Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Treasurer. Will the Assistant Treasurer update the House on how the export agreement—that is right: export agreement—with China will boost the opportunities for Australia's financial services sector? Are there any risks to this approach?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Tangney for his question and acknowledge his deep commitment to creating jobs for his constituents through free trade. When Australia's economic history is written, there will be a key chapter devoted to the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement and the jobs and growth created by it. With 95 per cent of the exports to China being tariff free over the life of this agreement, a key beneficiary will be services and particularly financial services, which already make up nearly 10 per cent of our economy. With the liberalisation of rules around insurance, banking and funds management, all Australian companies in this regard will benefit.

But I am asked: are there any risks to this approach? The biggest risk comes from those opposite and from the Leader of the Opposition, because we have heard this week in the House how, back in 2005, when the Leader of the Opposition was the head of the AWU, three months before negotiations had even begun he was railing against the agreement. And then, four weeks after negotiations had begun, he asked the most ridiculous question: 'What more could we be exporting to China today than we have exported already?' But with the Leader of the Opposition it always gets better. In June 2005 he did an interview, and he said: 'I do wonder if the China free trade agreement is just an excuse for the Prime Minister to help Woodside sell gas into China.'

Hang on; I thought free trade was all about helping Australian companies to export to foreign markets. And then the penny dropped, because I am not alone in thinking it is a good thing to export gas to China. But who would want more to sell Woodside gas to China? None other than the member for Brand, because the member for Brand was working for Woodside at the time, and the CEO of Woodside wrote to his staff saying 'how important Gary's political and diplomatic skills were in winning the contract to supply China with its first LNG'.

The member for Brand did not need to fly this time to China. He did not need to lobby people in China. He had to lobby the person next to him, the Leader of the Opposition. We know that the member for Brand and the member for Corio both support the free trade agreement with China, because on 12 August 2013 they put out a press release as the then Minister for Resources and Energy and the then Minister for Trade. It said:

An agreement—

with China—

would cement an already strong commercial relationship by removing trade barriers.

So there you have it. The Leader of the Opposition is at odds with two of his frontbenchers. He should remember that his job as a head of a political party is not to lobby on behalf of the unions but to lobby on behalf of the people of Australia, and that means putting the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement into law.