Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise today in support of the Customs Amendment (Product Specific Rule Modernisation) Bill 2019. Australia is a proud trading nation. What we make, grow, produce and mine here is sought all around the world, and, because of that, we are able to enjoy a much higher standard of living than we ever could if we shut ourselves off from trading with other nations. Our success in negotiating mutually beneficial free trade agreements with nations all around the world has brought further opportunities for Australian businesses and Australian producers to sell their products overseas. As I say, free trade agreements are a key way that we facilitate this, but these agreements commonly take years to negotiate. They're very complex and very technical documents, and it's important that we monitor them on an ongoing basis to ensure that they are operating effectively and efficiently.

That's what this bill that we are debating here today does. It seeks to greatly reduce the administrative burden of updating product specific rules for six of Australia's 11 free trade agreements, being the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement, the Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement, the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement, the Australia-Chile Free Trade Agreement, the Malaysia-Australia Free Trade Agreement and the Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement. The changes that will be processed as part of this bill will simplify the administration of these free trade agreements, without changing their operation or requiring significant changes in practice by traders seeking to claim preferential tariff treatment for goods imported under the free trade agreements. I must disagree with some of the contribution from Senator Steele-John regarding how insignificant this piece of legislation apparently is. I absolutely disagree with that assessment. These changes are incredibly important as part of our broader approach to dealing with free trade agreements, and ensuring that they are simplified and easy to operate and understand.

It is now more important than ever that we seek to maximise the efficiency of our free trade agreements with valued trading partners around the world. Recent events, particularly in the last 12 months, have demonstrated very clearly that we can't take for granted the fact that just because we have a free trade agreement and history of trading ties with a nation that they will treat our producers and businesses fairly. For example, despite our free trade agreement with China, they have been openly treating our fishers, fruitgrowers, wine producers, barley growers, miners and other businesses unfairly by levying additional tariffs and stopping Australian products getting to Chinese customers. This is being done in breach of World Trade Organization rules, and is a blatant attempt to try and force Australia to change our foreign policies and the way in which we stand up for our democracy and human rights in our region. As Prime Minister Scott Morrison has made clear, Australia will never trade away our values or our right to stand up for our interests, and I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. Indeed, I have regularly spoken in this place in agreement with that sentiment.

Because of these breaches of our free trade agreement by the Chinese communist government, many Australian businesses and industries are working hard to now diversify their customer base, to expand their reach into markets like those covered by the free trade agreements affected by this bill: the USA, Thailand, Chile, Malaysia and Korea, as well as other large markets such as India. It's completely understandable, given the impacts of COVID and the behaviour of the Chinese communist government, that Australians want our nation to be more self-reliant, and so we should be. But we also have to remember that the reason we are a trading nation is because in many of our key areas of strength, we are not just self-reliant; we are so much more than self-reliant. For example, our Australian farmers produce 70 per cent more food than our population needs. That's why we need our farmers to be able to get those surplus products to international markets, to ensure their farming operations remain profitable and viable. And that's why free trade agreements with key strategic partners are so important, and why I look forward to seeing our government do even more to strengthen Australian trading partnerships into the future as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

I'm very pleased to speak in support of this bill today because, like I said, Australia is a proud trading nation, and our free trade agreements form a really important, integral part of what makes us such a successful trading nation. We need those free trade agreements to operate efficiently and effectively, and that is what the changes that we are debating here today in the Customs Amendment (Product Specific Rule Modernisation) Bill 2019 will do. They will reduce the administrative burden of updating product-specific rules for six of our 11 free trade agreements. And I pay credit to the former trade minister Senator Birmingham and the new trade minister Dan Tehan, who is in the other place, for their hard work and focus on ensuring Australian businesses and farmers benefit from trade, and from our free trade agreements with our partners. I'm very confident that, going forward, as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, international trade is going to form an absolutely vital part of that recovery. Australia will need to focus more on what we can do on island, and I think this government has an incredibly promising agenda, particularly in the manufacturing space, to ensure that occurs. But we need to be looking more broadly across the world to identify new trading partners so that we can trade our way out of this economic crisis we have regrettably found ourselves in due to COVID-19. With that said, I commend this bill to the Senate.