Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank our great member for Gilmore. She is a terrific supporter of Australian farmers. She knows how important they are to our country and how respected they are in our country and indeed around the world. Here at home our agriculture sector employs hundreds of thousands of people. The total value of agriculture, fisheries and forestry production has increased by around 47 per cent over the last 20 years. Indeed, it hit a record level of $100 billion in 2022-23. And our Aussie farmers continue feeding the world through $76 billion worth of agriculture, fisheries and forestry exports annually. We have the globe's best produce—and the world knows it.

That's why it was such an honour to represent Australian farmers last week at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation minister's meeting. Indeed, for more than three decades APEC has been vital for promoting open and inclusive rules based trade and practical market oriented regulatory reform in our region.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will pause. The Leader of the Nationals is not going to just give a running commentary, all through the answer, alongside the deputy leader—to continually be back and forth and back and forth. We're not going to have that for the remainder of the answer. It's unbecoming.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'm surprised they're not supporting our farmers. I mean, it was very clear, amongst the 21 member economies of APEC, where the Prime Minister and I met with a number of our counterparts, that Australia is considered a critical partner globally, not only for trade but for helping the direction of the rules based order that our trade relies on.

We punch above our weight internationally, and I'm proud to be part of a government that has restored our international standing.

Since the election, the Albanese Labor government has been working successfully to strengthen our trading relationships across the APEC region and indeed around the world, and of course it's ensuring more trade with more trading partners. And this means more jobs here at home in Australia. Today, one in four jobs is dependent on our trade—one in four jobs in this country. It also means more opportunities for Aussie farmers.

We've seen our hard work pay off through the stabilisation of our relationship with our largest trading partner in China, where we inherited, of course, from those opposite $20 billion in trade impediments. We have removed most of those, delivering big wins for wine, grains, red meat and seafood, and in the past year these wins have now seen record-breaking exports of agricultural products to China.

We've delivered a new free trade agreement with the UAE. Indeed, that's our first in the Middle East region—and I talked about that in this place just a few weeks ago. Importantly, we recorded 88 market access achievements to open, improve, maintain and restore access, including 10 new markets. We are now exporting over 70 per cent of our agriculture, fisheries and forestry production to 169 markets globally. This is our highest and most diversified trade ever.