Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As the member for Bruce is both aware of and welcomes—and it's the first such agreement that India has settled with a developed nation in 10 years. That's quite a remarkable achievement.

Upon entry into force, the agreement with India would mean that approximately 90 per cent of Australia's current exports to India would be either tariff free or have access to tariff rate quotas. This means there are some beneficial outcomes for tariff reductions on some key Australian exports, while high tariffs on agricultural goods like vegetables and wheat, sadly, remain mostly unchanged. And the Australian wine industry has some justifiable disappointment with respect to the outcomes for its sector. That is disappointing. Hopefully that can be corrected in the future agreement.

In general, outcomes in services liberalisation, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, are equivalent to the best commitments India has offered other trade partners, and the terms of the agreement protect what Australia has achieved, in the sense that the terms of any further agreements India enters into will need to be offered to Australia, where they are better than what we have currently secured.

As an interim agreement, the AI-ECTA, as it is being called, is absent provisions dealing with a number of substantive trade policy areas like intellectual property, digital trade, government procurement, competition policy and the facilitated involvement of small and medium-sized enterprises, and it doesn't deal with other barriers to trade such as the individual tax and regulatory regimes at the state and union territory level in India, which anyone who is engaged in exporting to that nation would know add a level of complexity for Australian exporters.

Needless to say, the value of trade investment agreements do not stand entirely on market access and investment rules. Such agreements do operate as broader instruments of engagement, and on the committee we recognise that India is a like-minded partner of great significance and even greater potential in our region—in the Indo-Pacific region. It's committed, as Australia is, to the rule of law, to open markets and to stability, and on that basis this agreement, for which negotiations began in 2011, is a hard-won and long-sought achievement.

While the committee determined on a strong multi-partisan basis that both agreements should be ratified, it also made recommendations in relation to longer held concerns around the independent economic assessment of the impact of such agreements and in relation to a system that enables higher quality engagement for stakeholders in the negotiating process, which we do not currently have.

Trade agreements are the products of negotiations and trade-offs; some sectors benefit, others don't. There are in some cases unwanted—or, at the very least, extraneous—economic and social impacts. In addition to assisting with the proper understanding and assessment of a negotiated trade agreement, independent modelling and analysis would allow us to have proper regard to the quality of public policy decisions and make sure that agreements represent the optimal achievement and the optimal protection of Australia's interests.

The substance and quality of consultation processes around trade agreements has been a consistent theme of the committee's interest in recent years, mainly because stakeholders—whether from business, industry or civil society—have noted and argued in favour of the benefits of a consultation which is timely, meaningful and responsive. Presently, unfortunately, what occurs by way of engagement is often best described as information briefings rather than genuine consultation. It's the committee's view that the Australian government should consider how it can put in place improved consultation processes with all stakeholders as negotiations are undertaken. That is, indeed, a platform commitment of the Australian Labor Party.

Finally, in both reports, the committee recommended that the Australian government implement the recommendations of JSCOT report 193, Strengthening the trade agreement and treaty-making process in Australia, in relation to greater consultation transparency and on the question of independent modelling and analysis of trade agreements.

But, having said that, on behalf of the committee I commend the reports to the House.

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