Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

I hear the interjections, which make me think I have hit a sore point. The fact is that the open economy that we have today has been built on the wreckage of tariff walls ripped down first by the Whitlam government, then the Hawke government and then the Keating government. The results speak for themselves. Our economy is now three times the size it was in the early eighties, when the Hawke government was elected. Real wages have gone up, living standards have gone up, unemployment fell and our economy has kept growing, year on year, now 26 years in a row. That is our record, the work we have done in government that has delivered this new, open, competitive economy.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Turnbull government. John Howard delivered three new free trade agreements. The last time we were in government we also delivered three new free trade agreements. So did the Abbott government. The Turnbull government, though, which has been in power almost as long as the Abbott government, has delivered just one new free trade agreement, which was signed yesterday and which, I should point out to the foreign minister, was started under Labor.

Anybody who looks seriously at this issue knows that free trade is not popular—it does not win you votes—but it is important, particularly for a country like Australia, which is a trading nation. Our prosperity depends on access to overseas markets. From the US elections and the approach taken by President Trump and by Bernie Sanders, you can see how on the nose trade is around the world. You see it through Brexit as well. Not everybody around the world thinks that trade creates jobs. In the US, Pew research shows that only one in five Americans thinks that trade creates local American jobs. A poll conducted in Australia by Essential last year showed the same result—only one in five Australians thinks that trade creates local jobs. That might not be what the evidence shows but it is what a lot of people think. It is a challenge for both sides of the chamber.

Many Australians are struggling. They feel like life is getting tougher. Wage growth is plateauing. Electricity prices are going up. House prices are through the roof. People are hurting, and that is what makes them suspicious. Trade is not the reason for this, but if we are going to convince Australians that new trade deals are good for them then we have to provide the evidence. This is why economic modelling is so important, and this is the point I want the minister to address in her answer. A number of Senate committees now have called for the government—for her department—to conduct economic modelling on all new free trade agreements. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has asked for the same thing.

The assistant minister, Keith Pitt, was on Sky television a couple of weeks ago, and he also seemed to back this idea. He dodged and weaved a couple of times when he was asked questions about this by Tom Connell and Samantha Maiden. He bumbled his way through a couple of answers and then, finally, Samantha Maiden said this: 'Look, it's okay if you're not sure or if you don't know. Does the process include modelling or not?' And that is when the assistant minister for trade said this: 'The process always includes modelling on our behalf as to what is in the best interests for this country.' In other words, whenever they do a new free trade deal they do economic modelling.

If that is the case and if that is what is going to happen in the future, that is terrific; that is good news. It has not always happened in the past. I am sure the foreign minister knows it did not apply with all of the agreements that she has just mentioned that the Abbott government put into place. But if you are going to do it now that is terrific. The problem is we asked the same question in estimates a couple of weeks ago and we got a different answer from your department. They said:

… there is no government directive to model or not to model. We deal with each particular FTA negotiation on a case-by-case basis.

So my question to the Foreign Minister is this: what is going on? Who is telling the truth, your assistant minister on Sky television who said you model everything or your department in estimates who said you do not? And, most particularly, will you conduct economic modelling on every future trade agreement that this government signs?

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