Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank my colleagues for coming in today to see this very important report being tabled on behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. The report is entitled Expanding the membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave— The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the CPTPP, is an agreement between 11 economies, including Australia. The subject of the committee's inquiry was the agreement's expansion—that is, the case for new members to accede to the agreement. Sixty-eight submissions and eight public hearings later, the committee deliberated. And today I am delighted to be tabling a report that received bipartisan support in the joint standing committee.

The starting point is to recognise that the CPTPP is one of the world's most comprehensive free trade agreements. It follows, therefore, that the CPTPP's quality must be maintained. Indeed, it should be open for new members, but that welcome should not be unconditional. Put differently, the only aspiring economies that should be considered are those that (1) support an open, transparent and stable trading environment; (2) demonstrate an ability and willingness to meet the agreement's high standards; and (3) offer export potential through enhanced market access.

Tackling the question of future CPTPP members isn't an academic exercise. Indeed, the United Kingdom is well into the accession process as the first aspiring economy to formally request to join the agreement. As the committee has recognised, that process that the UK is undergoing should be leveraged as a template for other future aspiring economies. There are also lessons to be learnt from the UK experience. These are, firstly, the benefits that accrue from negotiating a bilateral free trade agreement with a trading partner while concurrently helping facilitate that same partner's accession to the CPTPP; secondly, the importance of government-to-government engagement during the accession process, including at the ministerial level; and, thirdly, the value of clear guidance on the accession process, including the various gates—the various stages—of the deal.

When it came to the question of the UK's accession, the committee recommended that the Australian government work with its other CPTPP members to encourage and facilitate the UK's accession to the agreement. We made a similar recommendation on encouraging and facilitating the accession of South Korea, noting that South Korea is at a far earlier stage in the process than the UK, as it's only now in the midst of formalising its request to join the CPTPP.

Taiwan, on the other hand, formalised its request to join the CPTPP some time ago. The committee's recommendation on Taiwan was that the Australian government work with other CPTPP members to encourage and facilitate its accession to the agreement. We also went one step further with respect to Taiwan. Australia does not have a bilateral free trade agreement with Taiwan. Noting the benefits that accrued from negotiating a bilateral free trade agreement with the United Kingdom, while also supporting its accession to the CPTPP, the committee has recommended to the Australian government that it also consider adopting a similar approach with Taiwan—that is, negotiating a bilateral Taiwan-Australia free trade agreement while, concurrently, encouraging and facilitating its accession to the CPTPP.

Then there's China. Much of the evidence we received on the China question was binary in nature. Most people typically argued that China should be either in or out. But where we landed was somewhere else. The committee recommended that the Australian government work with other CPTPP members to encourage China to re-establish full trading relations, ending its coercive trade measures and re-engaging in ministerial dialogue, and demonstrate an ability and willingness to commit to the CPTPP's high standards prior to supporting the commencement of an accession process.

On other economies which have expressed an interest in the CPTPP without formalising a request to join, including Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, the committee recommended that the Australian government work with other CPTPP members to encourage ongoing informal discussions with these economies.

Lastly, the committee also made a recommendation with respect to the United States, which was central to negotiations on the agreement before it withdrew under President Donald Trump. The committee recommended that the Australian government work with other CPTPP members to encourage the United States to renew its interest in the agreement.

In closing, I thank the diplomatic representatives of the United Kingdom, China and Taiwan for their submissions. I also thank all submitters and those who appeared before the committee in public hearings. I thank the committee secretariat; my deputy chair, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy; and the chair of the full committee, Senator David Fawcett.

Finally, I thank all members of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade from both the House of Representatives and the Senate, from both this side of the aisle and the other side, for their cooperation which led to the report I tabled today receiving bipartisan support. I commend the report to the House.