Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to take only a little of the Senate’s time to urge it to support the Australian Trade Commission Legislation Amendment Bill 2006 which makes changes to the governance arrangements of Austrade and which will establish an executive management structure with a CEO directly accountable to the minister and bring the agency under the coverage of the Financial Management and Accountability Act and the Public Service Act. This has happened following the Uhrig report into a number of government statutory authorities and officeholders, and it is part of a long-term approach by the government to have a look at which agencies are better conducted as independent statutory authorities and which should be brought more closely under the department.

I want to use the opportunity to congratulate Austrade on the work it has done over the years. I certainly hope that the new arrangements will be appropriate in continuing to support Australia’s export activities to the world. Over the years Austrade has been in charge of the Export Market Development Grants project, and a lot of Australian exporters have done a lot of work and have been assisted by Austrade. I want to briefly mention Mr Laurie White and his company Austavate International Pty Ltd that has, over many years, done a considerable amount of very good work in promoting Australia’s exports to Asia, and for doing that he has received a number of commendations over a long period of time. He has been very much involved in establishing new industries and exporting Australia’s cleverness, one might call it, to the world.

Mr White is now in semiretirement and I happened to meet him quite by chance a couple of years ago. But he has been working on a project in China. He has made an application for an export market development grant and his application has gone in. I understand those applications are dealt with by the department or Austrade in that they are assessed and, if they are appropriate for funding, they are funded and if they are not appropriate the application is rejected and reasons are given for the rejection.

Unfortunately, in the case of Austavate’s application for an EMDG, the process seems to have gone somewhat awry. On 5 December 2005 there was a routine audit, conducted by a Mr Paul Newby, of the company’s paperwork which would support the EMDG claim. As I said, I understand routine practice is that, following inspection of the papers, the application is either approved or rejected and, if it is rejected, an explanation is given. In this particular instance, this process does not appear to have been followed and there have been a number of unfortunate incidents in the way the application has been dealt with.

On the day following the inspection in Sydney—that is, on 6 December—an inspection in Hong Kong was attempted. Finance inspectors from, I assume, Austrade actually called on the offices of the Hong Kong representative. No appointment had been made, no contact had been made, with the proposed interviewee. He happened to be in mainland China at the time. But these two inspectors came unannounced to interview him. When his brother told the finance inspectors that the man they wanted to interview was in China, they said that they would get back to him. The brother obtained some telephone numbers. Unfortunately, the inspectors did not ring back, so the man to be interviewed actually rang the inspectors and was told that they were returning to Australia the next day and so they could not see him. Since then, these inspectors have demanded that the Hong Kong representative come to Australia to be interviewed with Mr White.

According to my information—and my information comes from Mr RG Strange, an ex trade commissioner and the first chairman of the Export Market Development Grants board; he has given me a complete statement about this—it appears that the processes have been rather inappropriately followed in this matter. I have written to Mr Vaile about the matter and I am sure that Mr Vaile will be pursuing the matter to make sure the application is properly assessed.

As I say, Mr White would like to get the grant, but he is philosophical about it: if he is eligible, he will get it and, if he is not eligible, his application will be rejected and he will be told the reasons for the rejection. But this process where inspectors are attempting to convince Mr White that he should actually withdraw the application, which he refuses to do, all seems to be a bit untoward. Now, it is an area that I am not particularly familiar with, but I have, as I said, referred this to Mr Vaile and I am sure he will fully investigate it.

Of course, it is all relevant to the bill before the chamber at the moment in that we are looking at a new form of operation for Austrade. Austrade has over many years done an excellent job. Its officers are excellent, all working in the interests of Australia. This one little glitch that has been brought to my attention is, I am sure, just that, a glitch, and is not representative of the work that has been done by the Austrade board and the Australian Trade Commission over many years. This bill before us today will bring in a new arrangement for the governance of Austrade, following the Uhrig report on the issue. It is a bill that I think deserves support and I urge the Senate to support it.

Sandy Macdonald (NSW, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Ian Macdonald for his comments and his generosity about Austrade. I note the questions that he raised and I undertake to ensure that they will be answered in due course, but I also understand that Minister Vaile has indicated that he will give Senator Ian Macdonald some further information.

In the brief summing-up that I would like to do, I make the point that it was a great pleasure for me to be the parliamentary secretary for trade. I got to know Austrade very well in the brief time that I held that position. Austrade has 130 officers in 30 countries around the world. It is the primary facilitator of Australian trade. It is quite frequently the first point of contact with Australia for foreign businesspeople. I do commend the quality of the people, their training and the programs, including the EMDG scheme, which was subject to legislative change earlier this evening.

Austrade are the facilitators of an extremely busy trade agenda; there is no question about that. We are a great export country and we have a great export culture which is being developed and encouraged by Austrade. People like Australians. They like dealing with us and they like to trade with us, and Austrade certainly play a very important role in that. They have of course a very busy agenda in terms of the promotion of the FTAs that have been negotiated over the last couple of years. I think the work that they have done on the US FTA is really quite remarkable. It involved an incredible amount of work in terms of identifying the benefits on a state-by-state basis for Australia and the United States. Austrade is an extremely professional organisation and it has a lot of work to do, of course, in the general trade mix, in connection with the very busy trade policy agenda in which Australia plays a very big part—especially at this time, with the conclusion of the Doha Round of the WTO which I know a lot of senators would be interested in.

This bill that we are dealing with tonight amends the Australian Trade Commission Act 1985 by bringing Austrade under the coverage of both the Financial Management and Accountability Act and the Public Service Act and by establishing an executive management structure, with a CEO directly responsible to the Minister for Trade. I think it is probably appropriate at this time to thank, on behalf of the government, the work that the board of Austrade have done. It is a very professional organisation and it has certainly been helped in that regard by the board, but times have moved on. The amendments in this legislation are in response to the review of the corporate governance of statutory authorities and office holders conducted by Mr John Uhrig. He recommended some changes which the government has chosen to accept. The amendments do not impact on Austrade’s functions or Austrade’s delivery of export promotion and facilitation services to Australian business. I commend Austrade and I commend the legislation to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.