Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment: Will the minister please outline to the House how the coalition government's trade agenda is creating more and better paid jobs for Australians? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

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

I thank the member for Petrie for his question. He is another member of the coalition who is absolutely steadfastly wedded to making sure we open up export markets for Australian small businesses and wedded to the types of trade outcomes this government has delivered consistently over the past several years. Having visited the member for Petrie's electorate, I noted a great local business in his electorate, Packer Leather, which, among other products, supplies leather for Kookaburra cricket balls and also supplies the iconic Sherrin footies. They also supply footy boots for soccer players and the iconic RM Williams boots—that leather often comes from Packer Leather, as well. It is a great example, championed by the member for Petrie, of a business that is succeeding now. Under the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement the 14 per cent tariff on kangaroo leather exports is eliminated over four years. This gives them unprecedented export opportunities into the world's second-largest economy.

It's outcomes like that, and what it means for jobs in the member of Petrie's electorate, that underpin why we pursued the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement and underpin why we pursued the TPP-11. It's not like everyone has agreed with us. Both on the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement and on the TPP-11, the obstacle that stood in the way was the Australian Labor Party. The people who kept naysaying the TPP-11 and the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement were the Australian Labor Party.

So, when the member for Petrie asks about alternative approaches, there are some. I couldn't help notice that Ged Kearney, Labor's candidate in Batman, said this about the TPP-11:

Trade agreements like this are pin-ups of the failed neo-liberal experiment … The Turnbull Government should abandon this deal …

This is the kind of rhetoric—

A government member: Is that the Greens candidate?

No, not the Greens candidate. It is a very loony left type of comment, but that's where the Australian Labor Party is today. As the Prime Minister has outlined, the fact is that the few rational economists on that side—I am terrified that I'm going to be asked to point one or two of them out—have lost the war, because the Australian Labor Party has been dragged to the loony left now, and people like Ged Kearney, who describe trade deals like the TPP as being a failed neo-liberal experiment, are the ones who call the shots now. You know what she said about ChAFTA? Ged Kearney said that ChAFTA would be a job-destroying deal. But what we have seen under the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, and what we will see under the TPP-11 agreement, is the commitment of the coalition to growing exports, to growing investment and to growing jobs. The only people who stand in the way of us achieving that success are the Australian Labor Party and their loony left trade agenda.