Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

The budget made some important additional appropriations to not only boost our representational roles overseas but also strengthen our efforts in promoting trade opportunities overseas. That is one aspect of it. The second aspect of course is the EMDG, which I have just gone through—a commitment of $50 million to support reimbursement of costs associated with exporting opportunities. The third is the fact that we also funded in the budget an area of activity that I believe is going to be important in terms of export opportunities for the future, and that is clean energy and efficiency. The fourth area is the importance within the automotive industry package of our ability to integrate more effectively in terms of clean cars and clean technology and to position ourselves much better in the global supply chain.

Another area of activity that has increasingly been absorbed into Austrade’s activities is Invest Australia, the question of drawing investment to this country and in many senses understanding the importance of investment as the new form of trade—the two-way dimension of it.

So there is much in the budget that is being done to promote our export efforts. I am reminded by the honourable member’s reference to the importance of trade for jobs that the report that was put out by the Centre for International Economics shows that one in five jobs is trade related. It is important to understand that, of those roughly 2½ million jobs, 1.4 million are in export related activity and 1.1 million are in import related activity, in logistics, transport, retail. This is important to understand. When people talk of trade, we do not just mean exports. Our ability to take a cheaper component, convert it, value-add it and re-export the product is a significant factor in where Australia’s future lies, and all of those clean energy technologies are good cases in point in terms of that opportunity.

We understand the importance of trade not just to Australia’s economic future; we understand the importance of it in terms of job opportunities for Australians. That is why we have been prepared to make considerable commitment, in the last budget and in the previous budget, to lifting not just our export performance but our trade performance.

See this speech in context