Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

The benefits are immense, and those opposite should acknowledge this and stop their campaign of lies and fear in relation to ChAFTA. China is a trading partner with a trade program with more than $150 billion, a services market worth $7½ billion, but with enormous potential to grow that market. We can see across agriculture, resources and energy, banking, health and aged care, and professional services, including, importantly, education and training, enormous opportunities to grow trade with China.

In the education space, ChAFTA provides an opportunity for more Australian education providers to access Chinese students and to provide more opportunities for those Chinese students, with an additional 77 providers in the first instance, with more, we hope, to come. On full implementation, 95 per cent of Australian goods exported to China will be tariff free. So it is up to those opposite to decide whether they will run the fear campaign or start listening to people like Bob Hawke and— (Time expired)