Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. As someone who was born and bred in northern Tasmania, he really holds his electorate close to his heart. It is the largest electorate in Tasmania. He had incredible success in the awards last night with the Kondinin Group. In fact, I believe that Carol Bracken, from Glengarry, who was one of the runners-up last night, is with us here in the parliament today in the gallery—somewhere up next to the Mayor of Tamworth, who is also up there at the moment.

One of the big issues associated with the free trade agreement is that it has shown proven success in other countries, such as New Zealand. If we look at the results with respect to the products that are available in the member for Lyons' area, we see that we have proven success in the other trade agreements that we have done with Japan and Korea. Let's look, for instance, at table grapes. Since we signed the Korean free trade agreement, from January to June this year, we have moved in $2 million worth. We can also look at other successes. From January to June 2014, before we signed the Korean free trade agreement, we exported $2.3 million worth of macadamia nuts. After we signed the free trade agreement with Korea, it was $6.3 million. From January to June 2014, before we signed the free trade agreement with Japan, we exported $0.4 million worth of almonds. From January to June 2015, after we signed the free trade agreement with Japan, it was $1.6 million.

No matter where we go, we can see that these free trade agreements have a real impact, a definite impact, on returns to these regional areas. A great working example of that, of course, is New Zealand, who signed a free trade agreement in 2008. Before that, their exports were worth less than a billion dollars. They went from less than a billion in 2008 to $6.7 billion in 2014. If we look at a whole range of their products, we see that they have had a substantial increase. For instance, before they signed the free trade agreement, dairy products were at $321 million a year and now they are at $4.2 billion a year.

So who would be against this Free Trade Agreement? Obviously the love child of Norm Gallagher and the BLF, the CFMEU, is against this free trade agreement. And who is channelling Norm Gallagher and the CFMEU? The Australian Labor Party are—against everybody; against Jay Weatherill and against Premiers in every state. When are they going to wake up?

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