David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I present 143rd Report—Treaties tabled on 17 June and 15 July 2014.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

Today I present the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties' Report 143, containing the committee's views on five treaties tabled on 17 June and 15 July 2014, including an economic cooperation treaty with Papua New Guinea, three treaties amending bilateral treaties for the protection of migratory water birds, and an amendment to Australia's free trade agreement with New Zealand.

The Treaty on Economic Cooperation between the Government of Australia and the Independent State of Papua New Guineawill change the focus of Australia's relationship with Papua New Guinea from development assistance to trade partnership.

Papua New Guinea has experienced a decade of growth, which is expected to continue, with a significant resource project, the PNG liquefied natural gas project, just getting underway.

Two-way trade between Australia and Papua New Guinea is worth nearly $6 billion a year, and Australian investment is worth more than $19 billion, equal to Australian investment in China.

Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that a recent review of the treaty's predecessor, the Treaty on Development Cooperation between the Government of Australia and the Government of Papua New Guinea, found that our contemporary relationship would be better reflected in a treaty that emphasises economic cooperation, rather than development assistance.

The new treaty sets out a framework for bilateral cooperation in the areas of trade, investment, business relations and development cooperation. Significant provisions include:

While the proposed treaty changes the focus of the relationship from development to economic cooperation, it will continue to govern our development relationship and explicitly articulates a shared commitment to the prevention and detection of fraud. The committee is very happy to support this proposed treaty action.

As previously indicated, the report also reviews amendments to three bilateral treaties protecting migratory birds. The treaties with China, Japan and Korea are part of a network of agreements aimed at protecting wetlands that are used by birds that migrate from as far away as Arctic Siberia to Australia and New Zealand. The committee supports the amendments to these treaties.

Finally, the committee reports on a proposed amendment to the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement to reflect changes to Australia's media ownership laws concerning foreign investment. The agreement is a comprehensive bilateral free trade agreement covering nearly all goods and services traded between Australia and New Zealand. Both parties to the agreement can nominate exceptions to the requirement for free trade in services by listing those exceptions in an annex to the agreement. One of the exceptions listed by Australia applies the limits on foreign ownership of television and broadcasting services set out in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992.All limits to the foreign ownership of television and broadcasting services were removed from that act in 2007, making the exception listed in the annex to the agreement superfluous. The amending treaty action will remove the superfluous listing from the agreement. The committee supports this amendment.

Report 143 also contains a statement relating to a minor treaty action. On behalf of the committee, I commend the report to the Senate.

Question agreed to.