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

I dealt, at the conclusion of question time yesterday, with the substantive matters in relation to the order passed by the Senate in the motion moved by Senator Hanson. I suspect the bringing forward of the motion and the way in which it was structured were to enable a bit of grandstanding on antitrade rhetoric to occur in the chamber this morning. Sadly, that seems to be a more common occurrence from the crossbench and even from some in the opposition. I say 'sadly' because it is senators choosing to turn a blind eye to the facts, to the evidence, to the history, of the benefits that trade has provided to Australia. It's no accident that Australia has enjoyed 27 years of continuous economic growth. That growth is a function of good policy reforms, from both Liberal-National governments and Labor governments—to be fair and to give credit. We've seen governments of both persuasions open up our economy in a range of ways. Opening it up to provide greater opportunities for trade of goods, services and investment has been a key part of those reforms that have sustained our economic growth and our prosperity as a nation.

Over the past five years, in our term of government, as we have successfully negotiated successive trade agreements to create a more open environment, trade has contributed around one-quarter of the estimated economic growth that we've seen. As a nation, our economic growth leads that of the world's largest economies. It leads the G7. Trade has contributed around one-quarter of that. In 2017-18 we achieved a record level of exports of $401 billion. Importantly—and I really encourage senators to reflect on this point—Australia has achieved a trade surplus every month of this year and for 20 out of the past 23 months. It is often portrayed, by those who want to use antitrade rhetoric, that somehow Australia does poorly, when the truth is quite the opposite. These are not meaningless statistics. They are a demonstration of how it is that increased trade opportunities have contributed to Australia's prosperity and have ensured that, through that prosperity, Australia is one of the best places in the world to live, as the prosperity enables Australians to pursue their ambitions and dreams and gives government the resources to be able to provide essential services. That's why our government has been such a strong supporter and effective deliverer of free and open trade. We know that it provides opportunities that Australian businesses successfully seize and, in doing so, provides more opportunities to Australian families.

We believe in supporting and backing our farmers, our technology companies, our artist, our scientist and our small and large businesses to develop the highest-quality goods and services and to be able to sell those not only in Australia but also in our region and around the world. We don't take a 'little Australia' mentality and believe that we're only fit to be able to compete within some closed shop environment here in Australia. We believe that, as a country, we are actually capable—as we have demonstrated—of competing around the world. That's why today around one in five Australian jobs is dependent upon trade—that is, around 2.2 million Australians. And we know that businesses that export also tend to pay better. On average, wages are an estimated 11½ per cent higher—significantly more.

Australian household incomes are variously estimated to be around $8,500 higher due to trade liberalisation that's been undertaken in Australia since the 1980s. It's no accident that it's been because of our Liberal-National governments; the Howard years delivered the United States trade agreement, and our government has agreements with China, Japan and Korea and did the landmark CPTPP-11. All of them ensured we have more opportunities to sell more goods and services into the world. That's why we continue to fight at the G20, through APEC and at the World Trade Organization for effective global trade rules and we continue to pursue new trade agreements with Europe, Latin America and other regional trading blocs such as the RCEP agreement. Our government has the best, most successful track record of pursuing trade agreements and we will continue to work on doing so.

This motion was sparked by debate about the transparency of how those agreements are brought to force. We have very clear parliamentary processes to ensure thorough scrutiny of and deliberation on free trade agreements before they are ratified. As I outlined to the Senate yesterday, there was a letter that responded to this Senate order on 11 December 2013. It made very clear that the Senate can be assured that, once the text of trade agreements is agreed on between the two parties, but before they are ratified by the Australian government, they will be made public and will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny through the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties. This is consistent with our well-established treaty-making process. Each and every Australian free trade agreement that has come into force since this 2013 motion has gone through this proper parliamentary process, has been referred to JSCOT for inquiry. To ensure thorough scrutiny, agreements are tabled for 20 parliamentary joint sitting days before they're considered by the JSCOT inquiry. Let's again emphasise that point, because there seems to be some suggestions through this process that the text of agreements is withheld or not made public: the text of those agreements is tabled and sits on the table for 20 sitting days before JSCOT makes any determinations.

Of course, parliament can refer enabling legislation—or any other matter, for the point—to other committees for inquiry. By way of example, there was exceptionally broad scrutiny of the TPP. The regulatory impact statement and the accompanying national interest analysis were considered by JSCOT, as is standard practice for every one of our agreements. But they were also considered by the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee and the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. All of those inquiries were thorough, were public and had the full text of the agreements available to them. Each and every one of those inquiries had that. And each of them provided for the basis upon which, ultimately, binding treaty action was taken.

Senators may also be aware that just recently we sent the Peru-Australia Free Trade Agreement back to JSCOT for a second inquiry, at the request of the Australian Labor Party. The Peru FTA was examined by JSCOT in August and in November of this year. Both times JSCOT has recommended that binding treaty action be taken, but both times JSCOT has had the opportunity with the public text, with the public national interest analysis and with the opportunity through public hearings and publicly accepted submissions to be able to get to the bottom of any issues in relation to those agreements.

Why is it that we adopt this process? We adopt it for transparency and thoroughness. But why is it that we don't say, 'We'll do all of that before the negotiations are settled'? It's because to do it all before the negotiations are settled weakens Australia's negotiating position. It weakens Australia's negotiating position to throw it all open to debate. Of course this parliament, the government, can choose to not ultimately ratify agreements. It happens at times around the world that agreements that are negotiated between two governments do not come into force; that can occur. However, we think that, to get the best possible deal, it's important to be able to conclude those negotiations up-front.

Debate about the process is really a mask or a smokescreen for those who want to debate the merits of more open trade. And we do see—