Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade. Why has the minister, as Chairman of the Cairns Group and one of the six principal negotiators of the current WTO round, decided to cancel his attendance at today’s meeting of APEC trade ministers in Ho Chi Minh City, which will deal with the critical impasse in the current WTO round? Given that the minister has no other compelling trade policy obligations elsewhere today, why has the minister concluded that Australia’s trade interests in a meeting of this importance are best represented instead by the member for Dawson?

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. In fact, I dealt with all these issues last week when I was in Europe at a meeting of 17 or 18 core trade ministers in the WTO. I met with Cairns Group colleagues last week, and this morning I spoke on the phone to the deputy USTR, Susan Schwab, in Vietnam, about these matters. I have every confidence that the parliamentary secretary, the member for Dawson, is quite capable of representing these interests in Vietnam.