Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Will the minister outline to the House the impact of the government's trade policies on job creation? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bonner for his question. He's passionate about job opportunities for Australians, especially in export industries. In fact, I remember going with the member for Bonner to Grove Juice. Grove Juice is another great example of an Australian small- to medium-sized enterprise that's scoring export success. They are another Australian business that will be advantaged because of the coalition's vision when it comes to company tax cuts.

We know that one in five Australian jobs are trade related. You'll excuse me for taking a little bit of time to explain to the Labor Party what 'one in five' actually means. We saw some difficulty, from the brains trust over there, on the night of the budget reply with their one in five. We all remember they put together a collective—the Labor Party are big fans of collectives. One, two, three, three, five—it was so close. We do trust you with managing the nation's finances. I'm sure it'll be absolutely fine for the nation's finances to be in your hands. Notwithstanding that, one in five jobs are in trade related industries.

We've seen one million jobs created under this coalition government, which means 200,000 extra jobs created in trade related industries. Two hundred thousand more Australians are now appreciative of the fact that, thanks to the coalition government's vision with respect to free trade agreements, we are actually making sure that, together with Australian businesses, we are creating jobs for mums, dads, sons and daughters. That's the record of delivery of this coalition government.

The member for Bonner asked about alternatives. Unfortunately, there are some alternatives. Labor's proposal with respect to Australia's trade agenda is to effectively tear it up. Labor said that they are going to renegotiate our trade deals. In fact, the shadow minister for trade ran around saying, 'The coalition did the TPP-11, but if Labor get to government we're going to renegotiate it all.' They're going to put at risk, they are going to put in jeopardy, all of the job creation that this government has put in place by the surge in exports that we've been able to lock in, thanks to this government's forward-leaning agenda on trade—new trade deals with Singapore, with the TPP-11, with Korea, with Japan, with China and with Peru. We're about to start a trade negotiation with the European Union and we are, hopefully, very close to concluding a deal with Indonesia. That's this government's track record of delivering on trade, of delivering on jobs and of creating a more competitive economic framework through lower taxes, which ensures 200,000 more Australians have jobs as a consequence.