AGRICULTURE —
EXPORTS — CHINA
766. Hon JIM CHOWN to the Minister for Agriculture and Food:
I refer to recent agricultural
trade tensions between China and the United States.
(1) What specific opportunities
exist to increase Western Australia's agricultural exports into China?
(2) Will the minister
consider approaching her Chinese counterparts with the intention of furthering
or increasing Western Australian agricultural exports into China?
Hon
ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:
I thank the
member for that very good and interesting question about a very complex area.
(1)–(2) We
have learnt, as of yesterday, that there is now talk of China totally banning
agricultural imports into China. In 2018, that trade was valued at $9 billion.
In the previous year, it had been $19 billion. Certainly like the member, when all these trade wars started
to emerge, we thought, ''Yippee! This is going to be good. There
will be opportunities for us.'' I have been to China twice, and I can
say that I was the only minister from an Australian government at the Boao
Forum—no-one else managed to secure an invitation—because we
absolutely understand that we have to try to foster these relations. But I can
tell the member that the reality is that to date, it actually has not been
working out all that well.
The whole culture of this trade war
has been a negative. As the member would know, we are currently facing three
actions. There is an anti-dumping action and a countervailing action against
our barley imports into China. Our total trade is worth $1.6 billion, but our
barley trade has been under a big question mark because of this changed
environment. It has created an anti–free trade atmosphere. We have been
really trying to push pork into China, especially after the SARS virus, but
because of the deterioration in the relationship between the federal government
and China, the negotiation on a protocol for pork, notwithstanding all our
pushing and promoting it every time we go to China, does not seem to be making
any progress.
We will be working absolutely hard to
try to fill that spot. One area that I am really focused on is lupin for human
consumption. We have elevated that to the Department of Foreign Affairs and
Trade and have said that it is really important for our farming systems and the
integrity of our farming systems. If we can get lupin for human consumption
into China, that will be systemically beneficial for us and ultimately for our
wheat crops. It is one of those things that looks at first blush like it will
be really good, but when we look at how it is playing out, unfortunately, it is
not. However, we, as always, will stand ready to continue to push the case for
our produce.