Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I might enunciate something I said to you digitally and apologise for my coughing. I assure colleagues it has nothing to do with COVID. It has everything to do with my asthma, which seems to be a little less controlled this morning than I'd like it to be normally. I give a quick shout-out to those who suffer from respiratory diseases who might find themselves coughing regularly. I've noticed in particular as I travel around community that there's a real stigma associated with coughing at the moment, so I give a shout-out to those fellow Australians who, like me, struggle with pulmonary disease. It is a reminder to other Australians to be kind in our judgements of people. Not every cough means someone is suffering from COVID.

In any event, I rise to make a contribution to these two very important bills, the Customs Amendment (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Implementation) Bill 2021 and the Customs Tariff Amendment (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Implementation) Bill 2021. As I sat here last night, listening to contributions from others, I reflected on a South Australian hero, and I'd like to make a few comments about him in the context of this bill.

I said in my maiden speech that we stand on the shoulders of giants, and in my case, as a South Australian member of parliament and someone who represents a portion of the former electorate of Wakefield, I'd like to mention, particularly with reference to this bill, the Hon. Bert Kelly, who was, of course, the member for Wakefield from 1958 and perhaps more commonly is referred to as the 'Modest Member'. I say this in a debate where others have quite rightly made contributions about how significant free trade is to the modern, globalised, connected world order today.

I hasten to suggest there'd be very few people who would come into this chamber in 2021 and vehemently oppose free trade or suggest that the future for global trade involves crushing and significant tariffs. But, as someone who perhaps knows more about the history of this place than I do, Mr Speaker, you know that that wasn't the case in 1958, when Bert Kelly was elected. His antiprotectionist views were particularly unpopular, and some say his time in that ministry was limited by the fact that he held those views, but, in any event, once he was no longer in the executive, he began writing a column in the Australian Financial Review, initially anonymously under the moniker 'Modest Member'. Ultimately it was fleshed out that he was the Hon. Bert Kelly was of course the Modest Member. I should say that, post retirement, he continued to write that column but referred to himself as the 'Modest Farmer'. As someone in this place who hopes to retire to a career in farming at some point, I'd like to think that I have a bit in common with the Hon. Bert Kelly, who lost preselection in 1977, the year I was born.

I say we stand on the shoulders of giants not only because of what he achieved and his courage but because, quite frankly, the course of Australian political history was probably altered in this space more significantly by Kelly than by any other person. You might not want to take my word for it. Perhaps we can take the word of former Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, who on Bert Kelly's death indicated:

No private member has had as much influence in changing a major policy of the major parties.

This was a person who came to this place in 1958, when protectionism was de jure, and over the course of time he saw, through his humble advocacy, that policy was changed across decades and ultimately to the point where now almost no-one—indeed, I would argue no-one—would argue in favour of crushing tariffs.

Leaving my parochialism and my admiration for Kelly to one side, I will turn to the bill. This bill is important for producers in Barker. Often those in this place hear me talk about the farmers in my electorate, but this bill is important not only for the farmers in my electorate. I see its importance resting principally with food manufacturing in my electorate. Increasingly, my electorate is taking the clean and green commodities that we produce and turning them into clean, green and safe processed foods for the world. Indeed, the electoral division of Barker holds the title of having more Australians, per head of population, employed full time in the manufacturing sector than has any other division in this place. Barker is the home of Australian manufacturing, and I'd like to think that, with the very bullish free trade agenda that's being pursued by this government, its future status not only is safe and secure but will thrive going forward.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, commonly referred to as RCEP, is another step in that direction. It's a modern free trade agreement between Australia and 14 other nations, no less, in the Indo-Pacific. It has been described as the world's largest free trade agreement. As I said earlier, it complements the myriad free trade agreements that have been established, not least of which are those that have been established since we came to office in 2013, most recently the agreement entered into with the UK. I'll leave for another day my comments on how the harm to Australian farmers that was occasioned by the Common Market turning its back on Australian farmers is about to be addressed—albeit, as I have said publicly, at a time when Australian producers are probably going to find it difficult to fill demand, because we have been so successful in pivoting away from the UK in our trade efforts over the generations since 1972.

