Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Can I thank my colleagues who have already spoken on this—the member for Swan and the member for Lyons. They have extensively pursued in the treaties committee an issue of great importance to my electorate, and I do appreciate that and I want to publicly record my thanks to them for pursuing this issue that is of so much importance to 65 people who are currently employed by Albright and Wilson at a site in Yarraville on the Maribyrnong River in my electorate. What I want to emphasise in addition to the details that the members for Swan and Lyon have put forward is that there is still time for the government to fix this problem. There still is time. If the Howard government has the will to actually pay attention to the plight of Australian workers and to be concerned about those 65 people in my electorate, there is time for it to fix this problem.

What is required, as has been outlined by my colleagues, is actually a fairly simple change to the agreement that has been reached between Australia and New Zealand. There is no reason that this agreement cannot come into effect on 1 January as is intended, because there are other benefits to the country in this agreement. However, there is time for a separate negotiation to be entered into and for there to be an agreement to include this exception in a schedule or for there to be any understanding that says this one small item that is affected by this agreement could remain as it currently is. By doing that—if the government were prepared to make this concession to go back to the New Zealand government and ask to negotiate this particular provision for this product—we would save 65 jobs in my electorate and we would do absolutely zero harm to the trade relationship between Australia and New Zealand. It is a nonsense to suggest that this is going to damage that relationship. In fact, it would just mean that business would be able to continue in the way that it does.

I am very disappointed that the government has decided to not only decline a recommendation from the Labor members who issued a dissenting report in part on this treaty but also ignore the government members, who flagged their express concerns. They were not prepared, as the member for Lyon has said, to include it as a recommendation. They said, in paragraph 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.

That was signed by all members of the committee, and it is urging the government to take this request seriously. It is not very often in negotiating complex trade agreements that there is a clear resolution to a problem like this. It is not hard, and we want the government to do more for the workforce in my electorate in order to try to protect their jobs and the business that is there.

I am extremely disappointed that I received a letter today from Warren Truss, the Minister for Trade and Deputy Leader of The Nationals—a person who I would have thought would be acutely sensitive to the loss of jobs in Australia—which said that he is not prepared to reopen negotiations on this agreement at this late stage. We do not require negotiations for the whole agreement to be reopened. We require negotiations to be entered into on one tiny aspect that was not properly taken account of during negotiations. It is to include an exemption which exists for other products—so we know that an exemption process can work—and, by doing that, to make sure that the jobs in Australia are continued and a relationship worth some $7 million continues between an Australian company and a New Zealand company.

The whole purpose of this agreement is to improve trade between New Zealand and Australia, but this one particular change is actually reducing trade between Australia and New Zealand. It is allowing a New Zealand company to go and buy a product at a cheaper rate in China rather than buying it from Australia and still continue to get a tariff exemption when it then imports its material into Australia. That is not the purpose of this agreement. It should not be allowed as a result of this agreement. It was a mistake by the department and the negotiators not to know about it to start with. Of course, the company wishes it had known about it early enough to be involved in those early negotiations, but it is frankly unrealistic to expect that a busy company dealing with its trade and commerce every day is going to see one ad in the Financial Review on one day, and it is unrealistic to think that that is adequate to draw people’s attention to this change.

In fact, the change was brought to the company’s attention when Unilever New Zealand sent them a letter saying, ‘We hereby give you six months notice that we’re not going to buy product from you anymore because when this agreement between Australia and New Zealand is entered into we’ll be able to get it cheaper from China.’ What does that actually do to improve the trade relationship between Australia and New Zealand? Absolutely nothing. I call on the government to reconsider its opposition to negotiating an exemption. It is never too late. To say that we wish it had been involved and included in the negotiations to start with is well and good, but do we just throw up our hands and say that we missed that part of the process and that the jobs and livelihoods of these 65 people in my electorate do not matter anymore? Surely, when there is time to fix it, and with a little bit of pressure and leadership from the Australian government, I am sure the New Zealand government would not want to jeopardise the rest of the agreement just for this single change.

I do understand that the New Zealand government have said that they are very unenthusiastic about making this change at this late stage, because a large New Zealand company will get a windfall profit as a result. But surely at the government-to-government level our obligations are not just to give a company a windfall benefit. Our obligations are to look at how we can improve trade and create closer economic ties between the countries—not just to allow a New Zealand company to get an edge which they currently could not have if they wanted to maintain their tariff protection. It seems to us quite unreasonable and quite contrary to the spirit of the agreement.

I am extremely concerned, as I think any member of this House would be if they found that a business was going to close in their electorate and that jobs were going to be lost. I know that there have been previous agreements in different areas to exempt products when this sort of situation arises. I strongly call on the government to reconsider its opposition to this. Some members here might not be aware of this, but I do know that Minister Vaile, when he still held the portfolio, did specifically raise this issue with the New Zealand government. I appreciate that, but I now urge his successor to take this on more enthusiastically. I call on him to recognise that his role as the Minister for Trade is to actually enhance trade between the countries, not reduce it.

It will be a very sad day, when this agreement comes into effect on 1 January 2007, if the result is to immediately lose jobs in Australia—and, in case anybody listening is unclear about this, those jobs will not move to New Zealand. In negotiating an agreement for closer economic ties between Australia and New Zealand, maybe people would accept the movement of jobs across the Tasman. But even that is not what is happening. This is actually just giving a New Zealand company an opportunity that other companies do not have to buy the product from China and, when they produce the detergents and other washing products that are then imported back into Australia, still get the full exemption that they currently get when they buy product locally and manufacture it in New Zealand. That cannot be the result that was intended by this agreement, and I strongly urge the government to reconsider this.

I have been working closely with Albright and Wilson. They are obviously very keen to make sure that their business can continue. They are going to lose about 20 per cent of their factory turnover if this contract is lost. But it is not just jobs in my electorate that will be jeopardised. Albright and Wilson are also supplied by other Australian companies, like Penrice in South Australia. No doubt their business will be affected by this change as well.

I am glad that the treaties committee process allowed the committee even at a late stage to be able to assess the importance of this change and the impact it might have on jobs in my electorate. I am glad that the tabling of the report allows me to speak on it, but, after all, the purpose is to bring to the government’s attention any problems with a treaty agreement that they are about to enter into. This is a particular problem. It has been brought to their attention. They can fix it. Those 65 people in my electorate deserve more attention than the current government have given them to date. There is still two months to act, and we hope that the government will get their act together, reopen negotiations on this one small aspect of the agreement, do all they can to save those jobs in my electorate and support a local business that is trying to support our local workers. I strongly urge the government to do so.

Debate (on motion by Mrs Gash) adjourned.

See this speech in context