Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for that reminder, Deputy President. As I was saying, the proportion of full-time and part-time jobs has remained largely stable. Employment growth has managed to outstrip population growth. More Australians are employed and a higher proportion of Australians are employed. Average unemployment, which has stood at around seven per cent over the last four decades, now stands at around five per cent. Some will tell us that we're poorer because of it, and yet GDP per capita, inflation adjusted, has grown significantly: it stood at around US$30,000 equivalent in 1980, it is around US$55,000 equivalent today. Those several decades of economic reform, including more open trading environments, have left us in a world where Australia has a higher proportion of the population employed, has more than doubled the number of jobs that exist across the country and has a higher average per-capita GDP rate.

It's a pity that indeed those on the fringes of politics now seem in some ways to be being joined by some from the Labor Party, because what has occurred, at least over recent decades, is we've had significant bipartisanship in many of these ventures. Bipartisanship during the Hawke and Keating years enabled many of the economic reforms to occur during that time—perhaps slightly less so during the Howard years around some economic reforms—but, ultimately we saw bipartisanship enable a number of trade agreements to come to fruition, and I thank the Labor Party for that over that time.

We do see that 89 per cent of Australian businesses that export indicate that they use our FTAs as a platform for their exports. We appreciate that the Greens have never really understood the benefits of trade, because they'll stand against anything that sounds like it might relate to opportunities for business, ignoring the fact that business creates jobs that pay taxes that sustain our services. And we know that those on the far Right have tended to take a closed-shop mentality and to adopt that little-Australia perspective. They believe that if we could just live within our own contained built-up brick walls around the margins of Australia, we would be a much better place. Instead, of course, we've benefited greatly from being more open. We see the unions seeking to push the Labor Party around. They sought to push Mr Shorten to walk away from the TPP and he said we shouldn't pursue it when Donald Trump walked away, but I thank the Labor Party for the fact that they held their nerve and they ultimately supported the TPP coming to fruition.

We need to be clear that all parts of Australia don't always benefit from every aspect of every agreement. That's why successive governments have supported transition packages industry support, but, ultimately, Australia is better as a result of the collection and the wave of economic reforms, including those trade agreements. Indeed, Senator Hanson's home state of Queensland is also a significant beneficiary. In 2017-18, Queensland's total exports of goods were valued at over $74.2 billion, a rise of 11.5 per cent over the previous year. That was driven significantly by exports of goods to FTA partner countries—those countries with which we have free trade agreements in place. Those exports were valued at $49.7 billion, which is well over half of Queensland's total exports, and the growth rate to those countries was 15.4 per cent, well in excess of the average growth rate. So Queensland exports grew, but they grew faster to countries with whom we have FTAs in place. China, Japan and Korea are critical trading partners and account for more than half of Queensland's total goods exports. Our government has negotiated trade agreements with those three significant markets that lock in exports for significant commodities like coal at zero, enabling us to ensure that we have strong growth.

But it's not just those commodities. We also see many services industries and other goods actually benefiting. Take Russell Mineral Equipment located in Toowoomba, who have benefited clearly from our policies. They design and manufacture minerals processing equipment. They're one of the great examples that show that, although Australia is strong in the mining sector, the mining services companies are also increasingly exporting their goods and skills to the rest of the world. Our FTAs with North Asia have played a key role in Russell Mining Equipment's success according to their CFO. He says:

Having them in place gives us the confidence to invest money into foreign markets and ensures we are protected against risks such as intellectual property theft and copyright.

That's an example of a Toowoomba based business creating more income for Australia and more jobs for Australians by selling their services to the world. Or how about Frosty Boy located in Yatala in Queensland, a manufacturer and distributor of powdered desserts and beverages? In the last 12 months, this Gold Coast based company has grown 30 per cent and now employs around 70 Australians. Its managing director says that exports have played a vital role in the company's growth. He says:

We have not only increased the number of product lines we export, but due to the growth in our exports, we've also invested in new dairy equipment and accessories to increase our production. Our exports now make up 70 per cent of our business. Since 2001, we have seen an average yearly growth of about 17 per cent. It is definitely our exports that have enabled us to achieve this kind of growth.

Or there's OzKleen, located on the Gold Coast. They identify FTAs with North Asia as helping them to expand their business. Their managing director says:

Thanks to the FTAs, we have been able to significantly reduce our landed costs, making our product more price competitive.

In Korea—

They highlight—

this tariff reduction combined with a positive exchange rate has seen the import price of our cleaning products come down by 10.5 per cent, which makes a big difference to the overall price of the product.

That's the point. Those Australian products are landing in Korea at a cheaper price because Korea is no longer applying, effectively, a tax to them, meaning that a Gold Coast business like that is able to better succeed into the future.

I know some will cite manufacturing jobs, which, if you look at ABS data, have been on the increase again recently. One of the reasons, there, is that you see more companies, both domestic and international, investing in Australia in higher technology spaces. Take the Peruvian manufacturing company Vistony. Vistony has indicated that the Peru-Australia agreement will be of 'great value for us as a leader of Peruvian lubricants, as lower tariffs generate greater investment'. Why is that good for Australia? Because that company has indicated that they're setting up operations here in Australia. They will create approximately 200 jobs as a result of doing so. That's another example of where an Australian trade agreement has helped to create more job opportunities.

As others contribute and follow me in this debate, I urge the Senate to be mindful of some of the real facts that sit before us. Fact 1: all our trade agreements and the text around them are published, made public, laid bare and tabled in the parliament before they are ratified and before binding treaty action is taken. Fact 2: they're all assessed by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties and, frequently, other parliamentary committees as part of that process. Fact 3: the successive decades of economic reform we've had have got Australia to a point where we're enjoying trade surpluses, month after month. I go back to the opening point I made: a trade surplus every month this year and for 20 out of the past 23 months. That's the strength of Australia's trading situation and economic relationship. Fact 4: over those decades of reform, we've seen employment more than double in Australia and participation in the employment market grow far faster than our population has grown. Fact 5: we've seen unemployment rates come down. Fact 6: we've seen average GDP per capita go up.

Australia is better off as a result of the reforms of the last few decades. We're better off as a result of more open engagement with the rest of the world. Our businesses are successfully seizing those business opportunities, are successfully engaging. In doing so, they're creating more business opportunities in Australia, creating more jobs in Australia, creating more opportunities for Australians and their families and that's generating more revenue for our government to provide the services we rely upon, and those who want to undermine that would be undermining Australia's very prosperity.