Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade and Investment) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wannon. He comes from a great agricultural area of Australia and he is also one of the strongest advocates for freer trade and investment in this parliament. The free trade agreements with China, Japan and Korea concluded last year do present unprecedented opportunities across all three markets—in goods, services and investments. Historically, however, while Australia has been good at concluding agreements, we have not been so good at ensuring that the benefits are well understood and acted upon by business, so we are making a determined effort to avoid this outcome this time. We are commencing a national roadshow to communicate the huge business opportunity in these agreements. We have held two half-day pilot forums in Queensland and Victoria, and we are now ready to roll out this national roadshow. Over the next two years, we intend to conduct over 50 forums at the rate of two or three a month covering all capital cities, and rural and regional centres.

Ms Ryan interjecting—

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