Mr BRADFORD —My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister in his capacity as Minister for Trade. I ask the minister: will he inform the House about the outcomes of the Australia-New Zealand Trade Ministers meeting which was concluded today?

Mr TIM FISCHER —I thank the member for McPherson for his timely question, as I have just completed over four hours of formal dialogue with my counterpart Dr Lockwood Smith from New Zealand in the last 24 hours and, in addition to that, a working dinner and today a working lunch with my colleague the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, Mr Anderson. It reflects the spirit of the CER that they were constructive talks, underlying the need to further expand the CER agenda to complete those outstanding aspects which are starting to fall in the too-hard basket. But a great deal of progress has been made over the years by successive governments.

Firstly, I can announce that both of us now believe that we will get in place the TTMRA legislation amendments and regulations quickly, which will allow further harmonisation of trade between Australia and New Zealand. Secondly, we are committed to fine-tune and make uniform the food risk list which allows for mutual recognition of inspection by New Zealand and Australian relevant authorities in respect of high value food product agreed for export between our two countries. Thirdly, we are committed to a series of initiatives associated with the 15th anniversary year of CER.

The outcome of all of this is very good news. The two-way trade between Australia and New Zealand this financial year is set to break a new record, a new milestone, of $10 billion. That reflects a lot of jobs. We are in surplus. It was Doug Anthony many years ago who set the pace in the formation of the CER. The coalition has returned to this task in further expanding CER and we are making great headway in that regard.

Lastly, we also committed to further explore linkages between CER, AFTA—the ASEAN Free Trade Association—and the Mercosur group of countries. Mercosur is the group which is developing a great deal of momentum in South America and includes Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil, and on the cusp of that Chile, Bolivia and Peru. I am pleased that Senator David Brownhill, my parliamentary secretary, will be travelling to an APEC meeting in Santiago, Chile, on the business of government next week.

All in all it was a very constructive dialogue. It will further underpin the development of jobs on both sides of the Tasman. It is an absolute case of a win-win outcome for trade liberalisation between Australia and New Zealand and we look forward to the 15th anniversary year of CER when more progress will be made.