Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This year marks the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Mexico and Australia, and this time last year Senator Gallacher and I put forward to the Senate a report on our relationship with Mexico. I want to reflect on that in the few minutes available to me today. As we know, President-elect Trump has determined that America will not be participating in the TPP. The TPP, of course, is a tremendous opportunity for Australia and Mexico.

I was in Mexico on a self-funded study tour in January last year, and I want to reflect for a few minutes on where the opportunities lie for a far closer relationship between Mexico and Australia. Let me start in an area that was addressed only in the last few minutes, and that is vehicle manufacturing. The Mexicans are well aware of Australia's vehicle component manufacturing industry and how well-respected it is. Of course, Mexicans are currently producing three million vehicles a year and they will move to five million by 2020. They have said to me that there are tremendous opportunities for Australians, and, as a result of that visit, there have been meetings in Adelaide and in Melbourne coordinated by Austrade and the Mexican embassy to inform vehicle component manufacturers of the opportunities that exist for Australians servicing that market. Indeed, I will be urging our Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment to look for the opportunities for bilaterals between Australia and Mexico so that we can exploit those, obviously without paying the tariffs that might currently exist.

The second area is hard-rock mining. Obviously, Senator Smith, who is in the chamber, and I are very, very close to this industry. They showed me a geological survey of Mexico down in Pachuca and the maps that are used by seismologists and geologists to have a look at the metalliferous states and regions of Mexico, and they very proudly told me that the software that developed those maps came from Geoscience Australia and the CSIRO. One of them at that meeting told me that he is just commencing a PhD in mining technology at the WA School of Mines at Kalgoorlie, and they are well versed in those skills that Australians have in terms of mining exploration and related sciences—mine management, drilling expertise et cetera—which they believe would be of enormous benefit to them.

In the oil and gas sector, some 50,000 young Mexican students leave those shores each year to pursue higher education opportunities. Again, as a result of that visit in January of last year, the representative for Austrade in our embassy in Mexico City led a delegation to Australia—to UWA, Curtin University and Queensland—to explore further where the opportunities might be for Australia to assist the Mexicans and particularly Pemex, the Mexican government owned oil company, which is establishing a Pemex university in the oil and gas space. Again, there are tremendous opportunities in oil and gas exploration and extraction and in higher education.

The report that Senator Gallacher and I brought down spoke to some extent also of opportunities in tourism. If we could, for example, commence direct flights between Australia and Mexico we would see a radical increase in the volume and the value of tourism between our countries. Of course, with tourism comes understanding and with understanding comes higher education opportunities. In that vein, I note that our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ms Bishop, of course has developed the excellent New Colombo Plan, which at the moment is involving thousands of students going into some 30 countries in the Asian region, and I have urged her that we should extend that over time to enable our young students, in their undergraduate years, to go and study in countries like Mexico.

In the few seconds left available to me I will speak about the opportunities in agriculture. Only this morning I had in my office representatives from the Sheepmeat Council talking about the opportunities, should we be able to remove tariffs between Australia and Mexico, for the export of sheepmeat, beef and wine. They are well aware of Australia's capacity and the excellence of our wine industry. There are opportunities for the export of grapes, grains, malting barley, et cetera. So when one door closes, another one opens. We are, as you know, Acting Deputy President Whish-Wilson, an exporting country. So even if the TPP, in its current form, does not proceed, the opportunities for Australia and in this case with Mexico are well worth exploring.