Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Following the successful conclusion of free trade agreements with Korea and Japan by Minister Robb, his advisers and the department, I rise proudly this evening to refer to the third leg of the trifecta, the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, and speak to the chamber about the enormous opportunities for Australia, for Australian business and for Australian workers well into the future from this agreement. We know that China is already our biggest trading partner when we are speaking of commodities. What is particularly interesting in ChAFTA is the emphasis the Chinese side wish to place on access to our services.

At the moment, services account for some 80 per cent of Australia's economic activity but only 20 per cent of our export revenue. Imagine the capacity of our economy if we could move that 20 per cent of export revenue from services up to 40 per cent. ChAFTA will allow us to do it. In 2014, 60 per cent of all of our services exports in education, tourism and travel were to China; 30 per cent of overseas higher education students in this country are from China; and some 10 per cent of the Australian community have a Chinese dialect as their first language in the home. For example in the services sector, some 200 Australian architectural firms have worked in China, some 80 are now and more than 1,000 architects are actually working on Chinese projects.

In the event that we are to pursue major projects in this country, we must be able to address the question of skills shortage. We know that such a shortage can massively increase costs and increase risk. More importantly, in terms of the decisions for future investment, if the proposed project does not have a good, clear understanding of the likelihood of availability of skilled labour into the future, then you will find that that project will not come into this country. It was the former Labor government that introduced investment facilitation agreements around the Roy Hill iron ore project in the Pilbara—the project by Gina Rinehart and her group which is now nearly complete. There has been a lot of conjecture in recent times as to why it is that at the signing of an MoU, we do not have some understanding of the need for skilled labour and, therefore, the opportunity for Australians and others.

Despite all the nonsense that went on from the then Labor government about these agreements, it was Gary Gray, the member for Brand, who stood up very strongly and indicated how important these were for that project. Indeed, no 457s visa holders, to my knowledge, have actually been employed on that project. But the point is made that before that could proceed, the proponents needed to know that they had the labour available to them. So when an MoU is signed, it is a very early phase in the process, far too early to be talking about what is needed by way of the labour force to bring the project to effect—you are talking feasibility and bankability, and it is some years later.

The important point I wish to leave the chamber is that before you get to the final stage of proceeding with a project, in the event that you are contemplating bringing overseas labour into the country, labour market testing must be undertaken before you can bring in 457 visa holders. In other words, you need to eliminate the risk of not having sufficient skills available before starting a project. Our Labor opponents absolutely love 457 visas. During this contribution this evening, I will be asking the Labor Party, through the leader, Senator Wong: what is their opposition to ChAFTA? Labor love 457 visas.

I wonder what labour market testing was actually undertaken when unions employed 457s visa holders under former Prime Minister Gillard and the then Labor government? It was Mr John McTernan, the former communications director and a 457 visa holder, who had the role of developing a philosophy against 457s. Where was the labour market testing? United Voice, the Australian Education Union, the Finance Sector Union, the National Tertiary Education Union, the TWU, the shoppies, the ASU and the MUA all have or have had recently 457 visa holders in their employ. These have been in very important areas which apparently Australians are not equipped or competent to do like industrial relations and advisers, copyrighters and media advisers. I am saying to Labor that, in the context of ChAFTA, there will be labour market testing.

Minister Robb made a very interesting point the other day when he said that when ChAFTA comes into existence there will not be the need to change one letter of one word of industrial relations legislation as it exists in this country. Under the coalition, 457 visas have declined and the Chinese representation in 457s in this country is only about six per cent. I will be calling on Mr Shorten and his colleagues to bring the unions—who direct and dictate the activities of the Labor Party, as we saw in two bills that were passed down—to get on top of this issue associated with xenophobia.

In recent times, AMWU New South Wales Secretary, Tim Ayres, claimed that this ChAFTA deal:

… will mean that on very ordinary construction projects in our cities and our suburbs … will allow the company to import Chinese workers at lower wages and conditions, denying young construction workers and young apprentices the opportunity for work.

Wrong! The CFMEU National Secretary, Michael O'Connor, the brother of Brendan O'Connor—you would think he would know better—was even more blunt when he said the union opposition was about stopping 'greedy bastards trying to steal Australian jobs'. Is that what happened at Roy Hill—a $2 billion project that is about to massively increase Australia's net wealth and income from taxation and other purposes? No.

And we have heard Queensland Labor trade minister, Jackie Trad, complaining about supposedly unskilled Chinese tradespeople being eligible for 457 visas, despite the fact that they will still need to go through skills testing and obtain state-based accreditation from her own government. Only last night, the member for Bendigo in the other place said that, if this ChAFTA goes through, when an electrician knocks on the door the homeowner cannot be confident of the skills of the electrician undertaking that work. An absolute disgrace. ACTU president, Ged Kearney, stated that workers from China can come under temporary work visas of any category and will not be subject to labour market testing, and that workers can be brought in from China with low levels of English and with lower skills.

Let me make these points again. The companies will have to participate in labour market testing before they bring workers in. Secondly, they must be employed under Australian terms, conditions and pay; and, thirdly, they must undergo skills assessment before working in Australia. It is time we stopped these ridiculous myths. I say it is up to Mr Shorten, and it is up to Senator Wong in this place, to bring the unions under control in this particular circumstance.

Who is supporting ChAFTA? Luminaries such as Mr Martin Ferguson; Simon Crean; Peter Beattie, a former Queensland premier; John Brumby, a former Victorian premier; Bob Carr, a former New South Wales Labor premier and former Minister for Foreign Affairs; Daniel Andrews, the current Premier of Victoria. They are all strongly supporting this agreement.

Let me also make this point very, very strongly: it has been estimated that, if we do not sign this agreement by December this year, the agriculture sector on its own will lose some $300 million. Why? Because, if it is signed by December, we get the first lot of tariff reductions, and a few days later, in January, we get the second lot of tariff reductions. That is what happened with the Korea free trade agreement in December of last year and January of this year.

I will finish with the comments of President Xi, when he made this observation: 'When small rivers are filled, big rivers also fill.' He said, 'Only through win-win cooperation can we make big and sustainable achievements that are beneficial to all'. The old mindset of zero-sum game should give way to a new approach of win-win and all-win cooperation.