Nick Xenophon (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

I almost feel like a minister, without the pay rise, when answering these questions. I welcome the questions by Senator Di Natale. I do not resile from my position on free trade agreements. I think we have negotiated them very badly. I think we have compromised issues of sovereignty. The one good thing about the election of Donald Trump is that he is implacably opposed to the TPP and it looks as though the TPP will not go ahead. That is about the only thing I can think of, because I find many of his other views a complete anathema to what I believe in and stand for, particularly his views on race, religion, women and a whole range of other issues.

The amendment that was moved by Senator Carr was an amendment that I moved a couple of years ago in identical terms. But since that time I have negotiated, with the support of my colleagues, the biggest amendments we have seen to Commonwealth procurement rules that actually deal with these issues. They need, whether I like it or not, to be WTO compliant, because if they are not they will be struck down. That is a separate issue.

I say to Senator Di Natale that I hope we are pretty much on the same page insofar as if we can renegotiate agreements in the longer term then we should. I do not resile from that. But I am trying to get a practical and measurable outcome in relation to Commonwealth procurement rules. These changes to Commonwealth procurement rules are the biggest we have seen in terms of requiring the Australian Standards to be measured and goods and service supplies to take into account: labour regulations, occupation health and safety, environmental impacts and the regulatory frameworks running to that—ensuring that those Australian Standards for goods and services are subject to auditing and certification processes and, absolutely, for the first time, to turn on its head what we have done in the past by ignoring the economic benefit of procurement for the Australian economy by requiring that it must be considered for procurements above $4 million. That is a massive change. I have not changed. There is no contradiction. This is actually an improvement on the amendment that I moved.

I do want to take this opportunity to put on the record—and I would be grateful if Senator Cormann can confirm this—and I will be in a position to table this tomorrow—that the government is committed to a joint select committee process on procurement to report by 31 May 2017, which I genuinely hope the Australian Greens can be a part of. I have worked terrifically well with Senator Rhiannon on these issues. It will be a thorough process and it will be a well-resourced process in order to deal with these issues.

Right now, the Commonwealth government has not entered into the WTO procurement agreement—which I implacably oppose. Here is a mechanism where we have these changes that will make a very real difference in any negotiations with respect to any WTO procurement agreement that we may sign up to, because this will be embedded in Commonwealth procurement rules. As Senator Cormann has indicated, this is not a draft. This is actually a decision of government to come into effect from 1 March 2017. I hope that I have gone some way to answering Senator Di Natale's very reasonable questions.