Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Cabinet Secretary, representing the Minister for Trade and Investment. Can the Cabinet Secretary inform the Senate how many Australian jobs will be created following recent free trade agreements?

Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Ronaldson, a great representative of the state of Victoria in this place. There is no doubt that these agreements will result in the creation of thousands of new jobs for Australians in the years and decades ahead.

Opposition Senator:

An opposition senator interjecting—

Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, they obviously do not want to listen to facts and figures. Independent modelling from the Centre for International Economics, released in June this year, show strong benefits to this country from our free trade agreements with China, Japan and Korea. The CIE found that there will be between 5,400 and 14,500 more jobs each year to 2035, with sectors right across the Australian economy set to grow jobs for the future. The Financial Services Council believes these agreements have the potential to create nearly 10,000 new jobs in areas like banking, insurance and funds management by 2030. The dairy industry estimates that, in its first year, the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement will alone generate 600 to 700 new jobs. These figures do not include the jobs set to flow from the unprecedented Trans-Pacific Partnership.

I have to qualify this by saying that modelling cannot forecast the enormous benefits that will flow from the increased opportunities for our service industries or from the new jobs that will be created from the growth in the two-way investment that inevitably follows when you deepen trading relations as well as people-to-people and business-to-business linkages.

These agreements create jobs in Australia and they create jobs overseas, and often those jobs go to people at the lower end of the income spectrum, because it these agreements stimulate activity in basic sectors of those economies. We should be proud of entering into free trade agreements which provide prosperity for those countries and for us.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his comprehensive answer, and I ask: what will the recent free trade agreements concluded by the government mean for the Australian economy?

Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Free trade flowing from the free trade agreements with Japan, Korea and China as well as the Trans-Pacific Partnership will boost Australia's GDP, our gross domestic product. Our modelling shows that these agreements will add something like $24.4 billion to Australia's gross domestic product between 2016 and 2035. Australian household consumption will increase by, on average, $4,350 over the same period. Then there are the intangibles, which are impossible to predict. New Zealand's Prime Minister, John Key, has said, for example, that the trade deal that his country did with China produced 11 times the benefits compared to even the most optimistic assumptions.

Thanks to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Trade and Investment, our work on free trade is continuing. Indonesia and Australia have recommenced talks on an Australia-Indonesia comprehensive economic partnership agreement.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. I again thank the Cabinet Secretary for that answer. Will he please advise the Senate how businesses in my home state of Victoria are preparing for the benefits of free trade?

Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The great state of Victoria already benefits from trade and exported more than $20 billion of goods last year alone. This is set to grow, with four free trade agreements coming into force. Thanks to the work of this government and the hardworking, indefatigable Minister for Trade and Investment, around 20 per cent of Victoria's goods exports are sold to China. One of these is MtM Automotives—you will be interested in this, Senator Carr—a 50-year-old medium-sized Australian company based in Melbourne. MtM specialises in the design and manufacture of complex value-added automotive and non-automotive components, employing 100 people in Melbourne. The managing director of the company, Mark Albert, said:

Under ChAFTA, the 10% tariff on the parts we manufacture in Melbourne and sell to China, will be eliminated over 4 years following entry into force of ChAFTA, this is great news for our business.