Fiona Martin (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Will the minister please update the House on how the Morrison government is opening up new trading opportunities for Australia to create more businesses and jobs?

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Reid for her question. I know she understands that jobs in her electorate are dependent on trade and dependent on our government delivering trade agreements and making sure that we are providing trade opportunities for our exporters. This year our government has brought into force the Indonesia, Peru and Hong Kong free trade agreements, which will provide substantially better market access for 99 per cent of goods. Since we've been in government we have lifted our share of trade covered by trade agreements from 26 per cent to 70 per cent. We are working to grow that even further by pursuing strong export agreements with the EU; the Pacific Alliance—Mexico, Chile, Peru and Colombia; the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership; and the United Kingdom. These will take the benefits that we have from free trade agreements to even greater than 70 per cent, creating jobs.

Australian businesses that export, on average, hire 23 per cent more staff, have 11 per cent higher wages and have 13 per cent higher labour productivity than non-exporters. Our trade agenda has already resulted in more Australian businesses exporting—more than 53,000, including 46,000 SMEs. That's 46,000 small businesses, goods-exporting businesses—

Ms Madeleine King interjecting—

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

The member for Brand will not interject again.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And there are more jobs. One in five Australians are in trade related employment. For those in regional Australia, it's one in four. Regional Australia is so important for jobs when it comes to our export sector. Household incomes, on average, are $8½ thousand higher because of trade. At the moment, we have a record 30 consecutive monthly trade surpluses, with the two largest trade surpluses in March and May 2020. We had a record financial year trade surplus of $74.4 billion in financial year 2019-20.

We know that COVID-19 is impacting on our exporters, but, when you look at our record, goods and exports are only down 3.7 per cent in 2020. If you look at the OECD average, they are down 15.2 per cent. We understand how important trade is. That is why we're pursuing free trade agreements with the EU, with the Pacific Alliance, with our partners in ASEAN and with the United Kingdom—because we know that that will produce more jobs for our economy. (Time expired)