Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

If the minister at the table would just follow the debate, it would be useful. I was talking about bilateral trade agreements, not individual agreements in relation to certain commodities. We do have to wonder how confident we can be that the government will not throw away the new opportunities Australia has to capitalise on, especially when we have read today the grave concerns about the ability of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to do its job, a concern expressed by someone appointed specifically by the Prime Minister to further a concept which, again, may sound great on paper but about which we are still waiting to hear the detail more than a week later. The concerns raised about DFAT’s ability to do its job, given that it is dangerously underfunded as a result of the government’s efficiency dividend obsession, means that we all must watch closely not what the minister says but what he does.

This is the same department that is being asked to merge the responsibilities of Invest Australia in attracting overseas investment with Austrade’s role of providing advice and practical support to establish exporters in global markets. How can this government seriously expect to further international investment opportunities when it is treating these important programs with such contempt? It is insisting that Austrade will now be expected to perform its original duties and take on additional roles performed by Invest Australia, with approximately 50 extra staff replacing the 130 staff previously responsible for Invest Australia’s tasks. The evidence goes further, given that this government has also spent the weekend peddling the Prime Minister’s ill-thought-out and attention-seeking proposal to establish an Asia-Pacific union. It would be nice if this government would actually consult one of the nations on whose behalf it is already making grand pronouncements. The first signs of consultation have occurred after the fact, and there is a very real possibility that the government does not have the capacity to follow through on these grand plans let alone provide us with any details on how they may work.

The government has no real plan for trade and foreign affairs, it has no real plan beyond Doha and it has no plan for Australian exporters. It is far more interested in the way things look rather than the way things work. And, while this strategy might have been in favour with this government for some months now, we are seeing with perfect clarity the destructive consequences of this approach. This government and the trade minister shamelessly change, substitute and amend their trade preferences on the run, and all the while they expect major trading partners to provide the props, the photo opportunities and the settings for the next big policy U-turn. It is important to further strengthen Australia’s relationship with New Zealand, and there is great merit in consolidating closer economic ties, but it cannot simply be done on the unstable ground that this government is creating.

We need to see this government engage in a more consistent and meaningful consultation with the international community. They cannot just jet around the globe offering token gestures and offer this as a comprehensive and result driven trade policy. Both the foreign affairs and trade portfolios are more than a lifestyle and it is important that the Prime Minister and the trade minister start delivering tangible constructive results for the Australian exporter. And while the trade minister may enjoy some sort of inner glow from travelling the world, exporters and investors in Australia need something far more robust from this government.

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