Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As the federal member for Ryan, it is a pleasure to speak on the APEC Public Holiday Bill 2007 in the House of Representatives today. I am delighted to support this very important bill. Hosting the APEC meeting is an enormous undertaking for any nation, even for a country such as ours which has the experience and the skill of running enormous operations such as the Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games. I am very confident that all our professional security forces will do a superb job in ensuring that the APEC event in Sydney runs very smoothly.

In total, between January and September this year, Australia will host 100-plus days of meetings across the country. All the preparation and meetings will culminate with the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting, which commences on 2 September 2007. The APEC Economic Leaders Meeting is the most significant international gathering of an economic kind that Australia has hosted. At the conclusion of the discussions, the leaders will issue the APEC Economic Leaders Declaration, which will contain the shared vision of the leaders and set the strategic directions for APEC for the next year. The focus of the 2007 APEC Economic Leaders Meeting will be not only on economic development and trade but also on regional security, job creation and, importantly, climate change. One of the reasons I am very pleased to speak on this bill is that I am passionate about promoting freer trade and greater liberalisation of the world’s economies. I think that is the most effective way of bringing prosperity and opportunity to the peoples of the developing world.

APEC will be attended by 21 world leaders, over 40 ministers, 400 international business leaders—a handful from the Ryan electorate, I might add—6,000 delegates and support personnel, as well as over 1,000 media representatives. It will involve over 35 VIP aircraft, 300 secure VIP traffic escorts and 30 hotels. During APEC Leaders Week, meetings will take place at venues in and around Sydney’s CBD, including our famous Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, and Government House. Hosting the likes of the US President, George W Bush; the Chinese President, Hu Jintao; the Russian President, Vladimir Putin; and, from our own region, the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Shinzo Abe, I think is a great honour for this country. Of course, it is critical that we ensure the security of those leaders from those respective countries.

We have enormous confidence in the security forces of our country to carry out their job with professionalism and skill. In the 2006-07 budget, the Howard government allocated $70 million over four years for security related purposes, together with some $600,000 for additional and ongoing operating costs for transportation. The funding has supported the coordinated and whole-of-government security preparations for all APEC events and includes: $56-plus million for the Protective Security Coordination Centre and the security costs associated with hosting the APEC Leaders Week in September; $4 million to the PSCC to purchase armoured VIP limousines; $7.2 million for the Australian Federal Police to establish 22 firearms and explosives detector canine teams to conduct firearms and explosives searches at the Leaders Week and the relevant ministerial meetings; and $900,000 for Emergency Management Australia for the development of consequence management plans for an incident that might arise during the APEC Leaders Week. Altogether, the government has committed more than $300 million to host APEC.

In addition to this funding there are a number of practicalities which will be implemented during the Leaders Week to ease the disruption to the lives of those who live and work in Sydney. These practical measures include operating parts of Sydney under event time, traffic controls and access arrangements similar to those in place during the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, and also declaring a public holiday for the Sydney CBD on Friday, 7 September 2007. In his second reading speech, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations said:

The purpose of the APEC Public Holiday Bill 2007 is to ensure that employees in the Sydney metropolitan area receive a public holiday on Friday, 7 September 2007 if they are covered by certain pre-reform industrial instruments, including transitional awards, pre-reform AWAs, pre-reform certified agreements and preserved state agreements.

This public holiday is necessary to facilitate the holding of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings that will be hosted in Sydney over the week of 2 to 9 September 2007. The APEC Economic Leaders Meeting is one of the most important annual meetings of world leaders.

We all know that the New South Wales government has also introduced relevant legislation. But the APEC Public Holiday Bill 2007 will ensure that all employees covered by federal industrial instruments receive public holiday entitlements for the APEC holiday.

