Senator Penny Wong has expressed Labor’s concern over the Australia-China free trade agreement. Source: News Corp Australia
AUSTRALIAN barriers to Chinese ownership of agricultural land are still too high, Labor has said, as unions warned the Free Trade Agreement could see thousands of workers imported on lower wages and conditions.
Trade Minister Andrew Robb and Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng yesterday signed a declaration of intent to implement a widely-praised agreement finalised between the two governments.
The wording of the FTA will soon be tabled in parliament and scrutinised by a parliamentary committee.
Opposition trade spokeswoman Penny Wong accused Mr Robb of “a political sop” to the Nationals by imposing a lower threshold for agricultural land purchases to be scrutinised by the Foreign Investment Review Board.
“It’s inconceivable that we can scale up our agricultural industries without foreign investment. Why is it in our interest to make it more difficult for investors to invest here?” Senator Wong told ABC Radio.
“Labor doesn’t agree with lower thresholds for agriculture. I think that is nothing more than a political sop to the National Party.”
“I would have hoped that the National Party might have focused on things like including sugar in the FTA rather than simply putting in place what is really a political position.
“The National Party has copped this exclusion of sugar again from a trade agreement without so much of a murmur.”
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce, the Nationals deputy leader, said: “While I am disappointed that some key commodities were excluded, this agreement represents the best outcome we could achieve at this time. Importantly, the agreement has a built-in review process so that three years after it enters into force, Australia and China will discuss further market access.
“And it isn’t an endpoint — it’s a beginning of a new relationship with China and one which we will use to continue to press for improved market access for our producers and exporters.”
Ged Kearney, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, criticised the government for lowering the threshold for major projects from $2 billion to $150 million.
Ms Kearney warned Australian authorities were ill-equipped to enforce pay and conditions on major Chinese projects with “possibly a thousand workers or maybe even more”.
“We don’t think that’s scaremongering; It’s actually seeing how the Chinese model works around the world,” she told ABC Radio, citing the experience of African and Pacific nations.
“The labour market testing requirements that we have now — and even under the previous government — are deeply, deeply flawed. We know that they are rorted all the time.
“We see a lot of it around. We know that there are workers who tell us they put their name down on big projects to get jobs, they don’t even get an interview, and yet the big projects can bring in temporary workers.”
Mr Robb said the labour market testing provisions were substantially unchanged from what existed under the previous Labor government.
“The trade union movement shouldn’t have been out of the blocks before they even knew the details. All they’re doing is frightening people unnecessarily,” Mr Robb said.
Ms Kearney said: “It’s very difficult not to sound xenophobic in this situation. Don’t get me wrong; there are bona fide skills shortages where they can’t get labour, the trade unions are really very supportive of skilled migration. But we have fears that they have lowered the threshold so low, the current system doesn’t work well, and this could be a real problem for Australian workers.”
source: the Australian.com.au
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