Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Trade and Investment. Will the minister inform the House on the importance of our landmark free-trade agreement with China for job creation in Australia during this critical post mining boom period. What risks are there to this job creation?

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade and Investment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. She would know as well as anyone in this House the critical importance for new job creation in the years ahead post the mining boom. This China agreement, to this end, will create literally tens of thousands of jobs in the years ahead off the back of this agreement alone.

I met today with members of the Financial Services Council, who told me that within 14 or 15 years, by 2030, 10,000 new jobs will be created in that sector alone and literally $4 billion will be added to economic output. Again, today, the Master Builders Association told a Joint Standing Committee on Treaties that the FTA would create an additional 500 jobs in the first year and generate an extra $1 billion. The Australian dairy industry says that the agreement will create between 600 and 700 jobs in the first year alone. And Blackmores has recently hired 100 people on the northern beaches in New South Wales—an area where jobs are needed—in anticipation of capitalising on the China free-trade agreement.

I was asked what are the risks associated with these and thousands of other prospective jobs? The risk is that Labor is going to vote down the enabling legislation and watch China walk away from the best deal they have done with any developed country in the world. The risk is that Labor will do the bidding of that well-known ethical organisation, the CFMEU, which spent $12 million peddling lies and scares around this country claiming that we are going to weaken worker protection. Despite the lies of the CFMEU and the comfort those opposite are giving it, nothing has changed regarding worker protections. What we will see in a month's time are two bills associated with enabling legislation, two Customs bills.

There will be no migration bill. Why not? Because nothing has changed. There is no need for a migration bill. Those opposite are embarking on a massive con of the Australian people, aiding and abetting the CFMEU in its political campaign to destabilise this government. Please, it is too expensive for the Australian community. Get out of the road and let this agreement go through.