Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I present the committee's report, incorporating dissenting reports, entitled Report 165: Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—Today I present the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties report 165 which contains the committee's review of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, commonly referred to as the TPP. While it is true that it is now somewhat less likely that the TPP will come into effect following the US election and President-elect Trump's outline of his first 100 days' priorities, the committee believes that reporting on this agreement is still important.

Some have argued that the committee should not report, citing that the US is highly likely not to ratify it. I argue, and the majority of the committee argues with me, that the role of the committee is to report on the benefits of any proposed treaty action, including the free trade agreement and whether it is or is not in the interests of Australia. The committee's role is not to determine whether foreign parties will ratify an agreement or what actions foreign parties will take in their respective parliaments. That is indeed the rightful role of the executive. Accordingly, the TPP report is tabled this morning.

It also provides an opportunity for the committee to make two clear statements about how we view the future of free trade in Australia. Firstly, in a world where protectionism and nationalism are on the rise, the committee wishes to reiterate the importance of free trade as a bulwark against international economic decline; and, secondly, the benefits accruing to Australia from the improved access to markets in the agreement and the plurilateral basis of the agreement in setting global trade rules should not be lost in future free trade negotiations.

I think it is fair to say that there are few people alive today who remember the privations of the Great Depression or the horror of the Second World    War. Few people remember that free trade in the modern world is one of the strategic tools developed at the end of the Second World War to prevent another Great Depression and another global conflict. Many people, however, realise that international trade is the cornerstone of Australian prosperity. We are an open market that needs open markets.

It is pretty clear we do not make iPhones and we no longer make sophisticated aircraft. If we want those things, we have to sell what we do make to other people around the globe. Regardless of whether it is cheese, iron ore, coal or apps, it is crucial that Australian products have access to other markets on terms that are as fair as can be negotiated. The TPP would have provided access on fairer terms to a significant part of the world's economy for so much of what Australia produces. In tabling this report, the committee means to emphasise how important it is to Australia that we are seen to remain committed to free trade and to oppose protectionism.

Many participants in the inquiry had genuine concerns about some aspects of the TPP. These are discussed in some detail in the report. However, the committee found that, taken as a whole, the TPP would have advanced free trade and provided opportunities for Australians and is therefore in Australia's best interests.

I would like to draw out some of the aspects of the TPP that allowed the committee to reach this conclusion. Probably the most significant benefit of the TPP was its plurilateral nature. This first plurilateral agreement to be successfully negotiated in 20 years provided an opportunity to overcome the increasing complexity of bilateral free trade agreements, evocatively called the 'noodle bowl' effect, and replace it with a standard set of free trade arrangements across many trading partners. We are talking about one set of strategic global free trade rules that cover something like 40 per cent of trade across the nation. It was an opportunity for the bulk of the world to finally set, pluriterally, a set of strategic trade rules.

The TPP would have reduced the administrative burden on Australian exporters by simplifying arrangements for exporting to all other TPP countries. Small and medium sized businesses would have found it much easier to access the benefits of international markets under this arrangement. In addition, the TPP would have given Australia the capacity to address arbitrary and discriminatory non-tariff barriers in a range of Australia's most significant trading partners. The issue of attacking, drawing down and reducing non-tariff barriers is and will increasingly become a major effort required by our nation as we seek to get further into other markets.

Finally, the TPP would have levelled the playing field for Australian companies competing with exporters from other countries across a range of product types, eliminating the advantage of lower tariffs those competitors have benefited from for many years.

In summary, the committee wants to ensure that the outcomes Australia obtained from the TPP negotiations are not lost if the agreement does not go ahead. The committee wants to affirm that it stands by the outcomes in the TPP, and that the Australian government should work to retain as many of the benefits the TPP offers as it can in any future negotiations with current TPP partners or with others. The committee has recommended that binding treaty action be taken on the TPP. On behalf of the committee, I commend the report to the House.

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