James Glenday: The Trade Minister, Don Farrell, joins us now from Canberra for more on this story and, of course, what else is going on in federal politics. Don, welcome back to the program.
Minister for Trade and Tourism, Don Farrell: Thanks, James.
James Glenday: Now, of course, you are the Trade Minister. How often are you speaking to our near neighbours to ensure that the fuel does keep coming?
Minister Farrell: Oh, well, we're always talking to our near neighbours. Over the last four years, we've developed really good relationships with all of our East Asian friends and, in fact, our Southeast Asian friends. You would have seen in recent times a statement by the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Singapore about making sure that we work together to ensure that we get through this problem of shortages in petrol, diesel and airline fuel.
James Glenday: I don't know how blunt you are with our partners, but do you essentially use Australian oil and gas as a bit of a bargaining chip?
Minister Farrell: No, we don't, we don't have transactions like that, James. We've got a respectful relationship with all of our Asian partners. And, you know, we have not failed to deliver one kilojoule of gas into, for instance, the Japanese market, and we won't. We'll continue to supply those markets, but we will be working with them to ensure that, as best as we can, we deal with this problem that's emanating from the Middle East right now.
James Glenday: So, you do remind them about our coal and gas shipments, though?
Minister Farrell: I do what you'd expect an Australian Trade Minister to do, which is to have a respectful relationship with all of our colleagues. Just remember this, James: last year we hit a record trade, $1.3 trillion. Never in Australia's history have we had such a good trading relationship. That's because we've built relationships with the region. The former government wanted to punch our colleagues in the nose. We've built respectful relationships and all of those will be helpful in getting through the problems that we face at the moment.
James Glenday: Let's turn to Europe. Some beef and lamb exporters are pretty unhappy about this free trade agreement. Of course, there are some sectors who are very happy about it as well. We won't forget them. But were you always expecting that some people were going to be unhappy about the quotas that they were provided?
Minister Farrell: James, look, 95 per cent of all the comments that I've seen since the agreement was released yesterday, that includes large sections of agriculture in this country, support this agreement. In fact, I got a text just before I came here from a former Liberal Minister, former Trade Minister, congratulating me on the deal.
The cattle industry asked me to get three things out of this renegotiation of the free trade agreement. One was higher volumes. Well, I got that. Two was removing the restrictions that have meant that, for instance, in the Canada Free Trade Agreement, despite a 50,000 tonne quota, not a single kilo of beef has got into Europe because of the conditions that they apply. We've removed those conditions. But finally, and most importantly, a renegotiation of the agreement in a couple of years to try and build on what we've already got.
This agreement provides for an 800 per cent increase in beef exports to the EU, a market we've been largely locked out of for the last 30 years. In the next, in the first two years of this agreement, James, we'll get 70,000 tonne of high-quality, good-value Australian beef into the European market worth billions of dollars. That's a good outcome, I say, for Australia.
James Glenday: Still, there are some providers, some producers saying this is the worst ever deal. I just want to take you to the broader issue at hand, though. An EU free trade deal has been spoken about since at least the 1970s when Britain, our former trading, very close trading partner, joined the Common Market. What was it that tipped this over the line, do you think? Because agriculture has always been the stumbling block and is always the stumbling block when Europe tries to do these trade deals.
Minister Farrell: So, as I've said before, if this was easy, somebody would have done it well before me, James. Look, I've built a strong relationship with my counterpart, Maroš Šefčovič. In fact, we were in Sydney on Monday to finally approve the agreement that, as you say, has taken years and years to develop.
Right at the moment, there's two camps. There's the camp that says we, the way we solve our problems, our economic problems, go down the track of protectionism. There's other countries, like Australia, who say, look, the way that we increase the prosperity of our businesses and our workers is to go down the path of free trade.
James Glenday: We're going to jump in, Don. So, effectively, can I just interpret what you're saying, and effectively, you're saying that Donald Trump has kicked this over the line by putting tariffs and things like that -
Minister Farrell: No, we started this negotiations way before Donald Trump was ever President. So, we've wanted to go down this track way before that, James. But we have to demonstrate, we're a trading nation. We - our prosperity relies on our ability to trade. So, we have to send a message to the rest of the world: look, we believe in free and fair trade. And how do we demonstrate that to the rest of the world? Well, we reach agreements with like-minded nations and countries, and that's what we've done. So, the President of the EU was very clear yesterday. We have to send a message to the rest of the world that the way you achieve prosperity is the support of free and fair trade.
Our prosperity will very significantly increase with this new agreement. But over the last four years, we've got agreements with the United Kingdom, with the United Arab Emirates, with India. We've renegotiated our agreements in Southeast Asia. Everything this government does is about improving our access to the world. Why is that? Because if you're an outward-facing Australian company, your profits are higher, but more importantly, the wages of your staff are higher.
James Glenday: Don Farrell, that's all we've got time for. Thanks for joining News Breakfast this morning.
Minister Farrell: Nice talking with you, James.
