James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm thrilled to speak on the Customs Amendment (ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area Second Protocol Implementation and Other Measures) Bill 2024. I'm disappointed that I seem to be the only speaker, because I think this bill is on one of the extremely important issues that we should all be seeking an opportunity to discuss in this chamber—and that is expanding the economic opportunity that free trade provides.

Free trade is under siege in some parts of the world at the moment. Quite concerningly, some parts of the world are looking to engage in an increase of protectionism. Thankfully, in this country, we have a very important political consensus between our major parties that free trade is a good thing. As a nation with a very healthy, and proudly healthy, trade surplus, we know that we are a wealthier country because of trade than we would be without trade. Indeed, when you look at just agriculture as an example, there are a little over 27 million people living in this country and the often quoted figure, which I'm quite sure is accurate, is that we produce enough food in this country to feed 70 million people. That means we feed 27 million Australians and 43 million other people around the world. That's good for those people that need the food but also good for our primary producers, who are able to produce more than what could be consumed just in this nation and make wealth from selling overseas.

Whether it's the mining sector, the manufacturing sector or the services sector, we know that the wealth of this country is underpinned by that trade. If you think about our largest export, it's iron ore. The amount of iron ore that we use in this country to transform into steel in my home state in Whyalla for longform products and in Wollongong, the other major steel plant for sheet steel, meets the needs of this country and we have spectacular quantities of iron ore which are exported in equally spectacular quantities around the world for the steelmaking needs of other nations. It earns tens of billions of dollars, sometimes more than hundreds of billions of dollars, for our economy. And so many other natural resources that we are happily endowed with make such an enormous difference to the wealth and the standards of living of everyone in this country.

I applaud the fact that we haven't lost our way and haven't gone down the path of populist rhetoric around tariffs and restricting the flow of goods and services across our border, because we are so much wealthier because of that.

This bill deals with continued harmonisation opportunities with our relationship and trade agreements between ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand. I have had a regularly occurring terrible experience in my life with disgraceful nontariff barriers that certain jurisdictions try to use to obfuscate trade. In my time in the wool industry, we would always have these tactics, particularly from the European Union, to make it as difficult as possible. I happened to be in wool, but anyone in agriculture knows some of the appalling practices that the EU has engaged in over time to frustrate the ability of good-quality Australian produce getting into markets like the EU. I once had to get a government sanctioned vet to provide a health certificate for a one-kilogram spindle of yarn because there was this suggestion that it couldn't be sent into the EU unless a vet had inspected a piece of yarn—that had been superwashed, I might add. Superwashing is a hydrochloric acid treatment of wool fibre before it is combed and spun and dyed. The suggestion that that needed to have a health certificate from a vet to make sure that it wasn't carrying some kind of potential biologically risky disease was absolutely ludicrous. But these tactics have, of course, been used many, many times to frustrate our fair and free market access that we should be entitled to through agreements.

I never had any issues with the excellent relationship that we have with the ASEAN and New Zealand nations. The three parties that we are discussing in this legislation are probably excellent examples of people that have some of the highest standards of good-quality trade liberalised practices and welcome the opportunity for the competition that that provides.

I appreciate the opportunity to make some brief comments on this bill. I commend the bipartisanship that we have with the government when it comes to looking for every opportunity possible to continue to enter into signed agreements to provide better and more open access for good-quality Australian goods and services to export markets, and I welcome the competition that flows from that from the nations we sign these agreements with. I'm not aware of any example of Australia not being a very open and willing partner to negotiate with any other jurisdictions that want to talk about that sensible reduction in trade barriers between our economy and theirs.

There are lots more opportunities to undertake into the future. The sad state of the multilateral World Trade Organization process of further trade liberalisation is very disappointing. It is not the fault in any way, shape or form of this country. We've always been a very willing participant in those trade negotiation rounds, but, disappointingly, and particularly because of the way in which you have to achieve agreement through the WTA process, we, of course, haven't seen any meaningful progress, really, since the Uruguay rounds that saw the 1994 agreements and the 1995 establishment of the World Trade Organization.

I know that the bipartisanship in this chamber, by and large, will always see us being a very open, keen and willing partner to multilateral avenues, but this is a good example where we won't sit back and wait for the WTO processes to continue to grind at a glacial pace seemingly towards nowhere. We will always engage in bilateral agreements with willing parties, so I commend this bill to the House, which sees us further streamline and harmonise the way in which we undertake the specifics of trade documentation and trade bureaucracy between ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.