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

I thank Senator Paterson for his question and his absolute pursuit of open trade access for Australian businesses in markets around the world.

In the past fortnight alone, our government have successfully passed the necessary legislation to ensure that we can ratify the Indonesia, Hong Kong and Peru free trade agreements. We've released the government's response to the first-ever industry-led Services Export Action Plan. We've seen record trade surpluses for the September quarter. We've chaired and overseen the inaugural Australia-Vietnam Economic Partnership Meeting. The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties in this parliament has supported the Uruguay-Australia bilateral investment treaty. And this week we've had export awards celebrating the contribution of Australia's best exporters to the Australian economy, as well as another monthly trade surplus and a record monthly services exports total.

That's just in the last two weeks alone. Throughout the course of this year, our government has overseen continued growth of opportunities for Australian businesses and exporters. Our farmers and businesses across the country are seizing the opportunities, and we're continuing to build new opportunities for them. We have come to almost the point of closure in relation to negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement, a regional trade agreement that will bring together 15 or 16 regional nations into a much tighter area of regional economic integration. We are in pursuit of negotiations with the European Union that have progressed successfully during the course of this year, and that we trust can be concluded by the end of this year.

In this year's budget, we provided more funding for the Export Market Development Grants to make it easier for Australian small and medium-sized businesses to get into export markets. And we've outlined new strategies and approaches through Austrade, supporting the development of our critical minerals industry— (Time expired)