Bob Day (SA, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge this bill is being resolved in the non-controversial section of business this week and Family First supports the bill. I speak on this bill today, as opportunities are rare to talk on behalf of our farming constituents on quotas and tariffs which affect export opportunities and farm gate returns. I was also eager to speak on this topic because my political mentor, the late Bert Kelly, the former member for the South Australian seat of Wakefield—and regular columnist under the name 'The Modest Member'—was committed to removing the tariff barriers because of their impact on our exporters, and it is pleasing to see the progress being made on free trade under this government.

I rise today to acknowledge that a modest member's work is never done, and this bill relates to the quotas that still remain. There are some 33 export quotas currently managed by the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources—and I will come to those in a moment. There are, of course, further quota limits that we do not manage but are managed by the destination country. There are about 1,300 quota arrangements around the world. I cannot say how many affect Australian exports but Australia applies only one to its importers, and that is the cheese and curd quota. However, let us put that solitary quota into context. The World Trade Organisation says this single Australian import quota represents coverage of just 0.9 per cent of all agricultural imports. South Korea's comparison rate for instance is 13 per cent, the European Union is 11 per cent, Canada is nine per cent, Israel is seven per cent, Thailand is seven per cent, Japan is six per cent, Malaysia is five per cent, China and the USA are five per cent, Russia is three per cent, Indonesia is one per cent and India is the same as us at just under one per cent. While we impose quotas on cheese coming into Australia, two significant jurisdictions, perhaps the last two bastions of protectionism, namely the European Union and the United States of America, impose major quotas on our cheese.

Australia is also subject to quotas imposed on our meat exports into the United States and the European Union. These are two quotas that we manage. Thankfully, our free trade agreement with the US sees its quota on our beef rise until 2022, when there will be no quota at all. Whilst we almost hit the EU quota levels almost every year because it is a very low threshold, in recent history we had barely got over half the total annual US quota level. However, a recent surge in our beef exports to the US saw us, in the most recent quota quarter, hit quota control levels during November. A driving force for this has been the lowest US cattle herd level in 60 years and the relatively high US dollar hurting US domestic beef supply and making imports from Australia more attractive. Our beef, sheep and goat meat exports are being hampered by the EU's low quotas, and that is one of the many reasons I have been regularly saying we need to pursue free trade with the European Union.

Our recent free trade deal with Japan has been important on the question of quotas because Japan imposes multiple quotas on pork, poultry, apple and orange juices, and honey. I am advised that under the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, the Japanese honey and apple juice tariffs will be eliminated by 2024. The quotas I have described so far are all quotas that are managed by our government through the processes modified by this bill. As I foreshadowed earlier, there are 33 quotas but a further 1,267 might apply to Australian exports—that is, quotas regulated by the government of the receiving country. I will touch on a few key quotas affecting Australian trade.

A significant quota that we do not manage is the sugar quota in the United States. Exporting sugar to the United States is something very close to the heart of Senate colleagues in the Liberal National Party from Queensland. Without going into the numbers, Canada and Mexico get preferential treatment for exporting refined sugar into the USA, leaving very little of their quota for Australia to supply. Getting more Australian refined sugar into America is hard work and no doubt a big disappointment for sugar exporters from the recent Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. This blatant protectionist behaviour of the Americans is artificially keeping their sugar prices high for their farmers and is forcing the market to shift behaviour at the ultimate disadvantage of the farmers it is meant to help.

I also note in relation to the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement that, whilst China has a total worldwide import quota of 287,000 tonnes of wool, under ChAFTA Australia got an exclusive, duty-free country-specific quota of 30,000 tonnes of clean wool—about 43,000 tonnes of greasy wool—rising five per cent per annum to 45,000 tonnes clean by2024. I am told this is the best deal any nation has had for wool exports to China to supply its textile industry.

Another significant quota managed by the destination country is Indonesia's quota on Australian beef cattle. Its imports have been growing significantly, but due to shameful acts by people in this place, radical animal rights activists and elements in the media, those exports were shut down by the Indonesians. I note the Australian beef industry is suing the government for $1 billion for the former government's actions in relation to that matter. It is taking some time for Indonesia to restore previous quota levels of around 250,000 head of cattle per quarter. For instance, in July the Indonesians set our quota at a low 50,000. So whilst this bill is being resolved in the non-controversial section of business in the Senate today, the question of quotas and controls is a very important issue to our nation, as the government is fond of saying, quite rightly, 'Australia is a great exporting nation.'

My key message in putting these figures on the record today is that there is far more work yet to be done in reducing quotas, not just those managed by the department, but through expanding free trade to give our sugar, beef and indeed agricultural, horticultural, manufacturing and other exporters the best opportunity to sell high-quality products to the world.