TRANSCRIPT: PARLIAMENT HOUSE DOORSTOP, 16 June 2021

7:56AM

E&OE

Subjects: Free Trade Agreement with the United Kingdom, Sri Lankan Family;

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Well, it means for those beef producers, instant access, immediate access, to 35,000 tonnes of beef. For our sheep producers, 25,000 tonnes, for dairy, 24,000 tonnes and indeed, for our cane growers, our sugar producers, 80,000 tonnes of immediate access, duty‑free, quota‑free, tariff‑free access to the UK market – 68 million customers. Now, this is good news because trade equals jobs and more trade equals more jobs and so this is very, very good. And of course, there will be holiday visa working arrangements put in place for UK residents and of course, coupled with that, David Littleproud is working very hard on an ag-visa arrangement. We are so very short at the moment because of COVID, because of travel limitations and restrictions, we’re 90,000 backpackers shy of where we would normally be at this stage in time. Yet, despite that, agriculture grew by $1 billion. It’s up now to $66 billion. Ag2030 is going to take it up to $100 billion. That means more jobs, that means more prosperity for our farmers and that means a better deal for our regional areas. I’m delighted with what Scott Morrison has been able to do in conjunction with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson overnight. I know he’s very pleased too. I spoke to Scott late yesterday. He’s very, very pleased with what’s been put in place and we will work through all the arrangements in the days and weeks ahead.

JOURNALIST

The tariffs are going to be phased out over a decade, though. Are you overselling the immediate benefits from this deal?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Absolutely not, because there will be incremental increases in the beef, in the sheep meat, in the dairy and in the sugar arrangements and the amounts that we can actually have access to in the UK market over those ensuring periods. So, for sheep meat and for beef, that is an eight‑year phasing. For sugar, it’s 10 years. But that immediate access to that market – this could lead to, as Scott Morrison said, a $1.3 billion boost to the Australian economy. $1.3 billion at a time when the rest of the world is really suffering from the COVID restrictions, from the global pandemic. Yet despite all that, there’s more people in a job now in Australia than ever before. The actual unemployment number is lower than what it was when we came back to power in 2013. This is good news, good economic numbers. I know the job figures are out later in the week and I know Josh Frydenberg will be having more to say about that then. But the economy is growing despite everything that’s been thrown against us – droughts, fires, mice, COVID‑19, cyclones. The economy still continues to defy world trends, job numbers go up and this is good news for the Australian economy.

JOURNALIST

There will be 10,000 fewer British backpackers working on Australian farms under this deal. Can you guarantee that shortfall will be plugged?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

We are making every effort and endeavour to ensure that the overall backpacker numbers are supplemented in any which way. I know David Littleproud has been working on arrangements for an ag-visa. He has been doing that for many months past. We want people to go to our regions not just to pick fruit in orchards. It’s not just to work in boning rooms in meat processing plants. It’s also in health, it’s in education, it’s in law firms, accountancy practices. The Regional Australia Institute has identified 67,500 jobs in regional Australia right now and that’s why 43,000 people in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane took that tree change in 2020. It was the highest number of metropolitan people going to the regions since the Australian Bureau of Statistics began counting these figures 20 years ago and they can’t be wrong. So, if you want the best lifestyle of all, go to the regions. Wonderful. Big enough in which to get a big cup of coffee, small enough to still care.

JOURNALIST

What will happen if the ag-visa isn’t up and running by the end of the year? Are we going to end up in the same situation as last year with fruit left rotting on trees?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

The keyword that you had in your question was if and I’m positive. I’m making sure that by working with David Littleproud and working with Government, that we’ll get these outcomes that we need for these visa arrangements. We’ve got a big labour workforce in the Pacific rim, the ASEAN countries, the South Pacific, and we want to make sure that we give every opportunity for them and UK people as well, to come into Australia, to have that holiday experience, to visit Down Under and I appreciate too that we’ve still got COVID travel restrictions, I understand that. But for those countries in which we can have a travel bubble set up – we’re not going to solve every single workforce issue. I spoke to Peter Rodney yesterday, a Wagga Wagga transport operator who’s got 12 trucks at the moment backed up against his fence that he just can’t fill with Australian workers. These are difficult times. I know that Heath Newton at Junee Abattoir, he too, finds it difficult to fill the number of vacancies in his meat processing plant that’s putting 5,000 or 6,000 sheep through for Junee lambs. I understand it’s difficult and COVID is making things continue to be difficult, but we will work through these as a responsible and accountable Government would always do.

JOURNALIST

On that point, do you have to make the conditions of the ag-visa more attractive? Like you say, some producers are already struggling to get workers under the conditions of the previous visa. Maybe some backpackers sort of reluctantly went to the regions to get their 90 days to stay another few months in the cities. Would that ag-visa have to have more attractive conditions than currently to attract more people?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Backpackers would never reluctantly go to the regions, backpackers love the regions. Everybody should love the regions. What’s not to love about the regions? But we will work through those arrangements and what you ask is a good and valid question. We’ll work through these arrangements. It is not easy. It is not easy filling the thousands upon thousands, tens of thousands indeed, of vacancies at the moment.

JOURNALIST

There’s been numerous reports over the last number of years about workers being exploited in the regions, unfair conditions, lower pay. How are we going to protect workers if they’re coming particularly from South-East Asian countries, from those ASEAN countries, who may not have the same level of English that British backpackers have? How are we going to stop them from being exploited? How are we going to make sure that they know what their rights are within Australia?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

And the full force of the law should come down upon any company, any farmer, any labour-hire firm, anyone who exploits workers. Anyone at all who does the wrong thing, who flouts the rules, the full force of the law will come against them when they’re detected. I don’t say if they’re detected, I say when they’re detected because they will be.

JOURNALIST

Specifically, how are we going to make sure that [Inaudible]?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

That’s why we’ve got rules in place. That’s why we’ve got rules in place and workplace laws in Australia are as good as anywhere in the world. We’ll make sure that the Immigration Department and other Departments besides, Australian Border Force, et cetera, crack down on these nefarious activities because they are. Anyone who exploits a worker and pays them less money than what they’re entitled to and gives them substandard accommodation and all those sorts of things that we have seen in the past, they should be hauled before the courts and should face the full fury of the courts.

JOURNALIST

Have there been any discussions with ASEAN countries about this ag-visa arrangement and have they expressed an interest in actually taking part?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

We will be making those arrangements in the weeks and months ahead.

JOURNALIST

On a separate one, the Prime Minister Scott Morrison copped some flak yesterday for visiting a British pub while he was out and about in England. Do you think that was unfair? Do you think he has got the right to visit a pub while he’s got some downtime on his trip?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Well, there’s probably nothing more Aussie to do in the UK than visit a British pub and have a stout.

ENDS 8:04AM

Shane Manning