Senator MINCHIN (Industry, Science and Resources) (4:13 PM) —I table a statement on the Seattle World Trade Organisation Ministerial Meeting by the Minister for Trade, and I seek leave to incorporate the statement in Hansard .

Leave granted.

The statement read as follows—

I wish to inform the Senate of the outcomes of my visit to Seattle last week for the Third WTO Ministerial Conference, and the preceding "Friends of the Round" meeting in Switzerland, for an informal meeting of Trade Ministers on 25-26 October.

The meeting in Lausanne was supposed to be one of the key preparatory meetings for the Seattle Ministerial. Its purpose was to review the preparatory process ongoing in Geneva for the Seattle Ministerial Conference, which had been making little headway. The Lausanne meeting involved Ministers from more than 20 countries, including the "Friends of the Round" grouping in which Australia has played a prominent role over the last couple of years, plus the United States, the European Union, Japan, Canada and key developing countries. The main sticking point was the scope of a new Round—in other words the breadth of issues which were to be placed on the negotiating agenda.

From Australia's perspective, I put the case strongly for a round which would be centred on the key market access areas of agriculture, services and industrial products. Research commissioned by my Department estimates that the gains in terms of global welfare from a 50% cut in support and protection in these areas alone would total some US$400 billion annually.

I expressed Australia's concern that some developed countries, in particular the European Union and Japan, were too ambitious in areas such as investment and competition policy. Also attempts by the United States to put new and controversial issues such as labour standards onto the agenda would not be acceptable to developing countries. I warned that such ambitions could derail the round launch and urged a more measured and realistic approach. I also made the point strongly that a successful launch would require further elaboration of the fundamental reform objective agreed in the Uruguay Round. I pointed to the near universal support for agriculture reform across the WTO Membership except for a small group of countries led by the EU and Japan.

In the following weeks I was in telephone contact with my EU, US and Cairns Group counterparts on agriculture where a number of sensitive issues were resolved. Regrettably the same could not be said for other areas like labour standards and investment where, despite the efforts of Australia and others for a more reasoned position, attitudes from countries at both extremes remained rigid and unrealistic. As a result Ministers faced a hard job to find compromises at the meeting.

At Seattle I led a strong Australian delegation representing all industry sectors, interested agencies and including the opposition spokesman on trade. I welcome the strong commitment by the Australian business community to the Seattle meeting. Like the Government, they appreciate the importance of opening new export markets for Australia's continued economic and employment growth.

Many of the Australian industry organisations in Seattle ran parallel events to support and encourage progress with the agriculture talks. The National Farmers Federation arranged a meeting of farm leaders from Cairns Group countries and the sugar, grains, dairy and processed food industries ran seminars and other activities in support of our agricultural reform objectives. I would like to pay tribute to the outstanding efforts made by the Australian contingent. There was a real sense of "Team Australia" throughout the meeting.

Through their efforts, and those of Australia and the Cairns Group of agriculture countries, we made significant progress on agriculture. This was also assisted by close cooperation with the United States.

But similar progress was not achieved in other areas. We had warned in Lausanne that overloading the agenda with new issues like investment, competition, labour standards and the environment would put the round at risk.

Contrary to many media reports, the riots were not a major problem for the conference. The real stumbling blocks included

. an unwieldy agenda

. unrealistic ambitions in new areas, which were not tempered in the Geneva preparatory process or during the conference;

. an excessive emphasis on labour standards by the United States despite determined resistance from developing countries;

. and strong demands from developing countries which sought to renegotiate Uruguay Round agreements as part of a new Round launch.

In the end there was neither enough compromise, nor time to achieve it.

Notwithstanding this disappointing outcome, it would be wrong to conclude that no progress was made in Seattle. We made good progress in agriculture and services—and in some other areas. We are hopeful that these results can indeed be "frozen", as proposed by USTR Charlene Barshefsky and Director-General Mike Moore at the final Committee meeting, and that the process can be re-started at an appropriate time.

It needs to be remembered that agriculture and services negotiations are already mandated and will begin early next year. On agriculture we have established clearly the almost unanimous expectations of the WTO membership to move toward the elimination of export subsidies, to avoid the protectionist banner of "multifunctionality", to achieve substantial and progressive reductions in domestic support, to pursue market access negotiations aimed at the broadest level of liberalisation and to deal with issues like environment and rural welfare in ways that do not distort production and trade. These elements will provide a very positive direction for next year's agriculture negotiations.

The mandate for the services negotiations has not been controversial. We can expect to make progress on market access in sectors such as financial, telecommunications, professional services and electronic commerce. We will also continue to work on the full intellectual property agenda.

