Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—Although reports 79 and 80 of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties actually refer to 12 particular treaty actions, I intend to keep my remarks to the dissenting report that we have put into report 80. Hopefully, I will obtain permission from the House at some stage to refer both reports 79 and 80 to the Main Committee, where other members of the House will be able to speak on these matters. As has already been said by the chair of the committee, the member for Boothby, there are some very significant treaties that form part of these reports.

In the dissenting report we noted our concern about the impact of the rules of origin changes on a company in Victoria. Let me tell you a bit of the background of this company. The company is named Albright and Wilson, and it was established in 1939. It employs 130 employees and has a current turnover of $100 million. It has manufacturing plants in New South Wales and also in Victoria, where industrial phosphates used in food, detergent, water treatment, mining and mineral industries are manufactured. It currently exports sodium tripolyphosphates—a detergent ingredient—to New Zealand and it ends up being remanufactured there and returned to Australia by way of the end product.

The change to these rules will mean that, although they are no longer buying or using an Australian product, Unilever in New Zealand will continue to get favourable tariff treatment. This proposed change has already led to the cancellation of Albright and Wilson’s contract and will have, as has been said already, a significant impact on the company—the loss of some 65 jobs and the loss of some $7 million per year in turnover. As the chair has already stated, the committee is very concerned at the lack of consultation that has taken place in regard to this particular matter. Even though Albright and Wilson is significantly involved in supplying manufacturers in New Zealand and there is going to be a dramatic impact on their business, they were not consulted by Austrade in regard to these changes or arrangements. It was only when Unilever, the company in New Zealand, cancelled their contract—because they had to give six months notice—that they realised they were in trouble and there was a serious problem here.

In my view, Austrade, given that they know who is trading with New Zealand—they have an extensive database in regard to this—should have been out there actively seeking advice from companies such as Albright and Wilson to find out what the impact on them would be. It is not as if this has not happened in the past; they have negotiated with other companies—for example, some in the area of men’s apparel and suits and some auto parts manufacturers—which have also been affected by this change and they have introduced exemptions so that these companies can continue to operate without penalty. Once Albright and Wilson realised that there was a problem they gave advice to the committee. They gave us evidence and said, ‘Look, how about introducing a change in the treaty which would allow us to get an exemption in the same way that the government has already negotiated an exemption for men’s apparel and some automotive products?’ That is entirely fair and reasonable, I would have thought.

But, unfortunately, because the government want to ram this treaty through and have it come into effect on 1 January, the government have turned their back on Albright and Wilson and said, ‘Sorry, we’ve already done the negotiations. We don’t intend to go back and revisit this particular treaty.’ I think that is appalling. Obviously, there is a problem. The government knew there was a problem; in fact Albright and Wilson wrote to them. What Albright and Wilson found was that, because the treaty had been negotiated, they were told, ‘Sorry, tough luck. We don’t actually intend to do anything about this.’ I think that is appalling. This shows a complete disregard for Australian jobs and a complete disregard for an Australian company.

It was put to us that Unilever, who is the manufacturer in New Zealand, is an Australasian company so therefore some of that profit will also be coming back to Australia. I looked into this matter, and that claim is absolutely false. Unilever in Australia is a separately incorporated company and will have nothing to do with what is going on in the New Zealand arm of Unilever, which is incorporated in New Zealand. So Unilever in New Zealand will increase their profits by about $1 million to $2 million, because they are going to be able to buy source product dumped on the New Zealand market from China, and we will end up losing 65 jobs as a result of that. I thought the government was here to stick up for Australian workers, Australian jobs and Australian profits, but, no, in this case it is quite happy to see that money go offshore to New Zealand and have a severe negative impact on our people.

To her credit, the member for Gellibrand, Nicola Roxon, has been fighting this fight quite extensively. Nicola has been on the phone constantly trying to argue the cause of Albright and Wilson. I think she is to be congratulated for that. She has put in an enormous amount of effort to try to get some result here which would benefit them, but unfortunately this does not appear to be the case with the government. This has led us to put in a dissenting report. The dissenting report primarily says that the opposition members of the committee support comments included in paragraph 2.69 of recommendation 1 of the report. Paragraph 2.69 says:

2.69 The Committee believes there should be ongoing negotiation between Australia and New Zealand in order for tariff line 3402.20 to be exempted from the new ROO as was done, for example, for men’s suits.

We also say:

1.2 On balance, Opposition Members of the Committee recognise that the Agreement will increase trade between Australia and New Zealand in a mutually beneficial way and serve to strengthen existing economic ties between the countries. However, the Opposition Members of the Committee remain extremely concerned about the impact on jobs as a result of the change to the rules of origin in respect of the category of goods manufactured by Albright and Wilson (Australia).

Therefore we have put in a change to recommendation 2. Recommendation 2 in the dissenting report states:

The Committee supports the Exchange of Letters constituting an Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of New Zealand to amend Article 3 of the Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement (ANZCERTA) of 28 March 1983 and recommends that:

(a)

binding treaty action be taken; and

(b)

negotiations between Australia and New Zealand commence immediately to secure agreement on retention of the RVC method of calculating ROO under the current ANZCERTA for tariff line 3402.20 before the Amending Agreement comes into force.

In other words, we are saying to the government: get out there; it is not too late. Start negotiations with New Zealand before this treaty comes into effect on 1 January. Save 65 Australian jobs in Victoria and keep that profit here where it belongs.

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