Portfolio — 25 March 2026

The Minister for Trade and Tourism, Special Minister of State and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Farrell, dominated the Senate on 25 March 2026 with the EU free trade agreement at centre stage during question time, and also discharged a cross-portfolio procedural obligation earlier in the day by tabling Home Guarantee Scheme modelling on behalf of the Minister for Home Affairs.

The EU free trade agreement is the dominant signal from the day. Senator Farrell defended the deal as a landmark result for Australian agricultural exporters, detailing a sweeping tariff elimination across wine, horticulture, honey, olive oil, processed food, wheat, barley, and most dairy and rice products [TA-260325-senate-9aaa61ce6ff6:s171]. The headline numbers for red meat are substantial: a beef tariff rate quota of 35,000 tonnes per year — a 700 per cent increase in market access worth $661 million annually — and a sheep meat quota of 30,851 tonnes per year, a 430 per cent increase worth approximately $269 million annually, with review clauses allowing Australia to return and negotiate higher quotas [TA-260325-senate-9aaa61ce6ff6:s171].

Beyond agriculture, all EU tariffs on Australian energy and resources exports will be eliminated, including tariffs on critical minerals, lithium hydroxide and hydrogen — a provision the Minister linked explicitly to the critical minerals memorandum of understanding concluded two years ago, signalling that the FTA is intended to layer onto existing bilateral instruments rather than stand alone [TA-260325-senate-9aaa61ce6ff6:s172].

Two structural features of the agreement drew specific emphasis. The deal contains no investor-state dispute-settlement mechanism — a design choice the Minister identified as addressing a sovereignty concern he had previously flagged in relation to other trade agreements [TA-260325-senate-9aaa61ce6ff6:s167]. The government has also raised foreign investment screening thresholds for private EU investors to the same level as those applying to investors from the United States, United Kingdom and Japan, a change the Minister framed as providing greater bilateral investment certainty [TA-260325-senate-9aaa61ce6ff6:s173].

Senator Farrell's political framing was pointed. He positioned the agreement as completing the circle of free trade agreements across all major partners — an achievement he stated the National Party had not delivered in 15 years — and responded to Opposition criticism by citing industry endorsements arriving hourly since the announcement. He placed the deal explicitly within the government's trade diversification agenda, noting mounting trade headwinds as the context that makes the EU partnership strategically significant.

Earlier in the sitting day, the Minister tabled modelling on the contingent liability of the Home Guarantee Scheme in response to a Senate order, covering 10-year projections across the First Home Guarantee, Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee, New Home Guarantee and the total scheme [TA-260325-senate-9aaa61ce6ff6:s010]. Senator Farrell clarified that the contingent liability modelling is analytically distinct from home price impact modelling — a distinction likely to bear on how the Senate receives and uses the tabled material.

The tabling was performed in Senator Farrell's capacity as Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, acting on behalf of the Minister for Home Affairs.