Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Cormann as Minister for Finance and representing the Minister for Trade. Yesterday, Mr Jim Griffin, the President of the Federation of Automotive Product Manufacturers, which employs close to 40,000 people and depends on a viable automotive manufacturing sector, said that free trade agreements had failed to deliver any benefit to his industry because of non-tariff barriers. I note that the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, the FCAI, advises that Ford Australia, in seeking to export the Ford Territory to Thailand, is faced with non-tariff barriers that push the price of the vehicle from about $40,000 here to over $100,000 there. Does the government acknowledge that a number of free trade agreements, including that with Thailand, have been biased against Australian manufacturing because of a failure to negotiate effectively on non-tariff barriers?