Interview with Patricia Karvelas, ABC RN Breakfast

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RN BREAKFAST
MONDAY, 17 JUNE 2024

SUBJECTS: Australia-China trade; Foreign interference; Dr Yang Hengjun; Freshwater poll.

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: Murray Watt is the Agriculture Minister and was in Adelaide with Premier Li yesterday and will be in the Leaders' meeting today, and he's our guest this morning. Murray Watt, welcome.

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES: Good morning Patricia, good to be with you.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: You've seen the progress made on trade over the last two years. What will be at the top of the agenda at the meeting today?

MURRAY WATT: Well certainly, you're right, Patricia, there's been enormous progress when it comes to restoring trade with China over the last couple of years, and the way I put it is that the careful efforts of the Albanese Government to stabilise this relationship is paying real dividends for our farmers, our agriculture sector, our mining sector, and that means jobs for Australians and export dollars, which is really important for our economy.

Just in the agriculture sector alone we've managed to lift $3 billion worth of trade suspensions with China over the last few months, so there's $3 billion more of agricultural exports going in there than we had before those suspensions.

So today without doubt the remaining trade suspensions that apply to live rock lobster and to two beef processing establishments will certainly be raised, and I'll be raising them myself.

But of course there's a range of other issues that we want to be dealing with in these meetings with the Chinese Premier as well. I mean I think the mere fact that we have the first visit by a Chinese Premier, the second most powerful person in China, the first visit by the Chinese Premier to Australia since 2017, is an enormous opportunity to continue that dialogue, to continue stabilising our relationship and address some of the outstanding issues.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: You say lobster and beef will be raised. Can I read into that that no deal has been done, it's just you'll be raising it again, but you have not yet got an announceable deal that those tariffs will be removed?

MURRAY WATT: That's correct, Patricia. We've been raising these issues consistently, whether it be the Prime Minister, Penny Wong as the Foreign Minister, Don Farrell as the Trade Minister, myself and other colleagues; we've been raising these issues consistently now since we came into government.

Obviously a lot of progress has been made with a range of other commodities. There's no agreement yet in place for these remaining two items, but we're certainly hopeful that as a result of this meeting, and the dialogue will be able to occur, that we'll make further progress and have some news about that before too long.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay. Are you disappointed though that the Chinese didn't come in ready to offer them?

MURRAY WATT: Well, of course we'd always prefer these suspensions to be lifted more quickly, but I think any reasonable observer can see that there's been consistent progress.

When I first became the Agriculture Minister, we had suspensions in place on several beef processing establishments, on cotton, on barley, on wine, on hay, on timber, on some horticulture, almost all of them have now been lifted, and of course we'd really like the other ones lifted as quickly as possible and we'll continue to make that point today.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Now you heard there Vicki Xu had been through quite a lot, and so have others, she's not the only one. Does that issue of the way Australians are being targeted here that has been revealed over the weekend need to be raised with the Chinese Government?

MURRAY WATT: Yes, those issues definitely do need to be raised. They will be raised, and they have been raised by our Government. I did catch some of that report, and it's very, very distressing for the people who are going through that. Of course Australia's position is that we shouldn't be seeing that level of foreign interference by any country.

These are issues that we have raised previously with China and will continue to do so. We and our security agencies in particular work very hard to counter any attempts by any country to engage in foreign interference here in Australia, and Australians can be assured that we'll continue to raise these issues with other countries and make all possible attempts to prevent that from occurring.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: She went public because she said that she felt like not enough was being done. The Australian Federal Police had asked her and at least one other person not to go public. Do you think she did the right thing?

MURRAY WATT: Oh, look, I don't want to comment on individual cases, Patricia, but as I say, these are issues that we have taken up on numerous occasions, not just with the Chinese Government, but with any government where we have these sorts of concerns, and I guess that demonstrates the approach that we're taking to China.

We will always look for areas that we can cooperate in, we've made good progress on trade in particular, but we also reserve the right to speak out on issues where the Australian Government and the Chinese Government do disagree.

I think that's the mature way to handle those relationships. It's a very good thing that we at least have the opportunity for dialogue, because of course under the former government, for three years any phone call from an Australian Government Minister went straight to voicemail. We now have dialogue, we are now in a position to raise these issues, and it makes it much more likely that we can resolve them when we can actually have these discussions.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Supporters of Yang Hengjun have released a statement overnight, they say the Government needs to do more, that he needs medical support and to be brought back to Australia. Is there feasibly more the Government can do?

MURRAY WATT: Well, again, this is an issue, Patricia, that various Ministers from our Government have raised over a period of time, and I'm confident that they will be raised again today. That is the responsible way to approach these issues is to keep pressing until we have a resolution.

