Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (21:09): My adjournment matter is for the Premier. On 22 October last year the Premier told members of the Chinese Communist Party:

You will find the Victorian market accessible, and my government will welcome your participation and do what it can to facilitate success.

Last week the CCP’s propaganda mouthpiece, the Global Times, confirmed that the dictatorship was planning to implement significant tariffs and import suspensions on a series of Australian products: wine, lobster, copper, coal, barley and timber. Exports of agricultural products underpin the economic vitality of rural and regional communities in Victoria and especially western Victoria. Every year country Victoria exports approximately $167 million worth of wine, $1 million worth of lobster and millions of dollars worth of barley and timber to China. China’s protectionist measures will shatter already fragile rural communities in Victoria. It is repugnant that a Victorian Premier boasts of our state’s markets being open and accessible to Chinese businesses while they close their markets to our prime agricultural products. The Premier said that his nefarious Belt and Road deal with communist China was all about jobs. Well, what about jobs outside the tram tracks that depend on our agricultural exports? The Premier has no regard for jobs, for country Victoria or for our national security. The cost of this relationship will only increase Chinese political influence and punish Victorian farmers. In June the Premier said:

… if you want a good trading relationship, if you want to send more Victorian-made product to China, to create jobs here in Victoria, then a good relationship on the things you can agree on is very, very important.

Well, clearly less Victorian-made product will be sent to China now, not more. This deal is a complete failure by his own standards, unless perhaps he thinks we all ought to cosy up to the communist dictatorship more. Results so far indicate a very one-sided relationship. China is punishing our farmers and our rural communities, and Labor thinks it is appropriate to be a party to a deal that expands China’s influence in our country. The action I seek from the Premier is to tear up the memorandum of understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative with China in light of the appalling trade restrictions they intend to inflict and are inflicting upon Victorian farmers.