6.30 pm, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.