Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I say that One Nation continues to oppose so-called free trade agreements. Instead, what we support and what we want is fair trade. This bill, the Customs Amendment (Product Specific Rule Modernisation) Bill 2019, does not expand free trade agreements; it simplifies their administration. As such, One Nation will be supporting this bill, which is essentially housekeeping for existing free trade agreements.

Australia's free trade agreements supposedly allow our producers to receive preferential tariff treatment in the countries that our free trade agreements cover. Each agreement specifies what must happen to a product in order for that product to qualify as Australian made. These are called product-specific rules. These rules have been written separately for each free trade agreement and are included in the schedule to each agreement. Each time a rule change was agreed, the free trade agreement had to be updated. This is cumbersome and costly. So what this bill does is that it replaces the individual schedule with the World Customs Organization's common set of definitions and standards. One hundred and eighty-three countries worldwide, accounting for 98 per cent of word trade, use these harmonised systems classifications. People know that One Nation are the last people to support an expanded role for unelected, unaccountable foreign bureaucrats. This bill, though, simplifies free trade agreements and does not expand free trade agreements. In this case, adopting these harmonised definitions helps everyone, including Australian producers.

This does not change One Nation's opposition to free trade agreements. Despite their name, so-called free trade agreements are never free. These agreements always come at a cost to someone, and that cost is usually to everyday Australians. Underdeveloped countries do not sign free trade agreements with industrialised nations in order to give away what they have. It is the industrialised nation that gives wealth away, and that is the history of free trade agreements.

For example, the Indonesian free trade agreement calls on Australia to send educators to Indonesia to train their skilled workers so they can then come to Australia and take jobs from Australians. In return, Australia gets to sell agricultural produce to Indonesia. There is one catch with that: Indonesia is not issuing import licences. Indonesia remains wedded to its policy of self-sufficiency in agriculture. When Australian grape growers tried to use our newly signed free trade agreement just a few months ago to sell this year's crop of table grapes, the Indonesian government refused import licences. Our farmers were left to find other markets for grapes. Indonesia wins and we lose. Australian workers lose. Australians lose. Australia loses. Our table grapes industry is not able to add extra workers, because the increased sales failed to appear. Yet, in other areas of our economy, Indonesian workers that we trained are displacing our workers. Where is the benefit of this to Australians? There is no benefit to our people.

Why does Labor blindly and automatically support free trade agreements that benefit globalists and hurt Australian workers? One Nation do not support free trade agreements; we support fair trade. I'll say it again: One Nation do not support free trade agreements; we support fair trade. The government needs to work harder and honestly to make these so-called agreements fair, or we should just walk away from the table.