Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee [Part 2], , 1:57:11 to 2:02:38
Discussion on professional services mobility, technical barriers to trade, and the inclusion of the Paris climate change agreement in the FTA.
Topics: EU free trade agreement, Climate change, Employment
Speakers: Cathy Raper, Senator Varun Ghosh, George Mina, Senator Raff Ciccone, Unknown Speaker
In terms of um service suppliers, I understand the agreement contains a commitment to provide equal treatment between Australian service suppliers and and European service suppliers in terms of the export of our services into the EU. uh what I guess can you unpra unpack that for me a little bit practically? What what are what are the things that stand in the way currently of equal treatment that are going to be uh removed as a consequence of this agreement?
>> Well, we're talking about temporary entry for um uh professional um qualified service suppliers. Um currently um it's it's difficult for them to be able to travel and deliver those services within the EU market. Um so this agreement will give temporary entry to the EU um for Australian citizens and permanent residences across several categories of service providers, business visitors, investors, intercorporate transferes, graduate trainees as well as contractual service suppliers and independent professionals. Um so particularly um looking at uh at Western Australia um key sectors of interest that we've included that access for in the free trade agreement include education services, tourism, communication services, financial services and environmental services.
>> There's there's an obligation as well um on the parties to this agreement to um develop new standards and reduce regulatory barriers on an ongoing basis. It's a sort of um it it's expressed in in terms that are I don't want to say aspirational because it suggests that they won't get done. But how does that actually work in practical terms? What what does that obligation look like in terms of what Australia needs to do and what the nations of the EU need to do?
>> Are you referring to professional qualifications or are you referring to what we call technical barriers to trade?
>> Technical barriers to trade.
>> Technical barriers to trade. Um so um the agreement um obviously the first thing to say under the agreement is that both sides reserve the right to set our own standards. Um so it's an important sovereign right um under under the agreement um recognizing that we both have uh have systems and expectations of our of our consumers for product safety and so forth. Um but under the agreement it sets up um ways to try and remove some of the friction between the trade related to those different standards and barriers. Um for example um it uh encourages acceptance of each other's testing and certification results. So that helps to avoid unnecessary duplication. It provides greater transparency over the development of of new standards um before they take effect which enabled us to have extra conversations about how to shape them. It establishes cooperation between our regulators who are who are setting those u those standards and it also um promotes the use of international standards. So these are important extra mechanisms for um taking forward those interests with the European Union under this free trade agreement um that will be in addition to you know other dialogue processes that we have but these are an important addition to those those issues.
So if an Australian reg if a European regulator, let me put it in the reverse way. If a European regulator decides um that they want to change the standards that apply to a product that would fall within the scope of this free trade agreement or that would otherwise apply to an Australian provider, then there is an obligation under the agreement for their regulatory body to reach out to our regulatory body and um and consult in relation to those changes or is it more that it sets up the relationship pathways and then the the in effect that will lead to greater cooperation as a consequence of the relationship.
>> I mean the focus of the chapter is very much on process and cooperation. So through those those processes and those cooperative practices as I said it uh it aims to create or aims to reduce the friction uh in the trade relationship
>> and then I think I'll just end on this and maybe this is this is an aspirational question. I started with the volume of exports from Western Australia to um the EU overall and noted that it's a relatively small percentage um particularly in the agricultural what are the what are the non-tariff related barriers that might be assisted uh by this agreement or or might assist Western Australia to export more to the European Union?
Well, I think Senator there um in addition to this uh big uplift in in protected markets in agriculture, both tariffs and tariff rate quotas, you've got as rape has already said uh provisions on technical barriers, provisions on cooperation on other forms of non-tariff barrier, provisions to help cooperate on SPS and and bio security matters. So there are a variety of means by which both sides regulatory authorities can communicate and support that trade on services and we know this is 70% of our economy and the very fast growing area of international trade and once again uh regulatory cooperation is at the core of uh effective access uh on many of these uh of these sectors as
>> Thank you very much. Thank you chair. I
understand Senator Roberts, you got some questions.