Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

I want to talk a little bit about ratification, because I heard the exchange between Senator Whish-Wilson and the minister. I just want to repeat a point that Mr Mina of DFAT, who is an expert in this field, made in his public testimony:

The second point is simply to note that three countries—Japan, Singapore and Mexico—have all ratified. Three more need to ratify for the agreement to enter into force. Developments are gathering apace in five other countries—

and he mentions them. He continued:

It is very possible that, if Australia isn't an early mover on ratification, we will not make one of the first six … We do, therefore, commend early ratification to the committee, and we're looking forward to answering any further questions you may have today.

There seems to be some confusion. I put it to you that Mr Mina is an expert in this field. He is very well respected. But this treaty, I presume, hasn't been ratified on the basis of the testimony of Mr Mina.

Moving on next to the point about relevance to the bill, again, this bill is enabling legislation for a treaty and it's very normal in committee stage to deal with consequences of bills, including consequences that are not directly related to the bill. Pretty much everything is in order when we're talking about the TPP.

In the government's consideration of the agreement, once again, after many years I'm sure that the government has done its due diligence on this. It is clear, in respect of labour market testing, that there are about 450 professions that could be covered by the term 'contractual service supplier'. And I note that, for those contractual service suppliers, we don't have to have labour market testing. They can simply come to Australia under the agreement and take the role of an Australian worker without testing. What analysis did the government do in terms of the numbers of likely foreign workers that would come to this country without that testing?