Mr FITZGIBBON (5:49 PM) —In an earlier personal explanation the member for Paterson (Mr Bob Baldwin) accused me of misrepresenting him. All I did in my question to you at question time today, Mr Speaker, is point out that the Newcastle Herald on the morning of 28 May reported a speech that the member for Paterson did not make until 1.16 p.m. on 28 May.

Tonight I wish to respond to the claims made by the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) about our trading relationship with Canada. In reply to a question without notice from the member for Oxley (Ms Hanson) yesterday about the crisis in the pork industry, the Prime Minister said that Australia had an eight to one trade balance with Canada. The PM said:

If we were to be so short-sighted as to chop off imports from a country in respect of which we have a trade balance of about nine to one, we would in fact be cutting off our nose to spite our face.

The Prime Minister went on to say:

If you chop off imports in the wrong place, you will chop off Australian jobs.

If anyone needs to ensure that they have their facts straight, it is the Prime Minister. The last person the Australian community would expect to distort and misuse statistics to argue their case is the Prime Minister. Yet this Prime Minister does just that. He was happy to claim a trade balance ratio of nine to one against Canada to justify abandoning this important rural industry—an industry that directly and indirectly employs thousands of people throughout regional Australia.

If the Prime Minister looked at the Canada Fact Sheets on the Internet he would have found that our merchandise exports to Canada in 1996 were valued at $1.3 billion. He would have also found the following: our imports from Canada were $1.5 billion; our service exports in 1995-96 were valued at $284 million; Canada's exports and services to this country were valued at $403 million; and we have a services trade deficit of $119 million. I would have thought that the Prime Minister might have at least shown this industry a little respect by telling them up-front that he plans to let many of them go to the wall. I certainly did not expect him to misuse trade data in an attempt to justify his failure to even consider using the safeguard provisions of GATT to ensure the pork industry is not destroyed by potentially unlimited quantities of subsidised pork.

The industry has gone through enormous change in recent years. The number of producers has been significantly reduced. In the 1970s there were more than 40,000 producers. There are now just over 3,000. Productivity has improved dramatically. This change has been both dramatic and difficult for the industry and it has been a burden carried by the industry itself.

Pork producers have not enjoyed the benefits of price stabilisation schemes. There have not been any floor prices to rely on. There have not been any single desk arrangements, import tariffs or quotas to rely upon. Yet the government has dramatically changed the market environment in which the pork industry must live. It also says that there is more to come, with future access to our market by producers from Mexico, South Africa, the United States of America, and so on.

This week the government received an independent report from the University of Queensland confirming the severe impact of imports on the local industry. What does the Prime Minister say in response? Basically he says, `Bad luck. We don't want to upset the Canadians.'

I am not calling for a blanket ban on imports. I am not asking the government to work outside the WTO rules. I am simply talking about the need to ensure that sufficient funds are made available to allow for ongoing and orderly adjustment in the pork industry. I want more resources made available to establish new export opportunities to grow those markets in which we already have a foothold. I am talking about the provision of short-term assistance similar to exceptional circumstances assistance and I am talking about enhanced re-establishment grants to help those producers who decide to exit the industry.

This is an important industry to Australia. Pork producers are quite rightly looking towards exports to secure their future. But unless the government acts to ensure the industry can live in this new trade environment, there will be no future. Unless the Prime Minister looks to see what he can do rather than look at what he cannot do, this industry will go down the gurgler. There will be no industry left to establish growth export markets. (Time expired)