Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and may I also congratulate you on your appointment as Speaker.

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on how the free trade agreement between Australia and China will boost jobs and growth? What has been the response to this important agreement?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Corangamite for her question. There are certainly businesses in her electorate, like Bulla Dairy and the Australian Lamb Company, which are in a position to take advantage of the China free trade agreement, which will be a jobs and growth bonanza for our country for decades to come. This will set our country up for the future. It is absolutely vital that the China free trade agreement take effect before the end of this year. It is absolutely vital that legislation to give it effect pass this parliament before the end of this year, because if the China free trade agreement comes into force before the end of the year our exporters will get two—not one, but two—tariff cuts: first, when the agreement comes into force and second, on 1 January next year.

We know that the China free trade agreement gives Australia better access to this market than any other country. We know that the China free trade agreement has been the subject of economic modelling in 2005, 2008 and 2015, and we know that all that modelling came to the same conclusion: there will be more jobs and higher wages in Australia if the China free trade agreement goes ahead. How do we know? Professor the Hon. Bob Carr said so yesterday. This is what Professor the Hon. Bob Carr said yesterday: 'There will be more jobs and higher wages in Australia if the China free trade agreement goes ahead.' But still the CFMEU is running ads and making robocalls claiming that the free trade agreement is giving Australian jobs to Chinese workers. This is a racist lie. The claim of the CFMEU is a racist lie.

We know that the Labor Party played the race card prior to the New South Wales election—and now it is happening again. Members opposite say they cannot control the CFMEU, but they can control their own senators. We know that the Labor Party takes the CFMEU's money, but they should never take the CFMEU's dictation. If they do take the CFMEU's dictation, the ghosts of the White Australia policy will come back to haunt the Labor Party. The Leader of the Opposition should make sure that the slime of an earlier age does not come back to contaminate this parliament.