Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Xenophon for that question and for some notice of it.

We do not accept the notion of a bias against Australian manufacturing in our free trade negotiations. Our exporters—manufacturing, services and agricultural exporters—would be subject to the same non-tariff barriers the senator refers to without a free trade agreement. It should also be remembered that the future of car exports is subject to the exchange rate, production costs—including of course Labor's carbon tax impost on the cost of production—and strategic decisions made in foreign capitals more than Australia's residual five per cent tariff.

The government works with trade partners to reduce, if not eliminate, tariff and non-tariff barriers facing Australian exporters from all sectors: manufacturing, services, agriculture and resources. The government is committed to achieving high-quality comprehensive free trade agreements that produce tangible benefits for all sectors of the Australian economy. Australia's free trade agreements improve and lock in access for Australian exporters far more than would be the case without an FTA.

Non-tariff barriers are always difficult to negotiate in free trade agreement negotiations, because they generally cannot be applied to imports from free trade agreement partners only. That is why Australia is active in the World Trade Organization and multilateral trade negotiations. These negotiations provide great opportunities to address non-tariff barriers so solutions can be applied in a non-discriminatory way.

I am pleased to be able to report to the Senate that recent progress has been made in World Trade Organization negotiations: 159 WTO member economies agreed on a package of trade outcomes, including on trade facilitation, that will make it easier and cheaper for goods to flow through the ports and customs processes of 159 countries. (Time expired)