Senate debates

Thursday, 13 October 2011

Bills

Customs Amendment (Anti-dumping Measures) Bill 2011, Customs Amendment (Anti-dumping Improvements) Bill 2011; Second Reading

Debate resumed on the motion:

That these bills be now read a second time.

1:21 pm

Photo of Richard ColbeckRichard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise to indicate that the coalition will be supporting the Customs Amendment (Anti-dumping Measures) Bill 2011, but I would like to make some comments about the process which has got us to this limited stage of reforming this area after effectively three years of inaction before finally announcing the improvements in a press conference in June this year from the government. Prior to getting to that stage the government shelved a Productivity Commission report for about 18 months, until after the 2010 election, and then broke a subsequent promise to announce its changes as part of the 2011 budget. Under the minister's direction, as long ago as mid-2008 there was a commitment that anti-dumping should be the subject of reform. Yet what we have here is really only partial reform and we still do not know what the government's full regime of changes might be in relation to this area. As the coalition sees it, even these limited changes are as a result of pressure from the coalition, Senator Xenophon, who I acknowledge has some interest in this also, and industry associations.

The Customs Amendment (Anti-dumping Improvements) Bill 2011 legislates in four particular areas. It imposes a time limit of 30 days on ministerial decision making, widens the range of factors available for consideration in the determination of material injury, expands the list of subsidies against which Australian industries can apply for countervailing duties and grants affected party and interested party status to a wider range of stakeholders through the Customs Act 1901. These changes are sensible and, as I said, the coalition supports those amendments.

One part of the package that is disappointing, though, is the government's claim that they are increasing the resources to Customs through an increase in staff from 31 to 45 in the trade measures branch, which is the administering authority to Australia's anti-dumping system. The reality is that Customs itself gets no further resources. This is nothing more than a reconfiguration of resources within Customs, so the overall budget for Customs is in fact being rejigged and there are resources being taken out of other areas of Customs to take up the additional work that is being done in the trade measures branch. The government is not in fact increasing resources to Customs; all it is doing is rejigging the numbers within that portfolio. At a time when Customs is under significant pressure you really wonder why the claim of additional resources is not being matched by real action. So we have got issues with border protection and border control, a promise to increase resources to Customs to deal with anti-dumping, and yet all we have is a recycling of numbers within the Customs portfolio itself and no additional resources in reality as part of this process. It is very important that Customs is adequately resourced. While the additional resources to anti-dumping are obviously welcome, the coalition does not believe that necessarily should be at a cost to other areas of the important Customs portfolio.

The coalition has obviously been quite active on this. Our leader, Tony Abbott, put together a dedicated four-person task force some time ago this year to work through with industry and look at Customs on a broader scale. That followed on from our 2010 election promise when we said we would review Australia's anti-dumping scheme so that it does effectively look after our important manufacturing sector. We have heard the government talking about destroying business models over the recent past and particularly in relation to people smugglers. About the only business model that has been destroyed in Australia in the immediate recent past is the manufacturing industry's business model, where we see a complete haemorrhaging of jobs. I think over 100,000 jobs have been lost since this government came to power and that is a complete tragedy. We see continued pressure on that area.

There is important work being done by the coalition in relation to anti-dumping and, against the will of the Labor Party and the Greens, the coalition also instigated the Select Committee on Australia's Food Processing Sector, one of the terms of reference of which is Australia's anti-dumping regime and its effectiveness in relation to the food processing sector. Manufacturing, as I have just mentioned, is under enormous stress. The food manufacturing sector is in fact Australia's largest manufacturing sector and so the importance of an effective anti-dumping regime to that particular sector of manufacturing is highly important. The coalition remains very active in this space and is not operating in a piecemeal way as the government has done, which is effectively just drip-feeding some amendments to the system with no indication of when it might continue the remainder of its changes.

While we as a coalition obviously support this legislation, these first four elements of the government's regime, we would certainly like to see that process activated much more rapidly. There are no signals coming out of government. It has taken a long time to get to this stage. This is a commitment that goes back to the 2007 election, as I said before, and there has been a series of processes that the government has been through of promise, of delay, promising high but delivering low, which seems to be a feature of the way that this government is operating. In supporting this legislation we would urge the government to continue with this process at a much increased pace.

1:28 pm

Photo of David FeeneyDavid Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | | Hansard source

I thank senators for their contribution to this debate and I commend the bills to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.