Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) | Hansard source

What I will say is that I always enjoy listening to him, but unfortunately the speech tonight was perfunctory talking about complexities, talking about things that we already know and not really addressing why it is the government does not want to support this motion. I find that quite disappointing.

I'll now go to Senator Bernardi—a crossbench contribution. I thank the crossbench for their contribution tonight. They raised a range of issues that do need to be looked at by way of this inquiry. Things like foreign students. We welcome foreign students. We welcome students from China. We welcome trade relationships. We welcome the tourism that comes from China and, indeed, goes both ways. That's all very good stuff, and part of what an inquiry might do is identify areas where we could improve things. I do note that Senator Bernardi sort of said that there is a real potential if things go bad with the Chinese relationship that it could harm our economy. But the point is, as he said, he doesn't know. And we need to know. He used the term 'flying blind'. That's how we're operating here.

I note Senator Lambie. She always uses slightly more colourful language. She's talking about 'duct tape over the mouths'. That's what's happening here. She's always got that sort of ocker expression that connects well with the regular Australian public, and you should be listening to what she's saying. What she's saying is that Australians want to know about our relationship. There's no-one out there saying, 'Let's not have a relationship.' We're saying: 'Let's know about this relationship. Let's understand how to maximise it and where we need to be cautious.' That's what Australians would like to know.

There was an issue raised today where a Chinese company, Mengniu Dairy, is going to buy Bellamy's, a dairy company that deals with baby formula. Interestingly, in the relationship between the two countries, Bellamy's has had difficulties in exporting their goods to China over the last year or so, and what that's done is suppressed the share price down to a point where we now see a Chinese owned company that has connections back to the state making a takeover offer. I'm not suggesting anything here, other than: we should take a look at these things. We should take a careful look at all of these things. Unfortunately, it doesn't look as though we're going to have the opportunity, because we've got the Labor Party saying no, despite their particular pathway to examine the relationship being cut off at the knees by Senator Payne's statement in question time last week. And we know the government's not going to support it.

Now, I know there are people in government who do support this. I'm just looking. I won't verbal Senator Brockman, but I've watched with interest as he has shown intense interest in the discussion that's taken place in the chamber tonight. But, seriously, we've had Senator Fierravanti-Wells in the media suggesting that there ought to be an inquiry into China. She's a former minister in the foreign affairs space, so that's not insignificant. We know that Andrew Hastie, as was suggested by Senator Roberts, is quite interested in doing an inquiry. We also know that Senator Kitching is interested in doing an inquiry. But, most importantly, the Australian public want to examine this relationship. That's the most important thing, and this chamber should recognise that. I urge everyone to vote for this most important inquiry.