Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I want to ask the trade minister about non-tariff barriers. The foreign minister mentioned in her introductory remarks the allocation in this budget to tackle non-tariff barriers, and the Foreign policy white paper released in November last year made the point that the government will implement new non-tariff measures to respond to business concerns. As the minister knows, this is a big problem and a serious problem. It's arguably the biggest problem confronting a lot of Australian exporters and potential exporters. As tariffs have gone down around the world over the last few decades, a lot of non-tariff barriers have gone up, and I think the minister made the point in his remarks at the Press Club two weeks ago that G20 countries have implemented more than 7,400 non-tariff measures in the last 10 years. In the budget, as I mentioned, there's funding allocated in the DFAT portfolio. There's also funding allocated in the department of agriculture's portfolio. That's for ag councillors, I understand, to be posted to the UK, Mexico, Japan, India, Chile and Russia, but not China, which I thought was interesting. But I didn't want to press that point.

I was interested in learning more today, if we can, about the DFAT allocation of $15 million over four years for a package of initiatives to support the Australian business community. In estimates, a couple of weeks ago, we were advised that $6.6 million of that $15 million would be allocated towards tackling these non-tariff barriers. Can the minister provide us with some more details on what that funding will be allocated to do and, specifically, whether this is the funding allocated to tackle that issue identified in the white paper or whether there are other things that the minister is intending to do here? And, while the minister's on his feet and thinking about this, I'm interested in the minister's views on a proposal by the former National government in New Zealand to establish a cross-agency team of their equivalent of DFAT and agriculture to coordinate the work that government does on non-tariff barriers in key export markets. It's something that I understand the new Labour government in New Zealand has continued with, so that, now, there's a single point of information and contact for exporters when dealing with government, whether they're dealing with an ag issue or some other issue, that can address their concerns and help to make sure there's better coordination when industry needs the support of government. So my first question is: what does the minister think of this as potentially a way to tackle this big and important problem?

While I've got the chance, I might ask also the minister for his thoughts on the value of internship programs for young Australian professionals and how they might be inserted into trade agreements. The minister would be aware that the French government recently negotiated an agreement with the Chinese government—a reciprocal program that allows young professionals to gain commercial experience in China, undertaking an internship for I think up to six months. In their submission to the foreign policy white paper, the Australian Chamber of Commerce Shanghai, who met with both the minister and me today, recommended that such a program should be replicated for young Australian professionals.

It is an idea that wasn't picked up in the white paper, but it's an idea that I think is a good one. Not enough Australians have experience working in Asia. I'm conscious—and I'm sure the foreign minister will make this point—that the New Colombo Plan facilitates that. This is something that could operate over and above that. Knowing as we do, from work that Asialink and PwC have done over the last 12 months, that we have a serious deficit in terms of the number of Australian professionals with experience working in Asia, I wonder whether there's some thought being given to trying to implement a similar program to this to make sure that the next generation of Australian businesspeople have these sorts of skills.

I've said that, if my party wins the next election, we'd seek to establish a similar program to the one that the French have recently negotiated with the Chinese. If it works, it's the sort of thing that I think we could do with other countries in Asia. So my question to the minister is: does he support this approach of increasing the amount of Asian business skills that young Australian professionals have by setting up internship programs with our Asian neighbours?

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