Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture. Will the minister update the House on the benefits for Australian farmers of the government's free trade agreement with China? What threats exist to the delivery of these benefits to rural and regional Australia?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. He is someone who has been a fettler, a farmer and a fuel distributor and is obviously a big supporter of the free trade agreement. It would make sense that he would be, because in his seat there is 2PH, which is one of the largest privately owned orchards in the Southern Hemisphere. They grow mandarins, lemons and table grapes. They now have around 300,000 citrus trees and 550 acres under table grapes. They export 30 per cent of all production to China, their most lucrative market. In peak season they employ up to 400 people.

Craig Pressler of 2PH rang our office today, and he said: 'Tell them if they keep'—and then a very unparliamentary word ending in 'ing'—'around with the China free trade agreement, they will wreck it. We stand to lose our market share to Chile, and you can quote me on that.' Well, Mr Pressler, I just have. It is not merely in the billions in reductions of tariffs over the life of the FTA with China. It is also the sentiment that we would go through a process over a decade, a process supported by both sides of this parliament, and then, at the behest of the child of the BLF, the CFMEU, put at risk all the work and the obvious benefits of this trade deal with our biggest agricultural market.

You were asking about jobs. There are 220,000 people who work in the food-processing sector in our nation, and this deal creates even more jobs. There are an additional 300,000 in agriculture, forestry and fishing, and this agreement will create more jobs. It would not be surprising that when I go to South Australia they say that the transition from car manufacturing to food manufacturing is one of the opportunities for their workers. And who proposes this very logical thesis? The state Labor Party. In Queensland they are concerned about the downturn in the mining, and where do they believe new jobs will be? In agriculture. What underpins about 70 per cent of our agriculture? Exports. And who is our biggest market for exports? China. So you do not have to be Pythagoras to work out where our advantage is. It is about economics—deals that allow our nation the access to $120 billion of rural imports that flow into China each year. We need only glance across the Tasman and note that with New Zealand's trade agreement with China agriculture has increased from $1 billion in 2008 when they signed the FTA to about $6.7 billion today—over a sixfold increase. I hope that we do not have folly trumping what is an obvious deal for our nation.