Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to take the opportunity before the House today to join my colleague the member for Cook, Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration, in addressing its report on the services sector—in particular, the role of the services sector into the future in a potential postboom period. I should acknowledge that I came to the committee quite late in the inquiry, and I would like to thank the members of the committee and the secretariat for their efforts in ensuring that I was brought up to speed very quickly on the details of what had gone before in the inquiry. I would also like to acknowledge a member of my staff, Brett Reed, who did some extensive research on the evidence that had been presented to the committee prior to my joining it, so that I was able to join well informed.

The important issue to take out of this report is that there is no doubt that the services sector is a critical component of not only our domestic economy but also our export future. It was particularly heartening at some of the public inquiry meetings to hear from industries and groups that were doing extraordinarily innovative things in developing and producing service products that are doing very well as export earners. It epitomised very much why Australia has punched above its weight economically for so long. These people came to their particular sector of the services industry with the view that they were problem solvers, innovative thinkers, friendly and professional and all of those aspects that one automatically thinks of with regard to Australians dealing and trading in the international scene. You could see the excitement around what they were doing and the enthusiasm that they brought to that. That was evident in the two big sectors of the service industries—the tourism and education sectors—but it was also evident, I think far more significantly, among some of the emerging services sector providers, in particular the finance sector, the medical sector and the construction and engineering sectors, with some of the things that are being achieved in those areas.

What also became glaringly obvious throughout the inquiry was that to some extent in Australia we are just getting on with doing it and there is not enough analysis and review of what works and what does not work, what the barriers are and what the government could do to intervene. The chair on numerous occasions had to strongly encourage people to tell us what they would like government to do in order to facilitate the growth of this sector. There was some good evidence. Our trade recommendations take up some important recommendations about how too often we focus in trade negotiations on what we see as our crisis sectors—sectors which we are certainly aware can be under great threat and therefore give greater focus to. Agriculture and manufacturing are obviously those two sectors.

When involved in trade negotiations, people in the services sector encounter serious barriers that are slightly different to those we are used to dealing with in trade negotiations but that are no less important. In particular, that relates to things like the regulations that may be imposed in the nation in which they are trying to do business—for example, regulations around qualifications and the percentage of foreign work that can be done on jobs. We heard particularly from the engineering sector that these sorts of things can be extraordinarily complex. An example is one piece of evidence related to the United States: if you are trying to do business in the engineering and building sector, you have different codes, requirements and regulations from state to state there. For many Australian businesses attempting to work in that environment, these can become quite obstructive to the expansion of their business.

In the report there are some very important recommendations about not only the government getting more proactive in promoting and understanding the services sector but also trade liberalisation issues. (Time expired)

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