Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I think a little bit of history and perspective on this is really important. I think it's commonly accepted that the US—at least stakeholders and interests in the US—initiated the TPP. In my speech on the second reading, I talked a little bit about the failure of the Doha rounds and of multilateral trade deals leading towards 2006. When the TPP fell apart, the idea of a separate multilateral deal being led by the US in the Pacific region was initiated. It was supposed to be finished by 2012, but that was really when it actually started getting interesting, and here we are in 2018 with a version of it. But this was a US led deal. Obama put his signature on this and, of course, led it in the US Congress. He was its biggest champion. And, of course, President Trump made an election commitment that if he got elected—and let's be honest, most of us thought he wouldn't, but he did—he would tear up the TPP, which he has done.

To ignore that this is not a US-driven and US led multilateral trade and investment deal and to say that it's hypothetical that the US might or might not rejoin this deal at some time in the future really is ignoring history. Add that to what Senator Hanson-Young just pointed out: there are suspended clauses in the trade deal—how often do you have suspended clauses in a trade deal, especially a trade deal this size, that are sitting there, waiting?

May I just talk on some of the most egregious aspects of the original Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, especially in relation to things like intellectual property and monopoly pricing for medicines. Even the previous trade minister, Andrew Robb, took the US to task on the kinds of provisions they wanted to put in on the monopoly pricing of medicine. So those clauses are sitting there suspended, waiting to be re-engaged. It is an absolutely critical question to be asking the government at a point, here and now, when we're about to vote on the enabling legislation. Are we basically voting on a contingency for these to be automatically reactivated if the US rejoins the trade deal or, as the minister has pointed out, does it have to go through a process that ultimately involves a sovereign parliament? Remember, we were elected by the people of this country to make the laws and to scrutinise what the government does. That's what the Senate does. That's what we're doing here this morning, and it's extremely important.

Minister, your own government has stood up in here ad nauseam during question time for years talking about how big this deal is—the biggest trade deal in history, the biggest multilateral trade deal, 40 per cent of our economy is covered by it et cetera. As I said, there are 29-plus-plus chapters in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that literally cover every aspect of our life in this country. Just about every industry and every community is impacted by the TPP, and yet, as I pointed out last night—and I did lose my temper in here—you act as though you're insulted that we're asking questions. Considering the gravity of how important this bill is, how big this deal is and how it's taken 13 years to get to this point—it's extremely controversial, extremely complex and there are thousands of pieces of paper covering an incredible amount of detail—I personally think we could be in here asking you questions for days on this, considering how much detail there is and how many unknowns there still are.

I think you've made it very clear, Minister, that this will come back to parliament if the US rejoins the TPP. I did hear you say in your last statement to Senator Patrick 'only if there's legislation'. I want to narrow that down. I'm being very specific with my questions here. Will it require legislation? I know they may change the clauses and there may be negotiations with our negotiators about the 22 suspended clauses but, if those clauses stand, will they require legislation to be put into any new form of the TPP with US involvement? Will that require coming back to parliament or are we voting on a contingency now for them to be automatically re-engaged, as they are if there are no changes?