Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Customs Amendment (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Implementation) Bill 2021 and the Customs Tariff Amendment (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Implementation) Bill 2021. I've been listening to the debate in the chamber and listening to the comments of the Greens, One Nation, Labor and of course the government. But interestingly, particularly on the Labor side—and I'll accuse One Nation of this as well—they are standing up and pointing out all of the things that they believe in, yet this particular agreement presents risks to all of those things. So they're hoping there's an upside in trade without really examining the risks to the very principles that the Labor Party purport to support and, indeed, One Nation purport to support.

I always listen to Senator Roberts when he says we have to base our considerations on data and facts. I agree with that principle. But this is a situation where there is no evidence of an economic benefit that flows from entering into this agreement. There is no independent economic assessment of the cost and benefit of RCEP, and there is no additional market access for Australian exporters. Don't we have a responsibility to look at a piece of legislation and ask: what are the pros and what are the cons? Here we have no view as to the economic benefits. Part of the problem here is, as Senator Pratt mentioned, whenever these deals get negotiated it is done in secret. There is no opportunity to see the text of them such that people can then do a proper analysis and present the parliament with information such that it can make an informed decision. None of that is there. Time and time again, I see the Labor Party stand up and say, 'We want transparency.' But the government just keeps going off and doing what it does, which is to negotiate these things in secret.

If we go back and look at the better advice bill, it was a bill that was recently in play where the government presented it to the parliament without any of the regulations attached to it. Do you know what? The Senate stood up. The Labor Party, the Greens and One Nation stood up and said: 'Do you know what? We're not going to let this bill pass until such time as we get to see all the data.' The government then pulled the bill. They saw the second reading debate. They worked out they did not have the numbers. They pulled the bill and had to go away and then table the amendments. That is what happens when the Senate stand up and says, 'We are not going to do things without proper analysis.' Yet that's exactly what we are doing here—there is no analysis that suggests that this gives us an economic benefit.

Interestingly, this bill involves China. China has, in recent times, been acting in a manner that is quite harmful to Australia. We can see the wine industry suffering. I hope Senator Farrell chips in and gives me a 'Hear, hear!' in relation to this. The wine industry is suffering as a result of changes that have occurred, with China acting outside of our trade agreement. The problem that arises here is that we are effectively entering into further agreements with a country we know doesn't comply. So what happens is they do not comply but we are the model party to these agreements. So, for the next two or three years, Australian agriculture will suffer because we'll have one party not playing the right way and then we'll have Australia being a model party in the way it conducts its international affairs. That's the danger we have in further signing up to an agreement that may well benefit a country that is acting in a manner that is harmful to us.

There is also the issue of human rights. Some of the countries involved in this are in breach of human rights. The Labor Party stood up and affirmed its support for stopping slave labour, for stopping the import of goods that come from slave labour. The Senate passed a bill in support of that, despite the government's opposing it. Yet here we are entering into an arrangement with some of the countries engaging in slave labour, and it doesn't address that problem. It's money before human rights, it would appear, not that we even know that there's money involved in this for us. Typically, we've negotiated these sorts of agreements and we haven't done well. That's what typically happens. We're signing up to an agreement with Myanmar, which is currently governed by a military junta that took power in an illegal coup in February this year. Seriously? That's what we're doing. We're engaging in commerce and engaging in negotiations with an illegitimate junta. I don't understand some of these things.

This agreement may well restrict local industry development by, basically, entrenching the rules that discourage government assistance to local industries. We already have a perverse situation—I see this on the other side of the chamber all the time—where those opposite talk about competitive advantage, which is an economic theory that says that if you can do it more cheaply somewhere else that's where you should do it. What happens is that the government says: 'You've got to have leave loading. You've got to have long-service leave. You've got to have minimum wages. You've got to have occupational health and safety. You've got to have environmental standards. You've got to build your product according to an Australian standard.' I don't object to any of those things, but we've got to recognise that they impose a cost on Australian businesses. We then look at the price of goods and say, 'Hang on, it's cheaper to buy that from Vietnam or Burma or somewhere', where they don't have any of those rules. I don't mind the theory of competitive advantage, provided that it is provided in a practical manner and not in a completely theoretical manner. This bill entrenches some of those principles. Every time I stand up and say I'd like to see the government supporting Australian industry by way of procurement, I get confronted with: 'I'm sorry, Senator, that's going to breach trade agreements.' Yet we sign up to these things. It doesn't make sense, particularly in circumstances where there is shown to be no economic benefit, just a downside risk. We shouldn't be doing that. The Labor Party say that they support manufacturing, but they're now going to help sign up to an agreement that fetters the ability of the government to assist in rebuilding the very lows of manufacturing that we have.

I have talked on many occasions in the chamber about the need for us to stop exporting our rock—stop exporting just iron ore, stop exporting just our lithium and instead build and export steel and build and export lithium-ion batteries. There is much greater value in that, and it generates intellectual property, generates jobs and generates value. Do that here. But every time we try and do that here we get confronted with competitive advantage. We say someone else can do it more cheaply. That's because we impose all of these costs upon Australian industry. This treaty would embed that even further. That's why, when it comes down to it, I can't support this. I'm all for fair trade, but it has to be fair, and it has proven not to be fair in many, many circumstances. It risks increasing the number of temporary workers coming to Australia who might be exploited. I thought the Labor Party cared about workers being exploited.

This can assist in that regard. It only takes the Labor Party to stand up once on a treaty and, suddenly, DFAT will have to change its conduct, just as Treasury had to change its conduct in terms of presenting bills to this chamber without the regulations attached. It just takes standing up once or twice and saying no. Then DFAT will have to go back and negotiate these treaties in a different way, knowing the views of this chamber—knowing the views of the representatives of the Australian public.

There are other concerns I have in relation to this. This does not invoke ISDS, but that will be reviewed in a couple of years time. For people who don't understand what ISDS is, it's a schema whereby if the Australian government changes regulations or does something in the public interest that harms an international investor here in Australia, they can seek compensation for that. We saw that attempted in the case of tobacco advertising. There was a health measure introduced to basically make sure we didn't make cigarette packets attractive. The cigarette manufacturer took us to the High Court, lost in the High Court and then sought to set up a company in Hong Kong to exploit the ability to then invoke ISDS—investor-state dispute settlement. In that particular instance, we were quite fortunate that the tribunal ruled that the company had been set up, essentially, for the purposes of engaging in an ISDS. So the tribunal did not agree with the company's claims. But we were up for, potentially, billions of dollars. This is a situation where the taxpayer underwrites the risk for public companies. So companies can come here, make an investment and make an assumption that there will be no changes in the law or in public policy, because if there are they will invoke ISDS.

This is a risk that flows from this particular agreement, because there is a proposal to review this again. Again, that is likely to be done in secret and just presented as a fait accompli in a couple of years time. It's part of the Labor Party's platform to not support ISDS, but on several occasions they have wandered in here and voted for trade agreements that actually invoke ISDS. It is a bit of hypocrisy that is harmful to Australians, because, again, it sees the public underwriting the risk of companies.

I will conclude by saying that I support international trade. I recognise its benefits. But when something is presented to this parliament that is, in effect, an agreement that does very little except expose us to risk, you have to stand back and say: that is not in Australia's best interests. And that is what I will be saying when the bells ring.