Mr FORREST (5:47 PM) —I am grateful for an opportunity to join with the Minister for Trade to, on behalf of the opposition, congratulate Dr Francis Gurry on being selected by the Coordination Committee of the World Intellectual Property Organisation as the nominee for the position of director general. It is another good example of Australia punching above its weight in the international arena.

It is pleasing to see an Australian contributing in this international and important organisation. Australians have a proud history of playing a prominent role in the world community. Dr Gurry’s resume shows he has an extensive engagement with the international community—and the trade minister has made reference to that—extending back through the past two decades. I agree with the trade minister that Dr Gurry has excellent qualifications for his new position. I am sure his specialist knowledge in that role will be in this nation’s favour.

In his statement the Minister for Trade goes beyond commenting about Dr Gurry’s appointment, and I would like to make a few remarks to address some of the comments he has additionally made.

Australian exporters too have a significant contribution to make to the global market, despite what I see as the best efforts of this government to create, at the moment, enormous uncertainty for them. Coming from a constituency like Mallee, whose principal employment and whole engagement in life is related to export activity, I am quite qualified to make these comments.

The question has to be asked: just how serious is this new government when it comes to trade? Just how serious is this new government when it comes to supporting Australian exporting firms and providing them with a level of certainty to plan for their future and the future of their employees?

Just two days ago the Treasurer stood at the dispatch box and, seemingly without a twinge of empathy for exporters and investors, delivered a budget that slashed any hopes of securing much needed certainty for the sector. It is a budget that did absolutely nothing to dispel the fears of the traders and investors who have been subjected to chaos and confusion since this government came to office. We have a trade minister who seems to take a slightly different position every time I hear him speak. He seems to want to rewrite history. This nation has always punched above its weight in this sector. It is so important to this nation. And despite the colour of governments in the last 30 years there has always been an enormous activity and interest in this subject. It does not serve the minister well to attempt to rewrite history and describe the efforts of the immediate past government as not meeting the task. He has already described, in reference to the Doha Round, how difficult the situation is and he knows, as much as he is confident of outcomes, just how difficult it is going to be, filled with all the political uncertainties of an election in the United States—but I do wish him well, and I welcome that activity.

I am in this parliament because I remember what happened to my exporters in the mid-80s under a previous Labor government when they were subjected to the unravelling of their border protection—tariffs—without any assistance whatsoever to cope with achieving greater efficiencies. They are extremely impatient for reform in the multilateral area—extremely impatient. That is why the former government, in a two-pillar approach as the minister has described, was increasingly active in bilateral arrangements. I would like the minister to understand that there needs to be a parallel approach here because the exporters that I represent, and Mallee is so typical of much of rural Australia, are extremely impatient after decades of promises about trade liberalisation and the removal of those very unfair export subsidies they are required to compete with.

We have had a slight mish-mash of announcements from the new government—statements about trade policy, trade policy reviews, the EMDG scheme, Doha and free trade agreements. We have had calls for reviews and for reports, ad hod statements, policy on the run and an ever-changing narrative on where this government stands on negotiating agreements. Aside from the trade minister’s contradictory remarks pertaining to, of all things, trade, one thing that strikes me about the member for Hotham is his unrelenting willingness to pass the buck on this issue and blame the previous government. The record shows it is different to that. He is now the government, he is now the minister and he is responsible for all the things he has committed to do in his statement here tonight. He should energise that progress but not leave behind those bilaterals as they are incredibly important to citrus growers and table grape growers. To completely abandon that activity is not a very strong approach; it is a pillar approach.

Mr Crean —I am waiting for the evidence.

Mr FORREST —I am coming to the evidence. It is in the budget papers. So far the trade minister has proved to be too fragile to stand up to the government razor gang. He challenges me by interjection. He needs to protect the interests of those Australian exporting firms who, over the last two decades, have developed an export culture and saw enormous opportunities in Japan and China; yet the budget confirms that funding and resources allocation to those two needy, accessible markets, provided we can crash through the biosecurity arrangements, have now been abandoned.

Mr Crean —Tell us about pillars.

Mr FORREST —I know a lot about pillars, I am a civil engineer. Pillars are very important pieces of structural integrity and you can adorn them with esoteric decorations. You can have the Doric or the Corinthian at the base and at the apex. But pillars are absolutely useless without good, solid foundations; they would simply collapse. I want to see foundation. I use this opportunity to persuade the trade minister not to abandon the bilaterals. He can energise the multilateral and pull off Doha if he can, but do not abandon those bilateral arrangements. They are extremely important, given the progress the former government made, particularly in China, Japan and even Korea. We now have citrus fruits going into China—a challenge the people said would never happen—and it has now revitalised the citrus industry.

We all know that this government does not care about seniors and carers—we saw that in response to the previous ministerial statement—but I confirm tonight that exporters have been disregarded as well in this budget. I would go so far as to say that they have been betrayed by a bandaid budget that has not looked at the bigger picture and the significance of trade to this nation. We are going to be subjected to a lengthy review process. The government has not been prepared in this budget to provide at least a temporary footing for Australian exporting businesses to operate, and we have to wait and wait—and we continue to wait. Australia has punched above its weight. For the trade minister to come in here and allege and attempt to rewrite history about the record of the former government’s activity reflects poorly on him.

I will give a few examples of the inconsistency of the new government on this subject. On free trade agreements in February, the trade minister announced that bilateral agreements were a low priority. More recently, in March, in this chamber he said they were back in the mix. I issued a public statement that said I was pleased to see that. In 2006 the now Prime Minister described the Doha Round of world trade talks as ‘dead as a dodo’. Earlier this year in Europe, as the Prime Minister, he then told the world he had changed his mind and Doha was now doable and the way forward. Of course, the message lasted only as long as the media conference and the flight to the next destination and then the focus was back on free trade agreements with China and India. By slashing staff numbers within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, confirmed in the budget papers, this game of musical chairs continues. The Prime Minister has looked the leaders of the USA and Europe in the eye and told them he wants to engage with them, but he has proved just how shallow his words are by taking the axe to staff numbers in our international offices. To make things even worse is the fact that the government has been gunning to slash job numbers for ages.

Labor has been trumpeting its plan to fold Invest Australia into Austrade. Indeed, the minister’s statement here tonight confirms that and shows a complete lack of understanding about Invest Australia’s role in generating increased investment and therefore jobs here in Australia. Over the five years to June 2007, Invest Australia played a very important and significant role in attracting and facilitating 387 projects to Australia. These projects were valued at $56 billion with the potential to generate $12.6 billion in export earnings and the potential to create an additional 28,000 jobs. The value of this budget shows how committed this government is to employment when it acknowledges the slashing of 134,000 jobs! It beggars belief. Nonetheless, for the Australian export businesses and investors that the trade minister is supposed to be representing, he has repeated tonight that these numbers count. We will be holding him to the statement he has made here tonight about re-energising Australia’s role in the Doha Round. We just hope that he will put insurance in place and make sure that we do not lose the opportunity to continue to progress those bilaterals.

On behalf of the opposition, I wish Dr Gurry all the best in his new role and I am certain he will continue Australia’s strong tradition as an active participant in the international arena.