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

I thank Senator Bragg for his question and his passionate advocacy on behalf of Australian businesses and, in particular, exporters. I'm very pleased to inform the Senate that the recent ABS data shows that, over the last year, more than 1,000 additional Australian businesses became exporting businesses of merchandise goods from Australia. That takes the number of Australian businesses exporting to the world to more than 53,000. It is in fact a growth of some 8,200 over the period since our government came to office. That's an 18½ per cent increase in the number of exporting businesses projecting from Australia out to the world, and seizing opportunities.

Although Senator Bragg hails from our largest state, the most significant proportionate increases, pleasingly, come from our smallest states. Tasmania led, with a 17 per cent increase in the number of exporting businesses, and South Australia had close to a 16 per cent increase. The majority of these businesses are small and medium-sized businesses that are getting out into the world and selling Australian goods to the world. In doing so, they're of course supporting Australian jobs. One in five Australian jobs are now trade dependent, and it's estimated that, over the last five years, 240,000 additional jobs that are trade related have been created in Australia. That's because we have more businesses exporting and more businesses out there growing the value of those exports.

In the month of July, Australia posted another record level of exports both for goods, at $34.2 billion, and for services, at $8.4 billion. We also posted our second-highest ever trade surplus as a nation. That's trade surpluses in 27 out of the last 29 months for Australia, or 19 straight monthly trade surpluses now, and a trade surplus for the 2018-19 financial year of $50 billion—all of it fuelled very much by export growth that is creating more opportunities right across Australia.