Senator FERGUSON (4:45 PM) —I am not surprised at Senator Woodley's contribution to this debate, or Senator Margetts's, because they are entirely predictable. Senator Woodley travels around Queensland and other rural areas of Australia trying to canvass some support for the Democrats in those areas, and he will never get it because everything he says is totally illogical. Senator Woodley tries to highlight what he perceives to be problems but he never offers a solution. In all the time that he spoke, not once did he offer any solution. I am not surprised at his contribution, or that of Senator Margetts, but when it comes to Senator Forshaw's contribution, I am somewhat surprised.

Senator Forshaw, your government was in power for a long, long time, and a lot of the things that we have in place are there as a result of the actions taken by your government. Yet now, for some perceived political gain, you choose to change practically every view that you have had. You are now getting to the stage where you never get up and say, `All we did was wrong and we are going to change our ideas.' All you are saying is that you are going to tinker at the edges. I asked you to provide some solutions as to how this problem could be overcome—because you said you had all the solutions when you were in government, which in fact you did not—but you did not come up with one concrete solution. What would you like us to do? Would you like to raise imports?

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Patterson) —Senator Ferguson, address your comments through the chair.

Senator FERGUSON —I am sorry, Madam Acting Deputy President. The question I would put to you is: what would Senator Forshaw have us do? Would he have us prevent imports and raise tariffs? That is one solution. That is really what you are after.

You say that many growers have called for restrictions on imports of orange juice concentrate and that is a fact; specifically, they have talked about stopping imports from Brazil. But let me ask you, Senator Forshaw: what would happen if we did decide that we were going to cut our imports? If we cut off any of our markets to overseas suppliers, how is that in Australia's interest? As well as increasing prices, restrictions on imports would be challenged by our trading partners—who are members of the WTO—and this could only lead to retaliation, which would not be in the best interests of Australian industry, Australian farmers or Australian jobs.

You allude to the fact that orange juice concentrate is dumped in Australia. There are anti-dumping measures in place, but nobody has made use of the anti-dumping measures to try to stop what they perceive to be dumping of concentrated orange juice. Lost export markets, if we have retaliation, would not be in the best interests of Australian industry, Australian farmers, rural producers or Australian jobs. There are 130 countries in the World Trade Organisation and there are another 28 countries seeking to get into it because of the benefits it provides. Not once, Senator Woodley, did I hear you mention any of the benefits it provides, because with 0.3 per cent of the world's population and only one per cent of the world's trade, Australia cannot gain by closing off our markets and having our export markets shrink.

We do not believe that we can just naively go outside the rules agreed on in the Uruguay Round of world trade negotiations which were finalised by the previous government. Your government finalised them, and we do not believe that we can just naively go outside those rules. That hard-won market access has benefits of an estimated $5 billion per annum to Australian industry, including $1 billion to the agricultural sector. The government is not prepared to put at risk these benefits to the wider Australian community.

The benefits of open trade are not always well known because this is the good news that no-one complains about. But in citrus alone over the past two years, as my colleague Senator Troeth said, new markets have been opened up in Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines and the United States. We know that the situation is not a level playing field, but we must work hard to make it fairer. That is what this government has been consistently trying to do for a number of years now, and yet you would turn your back, Senator Forshaw, on those things that have made world trade much fairer today than it ever was—

Senator Boswell —What about all the blue-collar workers?

Senator FERGUSON —I am not sure that he is very concerned about the blue-collar workers, but let me tell you that it has been made fairer and we have not turned our backs like you have on your policy. (Time expired)