The Australian taxpayer, I think, is entitled to know why the government is investing such a significant amount of their money in APEC. It is appropriate that all of us promote this important gathering, because of its benefits not only for Australia but also for the world at large, particularly the 21 APEC member economies. The benefits are enormous; indeed, they are profound. I think it is important for me, as the member for Ryan, to explain to my constituents something of APEC. Many in the business community would know that APEC is the pre-eminent forum for facilitating economic growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region. It is the only assembly that brings together a range of developed and developing economies from the region. APEC was established as an Australian initiative in 1989 by the Hawke Labor government, and it is to be commended for that. I think Canberra hosted 12 members on the first occasion. Initially, it was just a consultative dialogue on trade negotiation objectives and since then APEC has grown to include 21 member economies and is now the subject of leaders’ discussions which are both formal and informal and cover an enormous range of areas, including trade, energy, climate change, security, health and regional development.

I know that the residents of Ryan would be very keen to know that the 21 APEC member economies represent 40 per cent of the world’s population, 56 per cent of global GDP and around 48 per cent of trade. APEC is also very important to our country and to Australian jobs. Sixty-nine per cent of Australia’s total trade is with APEC economies and they include eight of our top 10 trading partners. I know that Mr Deputy Speaker Hatton would be very keen to convey how important trade is not only to our nation but also to his electorate. APEC nations account for 40 per cent of inward investment in Australia and 70 per cent of international visitors to Australia—and we all know how important the Australian tourism industry is to Australian jobs, particularly the jobs of young Australians. APEC nations buy 95 per cent of Australia’s beef exports, 89 per cent of Australia’s medicinal and pharmaceutical product exports, 84 per cent of Australia’s petroleum exports, 82 per cent of Australia’s iron and steel exports, 77 per cent of Australia’s non-ferrous metal exports and 64 per cent of Australia’s very important coal exports.

APEC is a unique organisation in that it is the only intergovernmental grouping in the world committed to reducing trade barriers and increasing investment without requiring its members to enter into legally binding obligations. I believe that this structure in our part of the region is fundamental to understanding APEC’s success hitherto. It is this informal, unbinding obligation that I think best fits the identity or personality of many of the member economies of APEC. Of course, this in no way diminishes the clear fact that we all share common space on this globe and some common problems. It is an opportunity for the leaders of these nations to share issues and ideas. Trying to set a common agenda for solutions is something that would be well received by their respective peoples.

Over the past 15 years, APEC economies have outpaced the rest of the world in reducing barriers to trade and delivering economic growth. As I said earlier in my speech, I think that all nations should try as much as they can to tackle the trade barriers that exist around the world, because it is only by making a big impact on these trade barriers that we will be able to bring prosperity and opportunity to the peoples of the developing world. Of course, people of developed nations such as ours also stand to benefit enormously.

Average tariffs have declined from some 16.6 per cent in 1988 to 6.4 per cent in 2004 and no tariff barriers have been substantially increased. The real GDP for APEC economies has increased by some 46 per cent from 1989 to 2003, compared to the performance of non-APEC economies, which increased by some 36 per cent. I just want to comment on the developing APEC economies. They grew by some 77 per cent, more than double the economies of the countries that are not members of APEC. I think this is a very good reflection of the benefits that APEC has delivered to their respective economies.

By hosting the 2007 APEC meeting, Australia has a very special opportunity to forge stronger relationships in the region. I think that the Doha Round is a very significant element of the global architecture of international trade and international trade liberalisation. I congratulate the Prime Minister for bringing forward the issue of the Doha Round and trying to promote greater liberalisation in this particular APEC meeting. In June, at the annual Asia Society dinner in Sydney, he talked about the advantage of Australia’s chairmanship of APEC to press leaders for a strong statement of support for the conclusion of the Doha Round.

International trade has always been tied very significantly to our national prosperity. One of the first examples of the benefits of trade to Australia was way back in the 1860s, when the gold rush encouraged large-scale immigration and created a massive wealth effect from gold exports, which of course made Australians at the time amongst the wealthiest in the world, per capita. Unfortunately, protectionist policies fuelled by the Second World War led to a rise in tariffs. Our ranking among the world’s richest nations dropped from fifth in 1950 to ninth in 1973. A lot of that can be put down to an inward-looking world. We must never return to such a state, as it is not a formula for bringing jobs, opportunity and prosperity to the people of the world. I should say that, from 1970 until 2001—

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