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

I thank Senator Bragg for his question that relates to jobs for Australians, because that's the No. 1 priority of people on this side of the chamber. The No. 1 question that comes from those on this side relates to more job opportunities for Australians, while the No. 1 question from the other side is all about mudraking and mudslinging.

What our government has achieved has been to continuously create more opportunities for Australian farmers and businesses to be able to export their goods to the world. The end result of our work in that regard has been that Australian exports are at record levels. Around this time yesterday, I was pleased that, as senators would know, this parliament gave the final legislative approval necessary to enable us to proceed to ratify the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. This is a fantastic agreement, and I was pleased to see some bipartisan support on this matter and for the passage of it. It's a great agreement because it is going to allow some 99 per cent of Australian goods exports to Indonesia to enter duty free or under significantly approved arrangements starting from 2020.

This is a great opportunity, particularly for our farmers as well as many other businesses. Indonesia will guarantee the automatic issue of import permits for live cattle, frozen beef, sheepmeat, feed grains, rolled steel coil, citrus products, carrots and potatoes. All of these producers and farmers stand to gain significantly: some 575,000 potential cattle; up to $150 million of feed grains into Indonesia duty free; frozen beef and sheepmeat exports having their tariffs halved instantly and eliminated over five years; and dairy tariffs reduced or removed entirely. These are big gains that are helping our farmers, helping our businesses and creating jobs for Australians.