Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

Australia is a major regional economic player. In my own home state of Western Australia our iron ore provides the base material for steel mills in South-East and East Asia. Our food products are exported around the region and feed millions of people. Our education and training sector is world leading, and an Australian education is sought after right around the world. One in five workers, or more than two million working Australians, are employed in a trade related activity, working to create the exports that keep our nation strong. Indeed, many of those Australians are in Western Australia and an overwhelming value of exports comes from there.

As an open trading nation, Australia has been the beneficiary of the multilateral rules-based trade system that has operated for decades. But, as we know, the world is becoming an increasingly challenging place to do business in. The effectiveness of cornerstone institutions of global trade, like the World Trade Organization, are, concerningly, under threat. How we sell the things that we produce here into overseas markets is changing fast.

We need a government that thinks deeply about Australia's place in the world and how we navigate the next decade of change in a way that delivers better standards and conditions for Australian workers. We can't go about this alone. We need to work with like-minded nations to reform and modernise our regional economy and make sure that Australian working people are always central to any of the plans that we make.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement will be the world's second-most important trade agreement. I know people have expressed concerns about it, and the Labor Party have listened to those concerns. We take them very seriously and work through them. We simply can't be missing from the table in such an important trade agreement. The World Trade Organization will have greater scope and coverage over a larger chunk of the global economy than the current RCEP. The RCEP will create a dispute resolution and settlement process that will prevent economic or commercial disagreements from spiralling into conflict. If we look at the nature of the nation states that are part of this regional comprehensive partnership, having this infrastructure in place is particularly important. Therefore, it's particularly important that Australia is at the table.

We want an agreement that strengthens the rules based environment so that Australia, as a trading nation, can flourish within it. The RCEP will tie our economy even closer to near neighbours like Indonesia, Malaysia and New Zealand. We can be seen to advance the opportunities for export growth through our major partners like China, Japan and South Korea. RCEP countries already include nine of Australia's top 15 trading partners. This accounts for some 58 per cent of Australia's two-way trade and 67 per cent of our nation's exports. But enacting the RCEP should not mean that we sit on our hands like the Morrison government has done, like the Morrison government has believed we should do as a nation. No single trade agreement, regardless of its scope, will shore up our economic future as a nation. The COVID pandemic has shown the critical role that regional supply chains have in ensuring products make the timely transition from raw material to consumers hands right around the region, consumer products that Australia needs.

Australia must take advantage of the growth opportunities that the RCEP provides to diversify our trade both in markets and in products. Our small and medium enterprises are responsible for only 14 per cent of Australia's exports, and we can and should grow this as a nation. To put this in context, the G7 country average is 25 per cent and the European Union is 35 per cent of their exports coming from small to medium enterprises. So we must see this trade deal as an opportunity to boost the capability of Australia's SMEs and to grow Australia's manufacturing sector. It's interesting and important to see that the Australian Food and Grocery Council very strongly sees a future in growing exports to the region of their currently domestically focused household goods.

We need to continue doing this by harnessing the unique opportunities we enjoy to become also a green energy superpower. We have the skills and capacity to become a renewable energy powerhouse, and a strong Australian manufacturing sector can deliver world-class products. We want to incorporate and innovate cutting-edge technologies and provide good, secure jobs that Australian workers need. This is the future 'Made in Australia' that we deserve as a country. But it's not one that we're going to get under this failed Morrison government, as we've seen. This is a government that can't even come to a decision in its own ranks on the future of energy generation in Australia.

Just reflect for a moment, we have a coalition government that is so divided, so riven with internal conflict, that they cannot even come to a decision on how they plan to keep working Australians' lights on into the future and the energy supply we need to manufacture our own goods for Australia and the region, let alone our households. This has massive implications for Australian businesses, workers and the future of Australian exports.

As we've seen, the Grattan Institute has told this chamber in submissions to the upcoming inquiry into the Australian manufacturing industry that the case for gas led manufacturing recovery isn't viable any longer. As we've seen, the source of low-cost gas in the eastern states is now very much depleted. The remaining gas is too high a cost to meet our manufacturing needs. So this gas led recovery can employ only a small number of people. If we're a nation that seeks to set ambitious climate and emissions reductions goals, then we need an energy future plan now—a plan to meet our targets and a plan to transform our economy. Making these plans now is much cheaper than waiting to the death knell of climate change in 2050, and we've wasted many, many years already.

We cannot continue to see the burning of gas and coal to generate the electricity Australian industry needs. Why? Because it's, frankly, more expensive than the other energy sources that we have at our disposal. We need a government that wants to use its spending power to invest in renewables technology designed and manufactured right here at home, to diversify and grow our export markets overseas through the rules based trading system that the RCEP maintains. This is not an opportunity we can let slip past.

A report jointly released in recent weeks by the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Australian Business Council, the WWF and the ACTU suggests that investment in clean exports could generate some $89 billion in new trade by 2040. That is more than we currently export in fossil fuels. We need a future made in Australia that we can export to the world, and so it's alarming when we see this trade deal that we're debating before the parliament. Yes, we can make a step forward here, and yet we are held back by the internal division of this government when it comes to our energy future. Those opposite are too busy having their ideological brawls in their party room to put a step forward to govern in the interest of Australian businesses and workers.

The World Bank says India needs to create 8.1 million jobs per year just to maintain its current employment rate. It is critical, therefore, to see Australia's energy supply is accessible to those nations. We know that renewables will be important to their energy future, and a lack of green energy supply, let alone coal, will constrain India's growth. We can become a world leader and a significant regional player in the export of materials and technologies needed to transition economies around the world to greener and more sustainable energy generation. This includes a decarbonising China and a quickly industrialising India.

The trade deal before us strengthens this opportunity, but the Morrison government will leave us asleep at the wheel in terms of being able to make the most of these contributions. We've previously raised concerns over the Morrison government's refusal to release the final treaty text to allow it to be scrutinised before the agreement was signed. We have a government that is notorious for secrecy and notorious for a lack of transparency, and this is very damaging for how Australians view their leaders. Is it any wonder that we have parts of the Australian population captured by conspiracy theories when this government does nothing to promote transparency in government?

But it also means Australian industry cannot plan ahead. Greater transparency and the development of trade agreements is critical to building community support for fair and open trade. Labor have been in consultation with the union movement, civil society and economics groups throughout the negotiation and eventual signing of this agreement. And we do this because we believe in allowing people to plan ahead. A future Albanese Labor government would use the opportunity the RCEP gives us to work in collaboration with Australian business and workers to grow the Australian manufacturing industry.

Now is the time to invest in Australian manufacturing. We might not get a chance as good as this again. Enacting the RCEP should function as an opportunity to take action and diversify what we export. Let's not lose this opportunity that we have in this agreement because of a failed climate change agenda here within Australia. This failed government needs to stop sitting on its hands, quit fighting amongst itself and start getting on with growing Australian manufacturing.