Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am going to talk about something positive—the Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement and the more recent Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement. Admittedly the Korea-Australia agreement was catch-up cricket; it was levelling the playing field and allowing Australia, an exporting nation, to catch up with nations such as New Zealand and North American and other countries that already had agreements in place with South Korea.

The Japanese-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement is truly groundbreaking. It gives a clear advantage to agricultural producers in Australia, not least our beef producers. For example, Tasmanian Feedlot in my electorate of Lyons exports chilled and frozen beef, and they have already said they will increase the export of frozen beef as a result of the immediate quota and tariff reductions that come into place in this groundbreaking agreement with Japan. There has been some criticism in the case of dairy, but for cheese the tariff-free quota has gone from 4,000 tonnes to 20,000 tonnes. That benefits my state and my electorate. Seafood is also important. Everybody in this place knows what a wonderful product Tasmanian salmon is and how good Tasmanian oysters are. If you have never tried Tasmanian seafood products, I encourage you to seek them out and try some.