Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development (Senate)) Share this | Hansard source

Fortuitously, I was reading some information that I've received on the TPP-11 as Senator Fawcett rose to speak. I will inform the Senate that I am not on the committee and I have not been to any of the meetings, but I've got some serious reservations about the TPP based on what has been put to me in what I was reading when Senator Fawcett first jumped up.

I'm told that, to date, the TPP-11 has not been subjected to any independently commissioned economic analysis. A research paper from Tufts University about the TPP suggests that Australia would experience a net loss of some 39,000 jobs as a result of the treaty. It should be noted that the paper adopted the United Nations global policy model for the basis of its estimations and was co-authored by Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former United Nations assistant secretary-general for economic development. It goes on to say that the TPP-11 is not in the national interests for several reasons. Australia has bilateral or multilateral arrangements already with seven of the 10 partnership countries in question, and there is one pending with Peru, so it is no surprise that there is limited economic benefit for Australian exporters. In saying that, I'm told that the estimated loss of tariff revenue for Australia from the TPP is approximately $25 million in 2016-17 and $135 million over the forward estimates period. More concerning, however, are the provisions in the agreement about labour mobility and investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS, procedures.

I've also been told, very clearly, there are many in the community with the view, which I share, that the government's contemporary approach to trade negotiations treats workers as a commodity. We cannot agree to that; I cannot agree to that. It's a very firm view from many that labour mobility must not be used as a bargaining chip in trade arrangements. These policies must be set by immigration agencies and ministers in light of broader questions of justice and national interest. This position is held by many in the community. Of course, it is not incompatible with many unions' support for migrants and migration, which I share and which, until the 1980s, was based largely on state-sponsored permanent skilled refugee and family reunion—which remains the preference of many—rather than temporary and employer-driven migration.

Earlier this year, the minister for trade and investment, Mr Ciobo, was on the front foot about the TPP-11 falsely claiming on the program Insiders, in regard to waiving of labour market testing:

… this doesn't apply to unskilled or low-skilled workers. It is not about bringing in cheap labour. What this is basically aimed at are senior managers, executives who work within often multinational corporations who need to be able to transfer between companies as part of that particular company's operations.

He then goes on to say:

That's where this applies. It is not about cheap labour or unskilled labour as the unions would have you believe.

He also said:

… anything we—

that's the government, not me—

have done, we have done on a reciprocal basis meaning we make it easier for Australian workers to go overseas as well.

I'm told both these claims by Minister Ciobo fail the test of scrutiny. The National interest analysis put out by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, DFAT, states:

A Ministerial determination will need to be made under section 140GBA of the Migration Act 1958 to exempt from labour market testing the intra-corporate transferees, independent executives and/or contractual service suppliers of those TPP-11 Parties to which Australia extended temporary entry commitments.

This makes it clear that the TPP-11 temporary entry provisions include contractual service suppliers and removes the requirement—this is what grieves me—for labour market testing to establish whether there are Australian workers available. So, under the treaty, visas can be provided to workers in no fewer than 435 occupations. The broad definition of 'contractual service providers' in labour mobility chapters in Australia's trade agreements is not designed to facilitate genuine trade in services but to undermine local wages and conditions by providing greater freedom for employers to import labour on less favourable conditions without the need to undertake labour market testing.

That is also my view, and I will share that with our unions and with our communities, because I'm on the record many, many times as saying I have no problem with skilled migration—this nation was built on skilled migration—but I have a massive problem with trade agreements being used to ram down wages and conditions at the expense of Australian workers. Our kids need to be given the opportunity to do these traineeships and apprenticeships, and it is our kids who deserve to be employed in our nation. We should not be making it easy to bring in foreign workers on far worse conditions of employment than Australians can get. But, apart from that, Aussies must come first.