Interview - Keiran Weir, ABC North and Western
Subject: AANZ FTA
Transcript
20 January 2010
KIERAN WEIR: And earlier in the program we spoke to the Member of the Legislative Council, Robert Brokenshire. He says as long as the new Free Trade Agreement is a fair trade agreement - because he thought that some of the deals with the ASEAN countries, the free trade deal coming into effect in early January will see Australia drop its trade barriers. But ASEAN members keep many of theirs. The Federal Minister for Trade is Simon Crean. And he joins our program. A very good morning minister.
SIMON CREAN: Hi Kieran. Good morning.
KIERAN WEIR: You are in South Australia for what is called the Community Cabinet. And this, I'm sure, is going to be very, very big on the agenda. The fact that we are dropping these trade barriers, these tariffs to Asia - will there potentially be a negative effect for any of our exporters?
SIMON CREAN: I don't believe so, Kieran. I think that the fairness in this deal is the fact that we're finally breaking down the barriers that prevented many of our products being able to compete either on a bigger scale or fairly at all. Now if you look at the Port Pirie / Port Augusta area, South Australia's two biggest exports are copper and lead. These will be significantly benefited in terms of tariff drops in just about all of the economies. Now it doesn't happen immediately. In some cases it does; and then it progressively phases down.
That's why people looking to export should contact Austrade and identify the opportunities. But it is also beneficial for that area in terms of meat and animal products, cereals and seafood. Now if you look at the seafood sector down at Port Lincoln, for example, there are big opportunities to penetrate markets that previously had barriers up against them. So there is fairness in this. It does mean you can't negotiate these things unless you are prepared to offer something. But Australia was always a low-tariff country over the last couple of decades. What we've done, though, is to use the strength of the negotiating position to open up new market opportunitites.
KIERAN WEIR: Minister, is there potential that - you've mentioned Port Lincoln and our very important seafood industries. Over the last 10 or 20 years, we've seen the price of our own local seafood really go through the roof while we are now being offered inferior Asian products in terms of seafood. Is it possible that that price gap could in fact increase - that the cost of our own local seafoods will become out of reach to ordinary South Australians, while we'll only have the choice of Asian product?
SIMON CREAN: Oh, well it depends very much on how the industry continues to develop itself. I know down at Port Lincoln there's been a lot of investment made in terms of closing the lifestyle or developing aquaculture farming, if you like, for more sustainable fisheries. But the big growth down in Port Lincoln has come off the ability to sell the tuna into the Japanese market, for example. Those opportunities open up more now that the barriers are being dropped in the ASEAN region. And the ASEAN region includes a lot of countries that people use as tourist destinations - Singapore, Malaysia, the Phillipines, Thailand for example. They're also countries that themselves have growing middle classes. So as those groups grow in terms of their purchasing power, they're going to increasingly demand nutritional and quality food. So - and then the complementarity of that, with the wine industry - all of this is the potential going forward. But take the traditional strength up there in Port Pirie and Port Augusta in terms of the mining and the resources sector - the ability to get more of the product into those markets at a more competitive price. That must be good for the industry. It must be good for the region.
KIERAN WEIR: Minister, I know that we've got to let you go shortly, because you are - we will be talking to the Riverland, but the big question hangs over the security of our fruit growing industries, and they are diverse in South Australia, and the quarantine argument. If we've already seen - in 1999, Chinese pears came in to the country - if we start to import Chinese apples for example, might that not put some of our own growing industries at risk?
SIMON CREAN: We will never put them at risk in terms of disease. Our decisions in terms of quarantine are the most rigorous anywhere, and they have to be based on the science. If there is a threat - we don't let it in. It has to be an important threat, not just a one per cent chance, or whatever. But we have really said consistently that the strength of our agriculture industry is the - its cleanliness, its sustainability, its quality, and the fact that we're an island continent: we need strict and rigorous quarantine arrangements to ensure that it's not exposed to outside pests, and risk that. Those rigorous standards continue to apply.
KIERAN WEIR: Federal Minister for Trade Simon Crean, appreciate your thoughts and your time with us this morning.
SIMON CREAN: Thanks Kieran.
Media inquiries
- Mr Crean’s Office: (02) 6277 7420
- Departmental Media Liason: (02) 6261 1555