BARRIE CASSIDY: Up next our guest, Opposition Leader in the Senate, Penny Wong, and she joins us from Adelaide. Senator, good morning, welcome.
SENATOR PENNY WONG, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE: Good to be with you Barrie.
CASSIDY: Let's talk about a couple of the trade deals, but most recently the Trans-Pacific Partnership of course. Clearly theres a lot of fine print yet to be read on this. Do you see it as a significant breakthrough?
WONG: Look, there's obviously significant potential benefits for Australia and for the region. A very large trade deal, 12 nations involved, nearly 40 per cent of global GDP. In terms of global supply chains having that kind of regional deal is potentially a very good thing.
As you said, we're still yet to see the fine print. We've raised some concerns in the lead-up to these negotiations being finalised and we'll want to make sure those concerns have been sufficiently addressed.
CASSIDY: Sure, but you talk about the significance and the potential for it. You would not then surely cherry pick it and then block it in the Parliament?
WONG: Given I haven't even seen the agreement yet, nor been briefed by Mr Robb on it - and I look forward to that happening - then obviously it's very difficult to express a deal about something, things that will happen down the track. What I would say is this: we recognise as a general principle the benefits of trade liberalisation, our party's recognised it for four decades. We welcome the finalisation of this agreement and we'll responsibly consider it. That's what we will do.
CASSIDY: And every Parliament involved will do likewise and yet, Hillary Clinton for example is quoted as saying "as of today I'm opposed. Is that an ominous sign out of the US?
WONG: I sort of am pretty wary of commenting on domestic politics. Obviously there's an election in the offing in the US and those are comments in the context of that. Each Parliament, each country will have to deal with its own domestic political arrangements in relation to this agreement. Our job as the Opposition is not to comment on what happens in other jurisdictions, but to look at the totality of the agreement and consider it responsibly. That's what we'll do.
We've raised concerns, for example, around access to medicines and the price of medicines. Andrew Robb says he didn't give away anything there and we certainly will be holding him to that assurance.
CASSIDY: On the China Free Trade Agreement, it's crunch week this week in the Senate. Youve got a compromise deal, what does that involve?
WONG: Weve made clear, and the bills going into the House next week, we've made clear we have concerns with the China Free Trade Agreement . We want to support the China Free Trade Agreement. Were long-standing supporters of a stronger, deeper, economic and political relationship with China, but the Government has gone further in this agreement than in other free trade agreements when it comes to opening up the labour market and also in relation to the special project-based labour agreements which are known as IFAs under the China Free Trade Agreement.
Now we have some complementary safeguards we will be proposing. We'll be putting them out next week. They will be consistent with the agreement. They will be non-discriminatory and now will be the time for Malcolm Turnbull to demonstrate he's not Tony Abbott and that he's prepared to have a conversation based on facts with the Opposition in the national interest.
CASSIDY: When you say they've gone further with this deal, how have they gone further with China than they did with, for example, Chile?
WONG: Chile doesn't remove labour market testing in relation to tradespeople. The China Agreement does, and certainly the Investment Facilitation Agreements, the IFAs, in the China Free Trade Agreement, they're a new agreement in the context of trade agreements.
And what we've said is look, we understand the importance of this agreement. There are some deep concerns about some aspects of it. We think they can be resolved by the amendments, the complementary safeguards, that we'll put forward. They won't require renegotiation of the agreement. And instead of the approach the Government's previously taken, for example, Tony Abbott just used to hurl insults at anybody who raised concerns, I would encourage Malcolm to do what we know Malcolm can do, which is to be sensible and to negotiate with the Opposition. It would be a good thing I think for the nation if this agreement was capable of bipartisan support and the propositions we'll put forward enable that to occur.
CASSIDY: I guess your party too has to be careful you don't paint yourself into a corner and you end up taking a position that denies the country benefits and probably you'll upset China along the way?
WONG: If you look at what I've been saying for months now, Ive been very consistent. Ive said we do support the China FTA, but have real concerns in the areas I've outlined. That's been our position for months now.
What we have been working on and we're now in a position to make public in the coming week, are complementary safeguards which go to our concerns. And I again would say to you, this is a very important agreement and the people who've been raising concerns about it are genuine in their concerns. I think the Government should listen to those concerns and should consider in good faith what Labor is putting forward. It's a much better position to have the country have a bipartisan approach to this, than where we are now, where there are real concerns which the Government hasn't addressed.
CASSIDY: Now, in parallel with this, the Parliament will also be considering the foreign investment guidelines, and that places limits on direct nongovernment investments in agribusiness. Are you concerned about that? Do you see this, as Sam Dastyari seemed to be saying, that it creates a two tiered system?
WONG: It absolutely does create a two tier system. If you're an investor from the United States you get a $1 billion threshold before you have to apply to the Foreign Investment Review Board. If you are an investor from China, you have a much lower threshold in terms of investment in agribusiness. There's no policy rationale for the different treatment of a Chinese investor as opposed to an American investor, theres no policy rationale at all.
I've been concerned at some of the rhetoric from Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals on this and I think there are real economic questions as to why you would throw up barriers to investment in agribusiness at a time where we know we need foreign capital in that sector in order to scale up, to make the most of the opportunities of the Asian century.
What I'd say to the Government, there are concerns that are being raised. Obviously the Senate Committee is considering it, but the Government really should, I think, reconsider its position on this. I don't think it makes economic or political sense.
CASSIDY: When you talk about the rhetoric around it, it was interesting this week that Malcolm Turnbull withdrew from the suggestion that Labor's position was in any way racist on the Free Trade Agreement, and yet Sam Dastyari is now saying of these foreign investments that it's a return to the White Australia Policy and it's xenophobic. He's playing the race card when Malcolm Turnbull declined to?
WONG: Youd have to talk to Sam and you'd have to talk to Malcolm. I guess what I'd say is this, first in relation to the China Free Trade Agreement, we've raised legitimate concerns and I don't think Tony Abbott hurling insults was a sensible way to go, and in terms of the foreign investment regime, there is no doubt that the Government is advocating different treatment of Chinese investors compared to Americans. That is a statement of fact, and it's not a policy position that I think makes a lot of sense.
CASSIDY: Theres another issue for the Senate, just finally in the weeks left between now and the Christmas break, and that's the $6 billion in budget savings from the Family Tax Benefit cuts that are stalled in the Senate. There was a report in the Guardian this week that suggested Scott Morrison is ready to sacrifice half of those cuts to get it through. Are you prepared to look at that?
WONG: I don't believe we've been provided with any information other than what was in Lenore's article-
CASSIDY: -Hes probably providing it to the crossbenchers, rather than Labor.
WONG: Well, that's interesting. I'll leave them to respond on that, but sometimes things are said in papers about what the Government is doing with the crossbenchers, which when you talk to the crossbenchers doesn't accord with reality, but I'll leave it for them to respond.
Our concern is these are unfair cuts. The reason they've been stalled in the Senate is the majority of the Senate don't agree with them. My view about this is really the Government's got a lot more work to do when it comes to this area, because what it has done when it comes to the social security system is to go after the poorest people in Australia. There are families in Australia who would be thousands of dollars worse off and these are poor families, the low income Australian families, who'll be far worse off as a result of what the Government is proposing.
CASSIDY: Penny Wong, thanks for your time this morning, appreciate it, thank you.
WONG: Good to speak with you.