Mrs BAILEY —I direct my question to the Minister for Trade. Could the minister advise the House what benefits there are for small agricultural producers from trade reform?

Mr TIM FISCHER (Trade; Deputy Prime Minister) —I thank the honourable member for McEwen for her question. It is a timely question and it points to the practical breakthroughs we have achieved for hard-pressed exporters, including small business agricultural exporters. I want to add that I commend and congratulate the members of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries, Resources and Rural and Regional Affairs from both sides of the House—including the member for McEwen, who is the chair of that committee—for their recent report entitled Adjusting to agricultural trade reforms: Australia no longer down under . It is an excellent report with some very interesting recommendations.

Trade reform has flowed from many representations over the years, including at the bilateral, regional and multilateral level. The federal coalition government spoke as late as this morning with the Europeans. Under our stewardship, we have emphasised a much more balanced approach, with a lot more energy in the bilaterals and a lot more focus on actual breakthroughs for small exporters.

As a consequence, I am pleased to inform the House that Australia's rice is now going to Japan. Australia's rice producers can now look forward to more advantageous tender conditions, partially arising from a meeting between prime ministers Howard and Hashimoto a few months back. Agreement has also been reached for trial shipments of four varieties of Australian citrus into the Japanese markets, which I know the member for Mallee will be interested in. We have secured improved access for Australian seafood and lower tariffs for Australian sugar.

For Mexico, there has been the Canola breakthrough, the coal breakthrough and the wool breakthrough, but also Australia's exports of livestock have shown strong increase following agreement by Mexico for more practical protocols to apply with regard to livestock imports. I commend my colleague the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy for his role on that. Also, in respect of Korea, there has been a very important breakthrough. For years, we have been held up on one key non-tariff measure in respect of Australian UHT milk. Negotiations have now led to the removal of the mandatory prescribed shelf-life and its replacement with one which is more reasonable and uniform. That is a breakthrough for the Australian dairy industry and it is good for jobs in the electorate of McEwen. In Saudi Arabia, negotiations have seen the reduction in the tariff on Australian exports of dairy products to Saudi Arabia from 12 per cent to zero per cent, providing new opportunities for Australian cheese and milk exporters.

I want to say that that does not underestimate two things. Firstly, there is no such thing as a level playing field, and I have maintained that in a clear-cut way over my many years of being involved in the trade portfolio. Secondly, through dint of hard work a good deal of progress has been made. I note that page 25 of the committee report that I have has been highlighted. That page deals with Australian citrus production and exports, and it states that exports have tripled over recent years in the course of this decade. Full credit goes to the citrus industry for getting their exports up in difficult circumstances. Another page highlighted is page 116 of the report where it states that, through networking, Riversun Pty Ltd—involving citrus producers from Wakefield, the Riverina, Farrer and elsewhere—have now reached the stage where they are doing counter-cyclical, counter-seasonal exports to the USA with great success. They are putting more jobs into the Australian citrus industry, including the processing industry.

I congratulate the small agribusinesses that have taken the export plunge. I will have more to say about the practical ways that the government is helping further. I commend the committee's report as being an extremely useful document. Given the fact that we produce five times more than we can consume, the report highlights why exports are important to the standard of living of all Australians, including for the future wellbeing of Australian farmers.