Australian trade minister visits China to reassure on FTA

Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb is visiting China to reassure Australia’s commitment to the free trade deal. Some trade unions are opposing parts of the trade deal, which they allege has provisions that may allow Chinese companies to bring in cheap labour at the expense of Australian workers. But the Abbott government has denied that allegation.

The trade minister said he would assure his Chinese counterparts that the federal government is fully committed to the deal, reports AAP. Robb is accompanied by a business delegation that will visit Shanghai and Beijing. The FTA was signed in June and is to be endorsed by the parliament.

“The urgency to get this agreement into force this year (is) because major benefits will flow from day one,” Robb said.

Cheap labour issue

The trade minister tried to allay the apprehensions of unions and said the FTA has well defined clauses to address concerns about importing cheap labour.

“If a company is approved for an IFA or Investment Facilitation Arrangement for one of those projects, there are significant conditions that must be satisfied before a single overseas worker can be recruited, that includes that employers must demonstrate a labour market need, prove that Australians have been given first opportunity through labour market testing, with evidence of significant recruiting efforts,” the minister said, reports News.com.au.

The trade minister was also backed by the Department of Immigration, which said employers must show there is demonstrated labour market need and Australians are given the first opportunity through evidence of domestic recruitment activity with proof that suitably qualified Australians were not available.

Racist campaign

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann accused Opposition Leader Bill Shorten of not being strong enough to make the unions fall in line and urged him to stop the “racist dog-whistle” campaign against the trade deal with China.

“By saying nothing, he's effectively supporting this racist and dishonest union campaign against what is a very important free trade agreement for our country,” Cormann told Network Ten.

The Labor party is seeking answers from the government for some of the provisions under which companies can bring in foreign workers. It argued that the text of the deal does not spell out the safeguards actually being claimed by the government.

Labor trade spokeswoman Penny Wong even took the spat to Twitter and asked why minister Cormann has not labelled his own government's crackdown on foreign investment as racist. The Abbott government had stepped up its attack on Labor in parliament and Prime Minister Tony Abbott himself accused the opposition of trying to bring back the White Australia policy.

(For feedback/comments, contact the writer at feedback@ibtimes.com.au or let us know what you think below.)