Australia intends to fight hard to progress the mandated negotiations, in close cooperation with the Cairns Group and with positively inclined services trading countries. We stand ready to incorporate these negotiations in a broader round as soon as possible and will work to that end. In the mean time we are well prepared to start the mandated negotiations on agriculture and services in the new year.

I would like to make clear that the events in Seattle have not resulted in any change in the Government's support for a market access focused round that includes industrial products in addition to the mandated negotiations on agriculture and services. We will continue to argue for a new round while getting on with the agriculture and services negotiations.

We will also continue to express our concerns at attempts to overload the WTO agenda with complicated and controversial issues. That does not mean we do not support sensible work programs in the WTO on issues such as trade and environment and on trade and development issues. There are clearly overlaps with other policy domains in these areas which the WTO is already addressing. Despite the misinformation being peddled by the Labor Party, Australia went to Seattle supportive of an ongoing work program of the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment and the Committee on Trade and Development. This reflects our position that it is important to ensure efforts to free up trade are mutually supportive with environmental goals, as well as advancing the broad objective of sustainable development.

There is misinformation on the trade and labour issue being put around by the Labor Party in recent days. It is a shame to see that Senator Cook, who I might say was a valuable and constructive member of the Australian delegation in Seattle, has had to toe the trade union line on his return to Australia.

Senator Cook knows what the real situation was in Seattle. The United States was running with a highly provocative proposal to developing countries on trade and labour. He acknowledged the US "had one of the worst records of all countries in the world for following ILO conventions". Australia's position, supported by the Labor Party until recent political expediency got in the way, has been that labour standards are better dealt with in other international forums such as the ILO.

Australia was nevertheless amongst a group of countries trying to find a way of bridging the gap between the US and developing countries given the importance of finding an acceptable solution to this issue for the final Seattle outcome. It appeared that consensus could have been reached, as part of a Seattle package, around the establishment of a free standing "working forum" suggested by Thai Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Supachai, involving a range of international organisations including the WTO, ILO, UNCTAD and the World Bank. This would have met Australia's objective of not bringing the issue directly within the WTO.

In addition to pushing for the negotiations on agriculture and services to begin early next year, there are other aspects of the WTO we will also pursue. We will press our dispute actions against the infamous US lamb safeguard tariff quotas and Korea's beef restrictions. We also plan to work, through the WTO Dispute Investigation and Enforcement mechanism I announced in September, to identify and pursue any other areas where our trading interests are being damaged through non-observance of the WTO rules by others. We will also do all we can to see China and Taiwan accede to the WTO early next year, given the sizeable trade benefits in prospect for our exporters.

The Government adopts an integrated multilateral, regional and bilateral approach to trade policy. The WTO is a vital part of this strategy and the Seattle outcome has not changed that. But the WTO is only a part of our trade policy agenda. Regionally, we will be pressing to invigorate the APEC trade liberalisation and facilitation process when Australia hosts the APEC Trade Ministers' meeting next June. The Seattle outcome means there is a strong case for APEC members to continue regional efforts to build support and momentum for a trade round.

We will also be investigating, with our New Zealand and ASEAN colleagues, the potential for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) linking CER with the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement. In this regard I was pleased to announce earlier today that former Deputy Prime Minister and Trade Minister, Tim Fischer, will be the Government's representative on the high-level task force to pursue AFTA/CER links. As one of Australia's most successful Trade Ministers, Tim Fischer brings a wealth of experience in pursuing closer economic and trade relations with the ASEAN countries.

The delay in a Round launch will no doubt also stimulate attention to other possibilities for regional trade liberalisation and greater economic integration. There has been interest expressed in several bilateral and plurilateral combinations, including some which would link North and South America with CER and Asia. The Government is open to concluding free trade agreements where they would give Australia substantial gains in market access which Australia could not get elsewhere in a similar timeframe.

Bilaterally, the Market Development Taskforce in my Department will continue our efforts to open markets and promote exports in both traditional and emerging markets.

Australia has an enormous interest in trade, and in protecting and building the global trading system. The Government will continue to put that message squarely to the Australian people. In this regard I will shortly be releasing a new series of regional fact sheets which will highlight the importance of international trade to the prosperity of local communities. This link between our trade performance and our economic livelihood has to be better understood and the Government must play its part in conveying this message.

We have a huge stake in the global trading system. So in addition to building a stronger domestic support base to the Government's trade work, we will continue to pursue our international trade policies with maximum energy at all levels—multilateral, regional and bilateral.