Of course it wasn't that long ago that we saw the Australian journalist, Cheng Lei, released from detention in China, return home to Australia, and that was a direct result of the advocacy of various ministers in our Government.

We'll continue to advocate for Dr Yang, and we won't rest until we see a resolution of that matter.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: China   if I can return to some of these trade issues   China has been determined for several years to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is a multinational Free Trade Agreement. Was that brought up yesterday?

MURRAY WATT: Look, I didn't raise that one myself, it's possible that other Ministers did, but it certainly is an issue that has been raised previously in meetings between Ministers from our Government and China.

You're right, China is very keen to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership arrangement. The decision as to whether they are admitted is one for the organisation and the group of nations that forms it as a whole. It's not sort of up to any one nation to decide that.

What I would say is that for any country to be able to gain admission to the CPTPP, they need to have a record of complying with and following trade rules, respecting open trade, not taking punitive action against countries, and it will be up to China to be able to demonstrate that it can satisfy those requirements.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: And with trade ties being mended, and you've talked about that, is Australia any closer to supporting China's bid to join the partnership?

MURRAY WATT: Oh, I wouldn't want to sort of comment today on the Australian Government's position, especially as that's really more a matter for my colleague, Don Farrell, but, you know, the position that I've just outlined to you, I think people can understand what that means for China, and that's a position that we will continue to advocate.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: China is Australia's largest trading partner. Critical minerals is an area where there could be more cooperation. Does the Government want China to invest in the critical minerals sector?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, well, you may have seen Penny Wong address this issue on Insiders yesterday as well. Of course, I think most Australians now understand the importance of that critical minerals sector to be able to develop the batteries, the other renewable energy sources that we're going to need into the future and the incredible opportunity that Australia has internationally with massive reserves of those types of minerals in a way that most other countries don't have.

That's what our Future Made in Australia policy is partly about is developing those resources, and of course we welcome foreign investment in that industry just as we do in any other industry. However, that industry would need to comply with our foreign investment rules.

Jim Chalmers has done a lot of work recently to upgrade those and update those requirements, and of course one of the considerations in that foreign investment is our national security, particularly in areas like critical minerals where there is a real genuine national security issue at play.

One of the issues around critical minerals is that China absolutely dominates the world market. It is, we think, in Australia's interests and global interests to make sure that there's a diversity of supply, but we haven't got a sort of blanket ban against Chinese investment in critical minerals, but any investment decision takes into account a range of factors, including national security requirements.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay. So you're saying the door is open, but not wide open.

MURRAY WATT: Well, as I say, we don't have a blanket ban against China or any other country preventing them from investing in critical minerals.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: You say they have too much of this, basically they have a monopoly. That would concern you, wouldn't it?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, I mean I think it's well recognised that China absolutely dominates the market in critical minerals, and frankly, that's one of the advantages that Australia has in developing these resources, is that there are many countries, whether it be the US, the EU, a range of other countries who are keen to invest and take advantage of Australia's critical mineral resources, because we do provide an alternative to China, and that level of competition is good for the international economy.

So what I'm saying is that we're not banning Chinese investment in critical minerals or any other particular sector, but when we consider individual applications, things like national security and the diversity of supply will always be taken into account.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: I have to ask: there's a new poll out today in the Nine Papers, Freshwater Strategy Poll. Voters have marked down Labor over its handling of things like the climate change policy, cost of living as well.

Given both sides of politics had hoped that there would be advantages on this climate policy, are you worried that the voters aren't happy with your progress here?

MURRAY WATT: I think it's understandable that at a time when Australians are experiencing very real cost of living pressures that they are in general not in a very happy state. I think that's pretty obvious around the country, and any incoming government is experiencing some of that reflected back at them.

But obviously we also have a very strong range of policies. It's now two weeks, literally 14 days until our tax cuts come into effect, so every Australian taxpayer will receive a tax cut in two weeks' time, we'll see another - the third consecutive - increase to minimum wages for our lowest paid workers, and then of course we've got those range of other supports in energy bill relief, cheaper medicines.

So we would of course be hopeful over time that some of those benefits, you know, are welcomed by the Australian public, but I think we need to be clear that the alternative that Peter Dutton is providing is a recipe for actually more cost of living pain, it's a recipe for higher power prices. They've voted against every single cost of living measure that we've taken to the Parliament.

So what we'll be saying to the Australian public is that we understand the cost of living pressures that you're experiencing, we're doing everything we possibly can to assist with that, but if you think that Peter Dutton and the LNP are the way to solve your cost of living pressures, you're sadly mistaken; they're for higher power prices, lower wages, less job security and a lower standard of living in general.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Thank you so much for your time this morning, Minister.

MURRAY WATT: Thanks Patricia.