Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Customs Amendment (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Implementation) Bill 2021 and a related bill. Labor will be supporting the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement implementation bills.

The partnership, RCEP as it is known, was signed on 15 November 2020 by 15 countries. It is a partnership that includes the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam; as well as five non-ASEAN nations: Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. These countries make up 29 per cent of world GDP and 30 per cent of the world's population. RCEP is, quite simply, the biggest trade agreement in history. Negotiations for it started in 2012 at the 21st ASEAN Summit in Cambodia, and the negotiations were commenced by Labor, by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and trade minister Craig Emerson on behalf of Australia. From the beginning, Labor has supported Australia being actively involved in the negotiation of this partnership. Importantly, the process has been led by ASEAN.

RCEP includes nine of Australia's top 15 trading partners and economies, which account for more than half of Australia's total two-way trade and more than two-thirds of our exports. Ratifying RCEP will mean Australia is part of the biggest trade agreement in the world. As Dr Jeffrey Wilson of the Perth USAsia Centre has argued:

RCEP will be the world's second-most important trade agreement on arrival, ranking behind only the WTO itself.

In essence, RCEP creates new regional architecture for economic integration and strengthens the rules of many of Australia's existing free trade agreements. Importantly, RCEP includes core investment protections—rules requiring payment of compensation where an investment is expropriated; minimum standards of treatment of investors under international law; and compensation for losses due to conflict and civil strife. The agreement provides avenues for reducing non-tariff barriers, including in areas such as quarantine and technical standards, by promoting compliance with World Trade Organization rules and further improving cooperation and transparency. And, finally, it supports economic capacity building and, in particular, provides a dedicated chapter addressing the capability of small and medium enterprises in the region to benefit from the agreement.

These protections and transparency provisions will provide greater certainty and confidence for Australian businesses looking to invest in the region, and they will be helped by the partnership's single set of rules for exporters to use, rather than having to rely on the multiplicity of different rules and procedures under the existing free trade agreements. This cuts or simplifies a great deal of red tape for Australian SMEs and opens up opportunities for Australian firms looking to utilise regional supply chains.

There are aspects of the RCEP that we think could be better, and valid concerns have been raised, and I propose to go through some of these. RCEP, as it stands, does not have an environment chapter or labour chapter. When Labor was last in government, Craig Emerson, as trade minister, sought to include these provisions. Regrettably, other RCEP members were not amenable to this, but opting out and retreating to the sidelines was not an option, and to do so would have set back our relationship with ASEAN significantly.

A number of other concerns have been addressed, including ensuring that the partnership does not expand waivers of labour market testing for foreign workers. Further, the government has provided assurances that RCEP does not restrict domestic procurement arrangements in Australia at any level of government; it does not require privatisation of any Australian public services; it does not undermine the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, it does not undermine state or Commonwealth workplace laws or occupational licensing arrangements; it does not undermine Australia's antidumping regime; it does not include provisions that limit the right of the Commonwealth to regulate in the interests of public welfare or in relation to safe products; and RCEP does not include investor-state dispute settlement provisions.

Labor commends the work of civil society and the trade union movement in steering the government away from implementing ISDS as a basis for dispute settlement in all trade negotiations. The fact that we are seeing ISDS less and less in our international treaties is a testament to the campaigning of the ACTU, AFTINET and other organisations. Recent media reports that Clive Palmer is exploring the use of ISDS mechanisms to sue the Australian government reaffirm our opposition to them as a general provision in international trade deals. Having already forked out a million dollars in legal fees because the Prime Minister supported Mr Palmer's attempt to sue Western Australia, Australian taxpayers certainly don't want to be stung again by another vexatious suit.

Unions and other civil society stakeholders have also expressed concern regarding the potential for public regulation to be constrained under RCEP. DFAT and Minister Tehan have clarified this is incorrect and that there are reservations in RCEP, like in any FTA, that allow Australia to regulate in the public interest, which includes for aged care or climate change action. Labor doesn't support agreements which would inhibit the government's ability to implement in full the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.

While aged care and other concerns have been responded to by the government and resolved, the Morrison-Joyce government still needs to respond to community concerns in relation to Myanmar. Myanmar, as an ASEAN nation, is a signatory to RCEP, but the actions of the Tatmadaw to undermine Myanmar's democracy, to detain thousands of political prisoners and to crack down against peaceful protests and opposition are unacceptable. They are completely unacceptable. Labor condemns the military coup of 1 February and the subsequent violence engaged in by the Tatmadaw. On 2 February, we called for the Australian government to review its military cooperation with the Tatmadaw, and over a month later this cooperation was suspended. Labor has also called for targeted sanctions against those responsible for the coup. In April, Labor called on the government to provide visa pathways for at-risk Myanmar nationals to remain in Australia. Once again, a month later, the government said those on temporary visas could apply to extend their stay.