In any event, this bill effectively operates to achieve three things. It provides rules, including product-specific rules, in determining imported goods from RCEP-originating countries—RCEP-originating goods. These are preferential rules for the 14 countries and Australia. Of course there needs to be integrity around how we do that, and this bill seeks to achieve it. It also, as part of that integrity requirement, requires Australian exporters to keep sufficient records. That is of course important. Most importantly, in terms of the operation and efficacy of these bills, it creates a new schedule of preferential customs duty rates for goods that qualify as RCEP-originating goods. If the Hon. Bert Kelly were in this place today, he would be cheering on RCEP. It's about creating a lower-tariff environment, a freer trade environment. I'd suggest that, at the time, Kelly was talking particularly about traditional trade routes between our nation and continental Europe, in particular the UK, and probably he did not dare think we could enter into free trade agreements with 14 countries in the Indo-Pacific, the majority of whom don't operate under property-owning democracies. He would be incredibly pleased to see what's occurring.

I've indicated what we're doing in relation to RCEP. I think it's also important to point out that we have engaged in deep consultation, through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, with governments and agencies from the signatory countries. Once in force this will be, as I said earlier, the largest free trade agreement in the globe. RCEP signatory states account for 30 per cent of the world's population and GDP. No other free trade agreement brings together the collective economic weight of ASEAN nations and the major economies in North Asia. RCEP also provides for additional economies to join the agreement in the future, building the significance of the agreement over time. With respect, I suggest that the significance of this agreement might ultimately be borne out geopolitically, as well as delivering an important economic dividend for RCEP member states.

While I'm mentioning the RCEP member states, it's probably important to list them. The RCEP member states are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea. As I said earlier, that's 30 per cent of the globe's population and 30 per cent of the globe's GDP. RCEP has been ratified by Brunei, China, Japan and Singapore and will enter into force 60 days after one or more of the Asian members and four more ASEAN members ratify RCEP.

I've mentioned economic efforts in my electorate and the fact that they centre around agriculture and food production, principally, but this agreement is far broader than that. It provides for financial services, specialist services and others. It's important to note a phenomenon that I'm seeing in my electorate, which I think is playing out across Australia right now, and it's born of infrastructure that our nation has built, principally over the eight years that we've been in government. Increasingly, in communities in my electorate—principally those on the coast, but not exclusively so—people who work in the service sectors, particularly high-wealth individuals and those with the ability to work remotely, are leaving Victoria and finding a home in coastal villages such as Robe, Beachport and Kingston in my electorate. From there they're servicing their customer base in the service sectors. This reflects the fact that the provision of those services, not only interstate but now internationally, is made that much easier by the RCEP agreement.

Burt Kelly, when he was first elected, in the 1950s, brought to this place views about a free-trade future, but he perhaps never imagined that we would be entering into free trade agreements or preferential trade agreements with 14 nations in the Indo-Pacific, many of whom don't share our system of government. I don't think he could have imagined that, in the relatively near future, we would be at that place, as we are. Perhaps in his mind, in the late 1950s, it would be even more strange that a member of this place representing the electorate of Barker would get to his pins and say, 'There is a real likelihood that, because of this agreement, constituents living in my electorate and working digitally could provide services directly into those Indo-Pacific nations.' Even for someone as visionary as Burt Kelly, that concept would have been a bridge too far, but that's where we find ourselves. It's a happy circumstance we find ourselves in, and it's fair to say that a lot of that trajectory owes its origin to Kelly's initial push to change our views on protectionism. Bear in mind that this was someone who declared himself a modest member and who was also subsequently described by Gough Whitlam as a private member who moved the trajectory of major political parties' policies more than anyone else. And I don't think we should forget the giants whose shoulders we stand on. In that regard, I want to take the opportunity to reflect on the service of the Hon. Bert Kelly, the former member for Wakefield, and how his efforts have, in a sense, allowed us to arrive at this place.

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