Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Reid for her question. I know she understands that jobs in her electorate are dependent on trade and dependent on our government delivering trade agreements and making sure that we are providing trade opportunities for our exporters. This year our government has brought into force the Indonesia, Peru and Hong Kong free trade agreements, which will provide substantially better market access for 99 per cent of goods. Since we've been in government we have lifted our share of trade covered by trade agreements from 26 per cent to 70 per cent. We are working to grow that even further by pursuing strong export agreements with the EU; the Pacific Alliance—Mexico, Chile, Peru and Colombia; the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership; and the United Kingdom. These will take the benefits that we have from free trade agreements to even greater than 70 per cent, creating jobs.

Australian businesses that export, on average, hire 23 per cent more staff, have 11 per cent higher wages and have 13 per cent higher labour productivity than non-exporters. Our trade agenda has already resulted in more Australian businesses exporting—more than 53,000, including 46,000 SMEs. That's 46,000 small businesses, goods-exporting businesses—

Ms Madeleine King interjecting—

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