Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Here we are again, as a parliament, about to embark on another debate about free trade agreements. As it's starting to play out in the community, again, as they should, they're asking: what's in it for us? Free trade agreements have been used and have been created between our country and others for a few decades now. I'm raising this question in this parliament at this point because, like all economic policy in this place, we have reached a point where the government no longer deliver what has been promised. If you think about interest rates, for example, there was common belief that cutting interest rates would be a great economic boost to an economy. We've seen interest rates cut to a record low and no boost to our economy. So we're at that point where we need to rethink and recalibrate our approach to that policy area. Is it time to do the same again when it comes to free trade?

In the eighties and the nineties, trade liberalisation and tariff reduction did lead to growth in industries. There were also industry plans that went alongside an assistance to lessen the impact on those workers most affected by those trade agreements. However, recent trade agreements that have been negotiated since this government has come to power have not been accompanied with these plans.

I'm talking specifically about what happened to our automotive industry. Some could argue that when we signed the Korean, Japanese and Chinese free trade agreements, we lost our automotive industry at the same time as signing them. There were 200,000 workers displaced. A third of those have never worked again. Another third have worked in casual work or their own self-employment. Another third have found other work in manufacturing, but at nowhere near the skill or the class level they had previously. There's been no plan or transition for these workers.

We also know from the government's own modelling at the time that these deals that were put forward that they were only going to generate 5,434 additional jobs by 2035. That's what they proposed. My questions to the government in 2019 are: Are we on track? Have those deals created the jobs that they say that they have done? We've had a lot of rhetoric, we've had a lot of campaigning and we've had a lot of suggestion. But has it created the good, secure paying jobs? They're still well short of the 200,000 plus that we've lost.

I'm also concerned about the new trade deals that are being put forward and whether they're actually going to deliver. The question I have for the government is: what are we actually going to get from it? This isn't just my question; this is a question that lots of people are asking. We're told that it's going to deliver in agriculture. Well, is that really a priority for us right now when the country is in severe drought and we're not producing the goods or the commodities that we would export under these agreements? We're told that these agreements will deliver great economic output. Well, where's the independent modelling to prove that?

What I'm also concerned about is this government increasingly attaching the trade of people to free trade agreements. Back in the eighties and nineties, such agreements dealt specifically with tariffs and trade opportunities. Today, increasingly under this government, we're seeing more negotiations and more trading of people. I'm talking about the side deals where they allow more temporary workers into this country. The proposed Indonesian free trade deal, for example, looks to increase by about 4,000 the number of backpackers and holidaymakers each year—rising from 1,000 to 5,000—when this government has not yet fixed the system. The exploitation of backpackers is rife, and report after report talks about how they are victims of trafficking—of modern slavery—in some cases. Yet this government is proposing to bring more of them in. There are far too many questions being asked about our trade agreements, and the government has done very little. They have done very little to look at the non-tariff barriers since reaching agreements. The question needs to be asked: are free trade agreements worth it today?

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