Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

On the second question, I believe it will be released shortly but it is being—to use the vernacular—legally scrubbed. The document is being checked—the i's dotted, the t's crossed, and all of the rest of it. On the first part of the question regarding the Productivity Commission, the issue here is: what is the counterfactual? Is the counterfactual that for 20 years we have not been able to get a multilateral trade deal? The question is, do you take what is on the table and the access that goes with it, and do you build on that, as we are doing with Japan, Korea, China, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and, potentially, with a fusion of the TPP with some of the arrangements that China wants to see in the region? But there is no counterfactual because there has not been a multilateral trade deal since the Uruguay Round. The Doha Round collapsed. So there is no perfect model that you can put up as the benchmark against which to judge this model. For us, it cements our access into all of these major markets and gives us most favoured nation status. (Time expired)