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

Mr President, I think you have heard in this chamber earlier today, and from the words, indeed, of Senator Payne, Senator Wong, myself and the Prime Minister, most importantly, that the government is well and truly happy to stand up to China in those terms. I have, for a long period of time, been expressing our concerns—firstly, about the individual actions that China has been taking and, more recently, about the cumulative effect of those actions.

But it is important to note the statistic, as I said before, that month after month after month, Australian exporters and Australian businesses have been getting out to the world, selling more to the world and exporting more to the world than we have been importing. They've been doing that under the network of trade agreements that our government and, indeed, previous governments have negotiated. It is important that our businesses are able to continue to do that, because one in five Australian jobs depends on trade, and we want to help to support those jobs to continue to grow in the future across a range of markets. (Time expired)