Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2025-2026

Mr HOGAN (Page—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business and Deputy Leader of the National Party) (18:47): There are lots of challenges in the trade, investment and tourism space. It probably doesn't surprise you—it doesn't surprise me—that much of it is being mismanaged at the moment. One of the biggest challenges we have in the trade space at the moment is our relationship with the United States—obviously a strong ally, historically, with national security; obviously a very strong economic partner and also a trading partner with us.

In fact, when the free trade agreement was signed with the United States 20 years ago, the coalition was in government. One of the issues we have with this relationship—and the trading relationship has been damaged because of it—is that the Prime Minister has no relationship with the US president and doesn't seem to have an interest in forming one, which is very disappointing.

Some 30 world leaders have had meetings with the US president. He was elected last November, so he's been in power for quite some time. Some 30 world leaders have met with the president, and some have got carve-outs for the deals that they need, especially for steel and aluminium.

One must ask the question: have past remarks by the Australian prime minister and, indeed, the Australian ambassador to the United States, who's made some quite unfortunate remarks about the current US president—I don't think it has helped the relationship. The result that we need, or one of the first results we need, from the Australian government, with a meeting, when they get the meeting with the US president—hopefully that will happen soon—has been set.

The bar has been set. The UK Labour prime minister, indeed, Keir Starmer, has met with the US president a number of times and has, especially with steel and aluminium, secured a carve-out. That tariff was initially 50 per cent for them.

The UK prime minister has got a carve-out, and the aluminium tariff for the UK is 25 per cent. That's the benchmark we need to judge that meeting by—that the Australian prime minister gets a physical meeting, makes it a priority, and has a KPI and a benchmark that he gets that tariff lowered for the Australian aluminium and steel workers. There are other issues.

We know that with the pharmaceutical industries. We've had some things around the film industry. The Australian prime minister needs to make a very firm representation to the US president.

On a positive note, the opposition obviously supports the Australian prime minister in his negotiation over there. There is bipartisan support that what the current US administration is doing is not a good policy. The US tariffs, I believe, are bad policy.

The Australian government believes it is bad policy. We have supported the Australian government's response in some senses—that there aren't retaliatory efforts on the table. We're trying to say that the US tariff policy would damage US consumers, but it obviously also does damage to Australian exporters.

So there is bipartisan support for that, but we're seeing a lack of will from the Australian prime minister. Indeed, I don't know what job the Australian ambassador to the US is doing, but he doesn't seem to be getting the results that we would like. We wish the Prime Minister well.

We need to negotiate that. We know one in four jobs in Australia are related to the export industry. We are a trading nation—$650 billion worth of goods and services were sold last year.

I remind this chamber that over two-thirds of that comes from regional Australia. For everyone who is a city MP, I know you respect the fact that our farming and mining communities and industries are driving the wealth of this country. The royalties, the taxes and the revenue that we get from the coal, gas, iron ore and farming areas are almost unparalleled with the terms of trade for those things and are driving that.

My question is: if the UK can secure a 25 per cent tariff rate on steel and aluminium, why hasn't the Prime Minister committed to getting the same deal and exemptions from these tariffs for us? I will move on to the Export Market Develop Grants program. Round 4 was nothing short of a debacle.

These grants obviously help our exporters. There were high ineligibility rates, a chaotic first-come first-served system and months of uncertainty. As the shadow minister, you do a lot of stakeholder engagement.

I have spoken to a lot of very cranky exporters who applied for that. They tell me that the system is a debacle. The system crashed when people were trying to log on.

It was first in, first served. They've had to go through months of waiting to see whether they got their funding or not. It's very disappointing.

There's a lot of work to do there. I could go on. I know my time's going to run out, but there's a lot more to talk about with the mismanagement by this government.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Wilkie ): I give the call to the very patient member for Gellibrand. Mr Hogan: You didn't say that to me, Deputy Speaker—bias!