Peter Georgiou (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Customs Amendment (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation) Bill 2018 and the related bill. Although there may be benefits for Australia and Australian produce in the long term, there will definitely be issues with the introduction of the TPP.

Lower tariffs for Australian exports enable our products to become cheaper and more competitive in overseas markets. We are competing with the United States in the Japanese market with our beef, for example. Japan is Australia's largest export market for beef, accounting for one-third of all export sales generally. Although we may get cheaper products from overseas, we must always be mindful when importing any agricultural produce from other countries to ensure the strictest of our biosecurity rules are in place to protect the unique Australian environment. We are proud that Australia's produce and agricultural products are clean and free of disease. This remains the major selling point for our agricultural products in overseas markets.

As an example, under the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement, JAEPA, Australia will continue to face high tariffs and limited quotas on Japanese-sensitive products. Under JAEPA, dairy products face ad valorem tariffs ranging up to 40 per cent and further specific tariffs. Beef tariffs, which are significantly reduced under JAEPA, could still be as high as 23.5 per cent after 15 years, down from 38.5 per cent. Other tariffs are still applied on wheat, barley, rice and sugar, and a range of tariffs also remain on other Australian interests in horticulture and seafood. My question, therefore, is: how could the TPP bring down tariffs for our producers and is it actually worthwhile?

I am further concerned about job losses where employers would be able to hire temporary migrants from six additional partner countries without first advertising these jobs to Australian workers. This is what the Labor and Liberal parties are supporting. TPP-11 will allow temporary workers from Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico and Vietnam to work in Australia. These workers will be tied to one employer and be more vulnerable because they can be deported if these lose their jobs. We repeatedly witness exploitation of temporary migrant workers—in particular, those from non-English-speaking countries.

Other major issues include the investor-state dispute settlement—or ISDS—clauses. In the TPP-11 they'll allow foreign investors to sue the Australian government if they incur a loss of profits due to changes in domestic laws, such as labour regulations. Recent ISDS cases included cases against health, the environment and other public interest legislation. On public health, the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis sued the Colombian government over plans to reduce the price of a patented medicine to treat leukaemia. On workers' wages, a French company, Veolia, is suing the Egyptian government over a contract dispute in which they are claiming compensation for a rise in the minimum wage. On privatisation, Mexican transport company ADO has threatened Portugal with a 42 million euro ISDS case after it cancelled plans to privatise part of Lisbon's public transport network. Although tobacco control regulations are excluded from the TPP-11, ISDS could be used by other foreign investors to sue the Australian government over health, environment, labour and other public interest laws.

I am also asking the government why they are so reluctant to accept the Productivity Commissioner's offer to perform an economic analysis of the TPP's effect. According to the CBA, a report released by the World Bank in January 2016 analysed the effects of the TPP and said that other members of the TPP stood to gain a lot more than Australia, stating that Vietnam's economy would be 10 per cent bigger by 2030, Malaysia's would be eight per cent bigger, New Zealand's would be three per cent bigger and Singapore's would be three per cent bigger. Australia's economy was forecast to grow a mere 0.7 per cent by the year 2030. This is a very dodgy deal and this is why One Nation will not be supporting this bill.