But the Morrison-Joyce government has still not implemented any additional targeted sanctions against those responsible for the coup and for human rights abuses in Myanmar. This is despite many of our like-minded partners taking strong action, and it is despite the government chaired Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade recommending sanctions against the Tatmadaw in June, and, in August, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties embarrassingly having to remind the Morrison-Joyce government again of the need to act. Labor members of the JSCOT worked hard to amend the final report to reflect stakeholder concerns on Myanmar. I thank all of the Labor members, and I especially thank Senator Ayres and the Deputy Chair, Mr Khalil, for their tireless efforts in this committee.

In the committee's report, the government was urged to make a declaration as to Australia's response to the situation in Myanmar at the time of RCEP ratification. All the minister has indicated is that he will consider it. Well, we say the time for consideration has well passed, given ratification is assured with the passage of the bill today. We urge the government to make a declaration, as the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties urged. More broadly, the Morrison government's refusal to implement any sanctions since the coup sends precisely the wrong message. It sends a message that we don't care and that we are mere bystanders to the democratic backsliding in our region, in a nation where many Australians over many years have worked so hard to support Myanmar's democratic transition. So it is time for Mr Morrison and Minister Payne to act.

The Morrison-Joyce government's failings on Myanmar reflect their broader failings to understand the region and to sufficiently deploy our diplomacy to shape the region we want: a region that is stable, prosperous and respectful of sovereignty. Labor recognises that Australia's security and prosperity relies on our continued economic engagement with the world and engagement and integration with our region, including through trade and investment. International trade creates jobs. These are facts that sometimes some in this chamber and some in the community fail to recognise. One in five Australian workers are employed in a trade related activity. That is more than 2 million Australian jobs. As an open trading nation, Australia has not just been a beneficiary of the multilateral rules based system that has operated for decades; we have helped shape it and we have worked to shape it for our interests. We have to understand that our recovery and the region's recovery from the pandemic requires open trade based on agreed rules of the road.

Of course, our ongoing success as an exporting nation also demands that we better diversify what we export and where we export. Despite all of his tough talk, Prime Minister Morrison has overseen Australia becoming more dependent than ever on one market—that is, China—for our exports and for Australian jobs, such that we depend on the Chinese market more than any other country in the world. Under Mr Morrison's prime ministership, trade with India and Indonesia has gone down. When trade diversification should be the highest priority for this nation, Mr Morrison has put at risk our trade agreement with the European Union. We all know, in the context of his flashy announcement on nuclear powered submarines, that Mr Morrison neglected to do any of the diplomatic legwork around ending Australia's contract for the Attack class submarines with the French. It really highlights how perilous it is for Australia, for our economy and for the national interest to have a man in the office of Prime Minister who really only cares about the photo-op and the politics.

Trade diversification and more open trade are in our national interest. Our economic welfare, our strategic opportunities, our national security and our cultural dynamism will all depend on how deeply and well we integrate with the fast-growing economies of Asia not only in traditional goods trade but also in investment, tourism, services, supply chains and people-to-people links.

What is so often lost in the trade discussion in this country is a recognition of the benefits that open trade has for working people. Trade benefits working people by contributing to economic growth. Trade benefits working people by improving national productivity. Trade benefits working people because it creates better-paid, more-rewarding and more-secure jobs. It benefits working people by offering lower prices and greater choice for working people as consumers. You see, we don't pursue trade opportunities out of blind adherence to abstract theories; we in the Labor Party pursue it because it delivers real benefits for the people we represent. Trade raises living standards, so because I am a progressive I support trade and I support free trade.

But I also recognise trade places uneven pressures on our society. That is why we have to have proper social democratic institutions and progressive economic policies, and it means existing on high-quality trade agreements that maximise local employment. It means ensuring that trade agreements do not undermine public policy—for example, in the areas of health care, environment or labour rights. It means trade agreements must be supported by policies that have at their heart the expansion of opportunity and investments in health, education, innovation and infrastructure to ensure the Australian people continue to prosper in a more open economy. This combination of open trade supported by the government investing in its people is central to how we ensure Australia and working Australians can be the beneficiaries of a changing region and a changing world.