Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would just like to return briefly, if I may, to the 165th report of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. I seek leave to incorporate the tabling statement in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statement read as follows—

Mr President, today I present the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties' Report 165 which contains the Committee's review of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, commonly referred to as the TPP.

Mr President, while it is now unlikely that the TPP will come into effect, the Committee believes that reporting on this Agreement is important. It provides an opportunity for the Committee to make two clear statements on the future of free trade.

First, in a world where protectionism and nationalism are on the rise, the Committee wishes to reiterate the importance of free trade as a bulwark against international economic decline; and

Secondly, the benefits accruing to Australia from the improved access to markets in the agreement - and the plurilateral basis of the agreement ­should not be lost in future free trade negotiations.

Mr President, there are very few people alive today who remember the privations of the Great Depression or the horror of the Second World War. Few people remember that free trade in the modern world is one of the strategic tools developed at the end of the Second World War to prevent another great depression and world war.

Many people, however, realise that international trade is the cornerstone of Australian prosperity.

Mr President, we don't make i-phones or aircraft. If we want those things, we have to sell what we do make to other people. Regardless of whether it is cheese, iron ore, or apps, it is crucial that Australian products have access to other markets on fair terms.

The TPP would have provided access on fair terms to a significant part of the world's economy.

In tabling this report, the Committee means to emphasise how important it is to Australia that we are seen to remain committed to free trade and to oppose protectionism.

Mr President, many participants in the inquiry had genuine concerns about aspects of the TPP. These are discussed in some detail in the Report.

However, the Committee found that, taken as a whole, the TPP would have advanced free trade and provided opportunities for Australians.

Mr President, I would like to draw out some of the aspects of the TPP that allowed the Committee to reach this conclusion.

Probably the most significant benefit of the TPP was its plurilateral nature. This first plurilateral agreement to be successfully negotiated in 20 years provided an opportunity to overcome the increasing complexity of bi-lateral free trade agreements, evocatively called the 'noodle bowl' effect, and replace it with a standard set of free trade arrangements across many trading partners.

Mr President, the TPP would have reduced the administrative burden on Australian exporters by simplifying arrangements for exporting to all TPP countries. Small and medium sized businesses would have found it much easier to access the benefits of international markets under the TPP.

In addition, the TPP would have given Australia the capacity to address arbitrary and discriminatory non-tariff barriers in a range of Australia's most significant trading partners.

Finally, Mr President, the TPP would have levelled the playing field for Australian companies competing with exporters from other countries across a range of product types, eliminating the advantage of lower tariffs those competitors have benefited from for many years.

In summary, Mr President, the Committee wants to ensure that the outcomes Australia obtained from the TPP negotiations are not lost.

The Committee wants to affirm that it stands by the outcomes in the TPP, and that the Australian Government should work to retain as many of the benefits the TPP offers as it can in future negotiations.

Mr President, the Committee has recommended that binding treaty action be taken.

Mr President, on behalf of the Committee, I commend the Report to the Senate.