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

I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

I would like to reflect on the goodwill and cooperation, I think it's fair to say, between the member for Blaxland, as the shadow trade minister, and myself, over the passage of this amended bill. We had some government amendments, as the House would know, which were put through—again, building on the dialogue and goodwill that extends across the chamber.

I was happy to incorporate two amendments that the Labor Party put forward. The first opposition amendment added to the government amendment which was passed in the House of Representatives stipulates that businesses will have to certify in writing their reasonable belief that Efic support for overseas direct investment will result in a net increase in the number of people employed in Australia. The second opposition amendment ensures that large businesses with annual revenue of $150 million or more certify to Efic that they will not move overseas the whole or a substantial part of the business as a result of Efic support for an overseas direct investment transaction. This requirement codifies Efic's existing policy to ensure that its support for overseas direct investment will not result in plant closure or net job losses in Australia. I thank the member for Blaxland for the constructive dialogue that we've had. It has been a positive dialogue. We are both committed to doing the best thing by Australian businesses, and we've been able to find middle ground on this bill.

I would reinforce that the big positive from the passage of this Efic legislation has been the ability to ensure that the government's agenda of providing broader support to a wide range of Australian businesses—the government's agenda around boosting export, boosting export potential and providing support to small, medium and large businesses in Australia to help them realise their full potential—is achieved. With those remarks, I commend the bill.

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

Can I also thank the minister and thank the government for the work that we've done together here, which I think makes this a better bill. There are two members in the gallery. There are lots of students up there listening to us and watching us as well and lots of people listening on the radio. You could be forgiven for thinking that we fight about everything in this building and that we agree on nothing. This is just one small but—I think—good example of bipartisanship and how we can work together and compromise. The art of making politics work is listening to each other and trying to find middle ground, as the minister said.

These amendments don't necessarily represent the full view of what my side of politics wants, or of the government side, but I think we've found a sensible middle ground and a piece of legislation that Efic are going to be able to work with and, importantly, that is going to help provide businesses with the opportunities to succeed and grow and create more Australian jobs, which is what we all want. We should never let the fighting that sometimes clouds the true purpose of this building be so great that we don't really see what we're here to try and do, which is to make this a better country, with more jobs. I think this legislation will do that, so, Minister, I thank you for the way in which we have worked on this.

We had one amendment which was dealt with by the House before the winter break, which the government moved after some work by the opposition, which we call the Australian jobs test. Effectively, what it means is that, if a loan is provided to a company to invest overseas, the applicant has to prove it will create more jobs here in Australia. I said in that contribution that I wanted to do more work with the minister over the break, and I want to thank the minister for providing the opportunity for me to sit down with his staff. I particularly want to thank his chief of staff, Alistair, for the work that he's done in this area and to thank the team at Efic and the team at DFAT. We had a long conversation and went through the details. That helped me to understand better the objectives of the government here and to fine-tune the amendments that we'd put in the Senate and then come back, talk to you and work through it. That's what we should do. It's what we should do more of.

The two amendments that have been agreed to by the Senate add a bit more meat to the bones of that Australian jobs test. It requires the company to certify at the end of the loan that they've actually met the requirement we want them to meet, which is that they have created more jobs. The other amendment that the Senate dealt with deals with this risk of offshoring. What we don't want to see is companies using this legislation for large-scale offshoring. I think we've come to a good landing here that meets both of our concerns and requirements.

I know—and the minister made this point before in the House—that it was never the intention of the government that the sorts of things we were concerned about might ever happen. Nevertheless, we wanted to guard against that possibility, however remote it could be. I think the amendments that we've come up with here make this a better bill. I think that they're going to help to create more jobs in Australia, and I think that's a good thing.

The work that Efic does is very important. We want more Australian businesses to become exporters, as I said earlier, and I think that this amended and arguably improved legislation is going to help us to do that. So thank you once again. I support the amendments that have been passed in the Senate.

Question agreed to.