Political News
Date
November 7, 2014 - 6:15PM Philip Wen, James Massola, Gareth Hutchens
Confident of reaching China deal at G20: Trade Minister Andrew Robb. Photo: Andrew Meares
Trade Minister Andrew Robb says there remain just two sticking points to a free trade agreement with China, while pushing back against concerns Australia could be flooded by cheap labour as a result of the landmark deal.
As Labor and the union movement called for safeguards or quotas to protect jobs, both Mr Robb and Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop gave the clearest signal yet a deal would be reached in time for President Xi Jinping's visit for the G20 in Brisbane next week.
Last-minute talks between Prime Minister Tony Abbott and senior Chinese leaders including Mr Xi are seen as likely to overcome the remaining hurdles.
Mr Abbott and Mr Xi are both attending the APEC Leader's Summit in Beijing next week. Advertisement "There's no reason to believe we can't nail those before President Xi arrives and that's certainly the intent," Mr Robb said in Beijing on Friday, shortly after a key meeting with his counterpart, Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng.
Asked about the possibility of cheaper Chinese labour being allowed into the country under the FTA, Mr Robb said "it won't happen, I can reassure Australians".
"There will be no prospect for lower wages coming in to skills that currently enjoy a certain level of wage," he said.
"We've got protocols in Australia for people who are employed in all sorts of areas as to wage levels that are there by law and Australian law will apply."
Australia is asking for guarantees around the protections of intellectual property and better access to Chinese markets for its agricultural produce, while China is pushing for greater scope to import workers for projects funded by its investors, possibly through the 457 visa program.
China has also pushed for its state-owned enterprises, which account for the majority of Chinese investment into Australia, to be treated more like private enterprises.
"It's been to the great benefit of Australia," Mr Robb said of foreign state-owned investment. "If you look at the past 14 years, for goodness sake, it got us through the global financial crisis and it's been an enormous contributor to wealth in Australia."
The threshold for a Foreign Investment Review Board examination of a proposed Chinese acquisition is likely to rise from $248 million to $1 billion, though SOE restrictions are said to still be in negotiation.
Labor trade spokeswoman Penny Wong said a China free-trade agreement should include either labour market testing for appropriate occupations and skills, or safeguards to protect the integrity of the skilled migration system.
"A good trade agreement is in the national interest, provide market access and support Australian jobs, we need to ensure there are proper safeguards around people movement," she said, pointing to the New Zealand-China agreement that "has a range of safeguards in it including quotas for temporary migration of Chinese skilled workers".
"Those sort of safeguards make sense. You get people movement where there is a genuine skills shortage, but you don't open yourselves up to an argument that these provisions would negatively affect domestic employment."
ACTU national secretary Dave Oliver, who was part of a union delegation that visited China last month, said officials there had been "quite open" about wanting to send Chinese labour to work on infrastructure projects here but said labour market testing should apply to any deal.
"They said it was a key issue for them in any agreement, and that they can see the value in sending Chinese workers to Australia to work on projects on a temporary basis."
Australia's potential membership of the 21-member Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which Australia turned down after lobbying from the United States, was also raised in a meeting on Thursday evening between Ms Bishop and her opposite number, Wang Yi.
"We talked about a number of issues involving the structure of the bank, the governance principles," Ms Bishop said. "Australia has a number of matters we would like to see clarified before we sign up to it."
Debate over whether to participate in the bank has divided cabinet, with Mr Abbott ultimately said to agree with Ms Bishop's concerns around transparency and the strategic ramifications of Chinese control of the development bank, as opposed to Treasurer Joe Hockey and Mr Robb, who are supportive of Australia joining.
