Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to this matter of public importance debate regarding the dangers of pursuing the ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. One of the best outcomes of the recent American presidential election is the fact that the TPP is dead and buried—although there are government members in this place who are acting like the Black Knight in the famous Monty Python skit and pretending that the election of Donald Trump as President of the USA is 'just a flesh wound' to the TPP. President-elect Trump has made it quite clear that the TPP is dead and buried, and yet we have increasingly desperate calls by government members that it is not dead and buried. I struggle to understand those Liberal members' optimism when it comes to the TPP.

The TPP, with its investor-state dispute settlement provisions, fundamentally undermines this parliament's sovereignty. Perhaps it is not Australia's best interests that are driving this unnatural urge to put in place trade deals which dud Australian workers and undermine this parliament's sovereignty. Perhaps it is the Liberal members' best interests after they retire from this place that is really driving them to sign up to a bad trade deal.

We only have to look at where previous Liberal trade members are making their money now in their retired lives after parliament to understand where their true loyalties lay. We should have new rules which prohibit any trade ministers involved in making trade deals from taking up lobbying jobs for foreign counties, especially non-democratic countries, for five years. That way we will have a guarantee that trade ministers are not trying to line their and their families' pockets rather than doing deals which benefit future generations of Australians.

One of the important elements of a good trade deal is to make sure that Australian businesses are internationally competitive. If Australian businesses are not internationally competitive then we are going to lose jobs and economic growth. So it came really as a surprise to me that this government, which talks about being smart, innovative and internationally competitive, refused to put in place a backpacker tax rate which is internationally competitive. This morning, on the behalf of desperate Tasmanian farmers, I voted to improve the Liberals' backpacker legislation and make it internationally competitive. The Senate had an opportunity to vote against the Liberals' flawed backpacker legislation; however, instead of opposing the legislation, the official record will show it proceeded through the Senate's second reading without any opposition. For Tasmanian Liberal members like Senator Duniam to say that I blocked the backpacker legislation is a desperate lie once again easily disproved by the Senate's official record: Hansard.During the committee stage of the backpacker debate, I simply voted to improve the government's own legislation and to make it internationally competitive by lowering the tax rate to 10.5 per cent.

Every Australian farmer and visiting backpacker knows that New Zealand's headline tax rate for backpackers is 10.5 per cent and, if we are going to have a lasting and competitive backpacker tax rate, ours also must be set at 10.5 per cent. The issue is now back in the hands of the government where it has been for the last 18months. The government now have their own legislation waiting for debate and a vote sitting in the lower house. So much for time sensitive! The government have a decision on whether they will support backpacker tax legislation that is internationally competitive at 10.5 per cent or vote to ensure that the backpacker tax rises from 0 to 32 per cent.

I am calling on the Prime Minister to personally take charge of this matter and bring some honesty, reason and common sense to the problem. If he can take over the South Australian water crisis and cut out the destructive influence of Deputy Prime Minister Joyce's ego then he can do the same for the backpacker crisis. Prime Minister Turnbull, like all Australians, knows that his Deputy Prime Minister Joyce is incapable of swallowing his pride and admitting that he is wrong. The PM knows that we must have an internationally competitive backpacker tax rate at 10.5 per cent to compete with New Zealand. The PM knows that the best hope our farmers have of surviving long term in this global market is to be internationally competitive. So, you know what? Let's do something once, do it right just for once and make our backpacker tax rate internationally competitive.