Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

But I am not directing them even to Senator Lambie. I am just indicating that the decision taken in this chamber earlier today has exposed the attitudes of a number of people in this place to farmers and people who live in provincial areas of this country. It alone is going to come back to bite them.

But let me come back to the issue before us—the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The countries involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership represent around 40 per cent of the GDP, particularly around agriculture, in the world. About 800 million people are within the countries involved in the TPP. Those countries import roughly one-third of the total goods and services exports, worth over $100 billion, from this country.

This has been five years in the drafting and negotiation phase and there had not been one peep about it until we were at the eleventh hour. It amazes me, particularly with the Greens, how they are joining Donald Trump in relation to this question. It was only a week ago that they referred to him as the most dangerous creature on earth. Now what they will do on the national interests of this country is send a clear message to Trump that they join him. On the philosophy of protectionism and not wanting the TPP to occur, they join him. They do not want Australia to engage in this.

For those countries that import around 34 per cent or one-third of the total Australian agricultural exports—and that is based on the most recent figures from 2015—this is going to create the elimination of tariffs, almost 90 per cent of the tariffs involved in trade with these nations. I can tell you that when you get out and about in rural Australia and with the real people on farms who have an interest in this or when you meet with the peak industry bodies—the NFFs and cattle councils of the world, and there are 72 of them who have a real interest up in my home state to do with horticulture and the like—they tell you that they want us to pursue equitable trade agreements as often as we can. They are anxious with this talk that we will pick and choose trade agreements based on two or three issues that are raised in opposition to them.

We all know about sugar. There has really been an argument on recent trade agreements we have done with Korea, Japan and China that sugar has missed out. This particular agreement will give an additional 65,000 tonnes of sugar to the US. So let us just hold the phone on sugar for a moment as I make this contribution. The sugar industry is a major industry in my state of Queensland. It is concentrated almost wholly in the state. Some in this place not only want to prevent that industry from spreading its wings in relation to trade and export opportunities but also want to introduce a sugar tax. I am no economist, but I do not need to be an economist; I am a farmer. I will tell you this: if the TPP does not proceed and if you people are successful in introducing a sugar tax, the sugar industry—which is a fragile industry at the best of times and exposed to world prices—will come to an end. In my home state, 4,500 sugar-farming families, their wives, their husbands, their children, their small communities, their newsagents and their bakers are all going to suffer enormously as a result of the activities of this place in what, it is becoming evident, is anti-agriculture.

Our friends in the Greens come in here in their leather shoes, cotton pants and woollen jumpers, yet they do not want us to run sheep. You would know that, Senator Williams, you are battling it all the time. They do not want us to disturb—