3 August 2008
Interview - Meet the Press
PAUL BONGIORNO: No one's tried harder to save the world trade talks than Simon Crean. His efforts have won praise from the Australian farmers and business.
But the Federal Opposition believes the failure points the way to the fate of World Climate Change talks in Posnan, Poland, later this year and Copenhagen next year. And welcome back to the program Simon Crean. Good morning.
SIMON CREAN: Good to be back Paul. Good morning to you.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Well, just going to those Costello headlines. Costello plots his return. It looks like he may well be drafted. Labor has a lot to fear from him hasn't it?
SIMON CREAN: Well I think we know that the Liberal Party's got a lot of problems Paul, but whether Peter Costello's the answer is another question. I mean this is a guy that whenever he's been wooed, he's never consented. And whenever he's chased, he's never succeeded.
He's also the Treasurer that has had a manic obsession in terms of pursuing an agenda that really cost the previous government a lot in the last election - WorkChoices. And he's also a Treasurer, despite his claim to good economic management, that presided over an economy that gave us the highest inflation rate in 16 years and was never really able to stand up to the Prime Minister in reining back their budget excesses.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Well by the sound of it…
SIMON CREAN: So, let's wait and see.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Well by the sound of that, you'd welcome him back.
SIMON CREAN: Well, we - I think the least we have to worry about is what they're doing at the moment. We have a range of issues, many of them legacies from their failure. The high inflation was, in essence, a failure on their part to invest in the drivers of economic growth. Our poor export performance is the failure to invest in infrastructure and skills Paul. These are the things that, you know, make an economy competitive. It's one thing to get your trade barriers broken down, but if you're not competitive enough, or productive enough to take advantage of them, the nation itself won't succeed.
And this was a government previously that, in our judgement, was too content to ride on the resources boom, and it wasted the opportunity to set Australia up beyond the resources boom.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Well just going to the…
SIMON CREAN: That's now the task for Labor and I think that we've made a very good start, in very difficult economic circumstances.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Well going to the trade talks, what did it mean for Australia for those talks to succeed?
SIMON CREAN: Well it - obviously a lot and not just Australia, but for the global economy. I mean we would have seen a big cut, 70 per cent cut in tariffs. We would have seen the end of export support. We would have seen the end to the special safeguard mechanism and an increase in quotas. It would have been important benefits for, not just agriculture, but for manufacturing and resources. But significantly, for services. It was a very successful services signalling conference, which we had been instrumental in pushing for, that actually saw big breakthroughs in offers on the table.
So there was a lot at stake. A lot on offer and a lot of progress achieved.
Unfortunately, we did not clinch the deal around one issue. It's disappointing, but progress was made, in difficult circumstances. And I think it shows Paul that if there's sufficient will, you can make progress. There wasn't sufficient will…
PAUL BONGIORNO: Well I…
SIMON CREAN: …by all the players.
PAUL BONGIORNO: So does that mean these talks are dead and that progress is now lost?
SIMON CREAN: No. I don't - I think the answer to both is no. The talks are stalled. For how long is an important question and I don't know the answer to that at this stage, it depends on how quickly the will can be regenerated.
But progress was made. A platform was built. Can we build upon that platform in the regional architecture, say APEC or the ASEAN, or through our free trade agreements? What we haven't got is the legal backing that the WTO agreement would have given to this overall Doha round. But we should not ignore the progress that was made. What we have to do is to see how we can build upon it.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Well the Opposition says the Rudd Government now needs to rethink its multilateral approach and give more emphasis to country by country deals.
[Start of excerpt]
IAN MACFARLANE: We've seen this government successively cut the funding allowances to both the China FTA and the Japan FTA. It needs to regroup, reassess that situation.
[End of excerpt]
PAUL BONGIORNO: He's got a good point there hasn't he? Is it a fact that the Rudd Government isn't putting enough effort into the bilateral agreements that could also benefit Australia enormously?
SIMON CREAN: No, Mr MacFarlane's wrong. I mean we haven't cut the negotiating team on China or Japan, just factually wrong.
But secondly, under them, the FTA with China had stalled, stalled for three years. Who has reactivated it? It's the Rudd Government, because the Prime Minister got involved. I followed up. Similarly with Japan. Japan had sought from us the entering into a FTA. We recently just signed the model FTA with Chile. So this argument that we've ignored or are ignoring FTAs is just plain wrong.
My point though is that we recalibrated the trade policy, to understand the fundamental building platform that is the multilateral round. That's not to say you ignore regional, or FTAs, but you've got to try and build the solid base. Now what we haven't done is to conclude that base, but we have made significant progress. It still remains a platform. The question now is how we can utilise that platform to move forward.
PAUL BONGIORNO: When we return with the panel, we ask just how hard is it to be an Opposition Leader under the pump.
And on Wednesday the Liberals and Nationals literally thrashed out the Opposition's policy on climate change and probably settled on one. The unhappiest camper seems to be the irrepressible Wilson Tuckey.
[Start of excerpt]
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE 1: What are you going to say this morning?
WILSON TUCKEY: When I get in there?
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE 1: Yeah.
WILSON TUCKEY: Some of the words wouldn't be printable, so I'd better not.
[End of excerpt]
PAUL BONGIORNO: You're on Meet the Press with Trade Minister Simon Crean and welcome to our panel Michelle Grattan, The Age. Good morning Michelle.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Hello Paul.
PAUL BONGIORNO: And Steve Lewis, New Limited.
Good morning Steve.
STEVE LEWIS: Good morning Paul.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Opposition Leader is supposed to be the worst job in politics. Simon Crean knows something of the travails. His party didn't allow him to lead it to an election and yet his lowest Newspoll rating of 17 per cent as preferred Prime Minister is higher than Dr Nelson's so far reached.
The Liberal Leader is being overshadowed by Peter Costello and stalked by Malcolm Turnbull.
[Start of excerpt]
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE 2: How long will you continue to support Dr Nelson' leadership?
[End of excerpt]
STEVE LEWIS: Well Simon Crean, good morning.
You probably have some empathy with Brendan Nelson. Your approval ratings in 2003, before you were - before you resigned, never got as bad as Dr Nelson’s. Do you believe his leadership is terminal?
SIMON CREAN: Well, look Steve, the leadership of the Liberal Party is up to them. I prefer not to reflect on my past, only what I can contribute to the future.
But could I say there are a couple of observations that I would make. One is, you've got to have policy consistency. The second is, the party does not reward the destabilisers. Now this is sound advice, offered in good faith to the Liberal Party. Let them sort it out from there. I've not opened up a consultancy in leadership issues for them. But there were some fundamentals that I think straddle both sides of the fence.
STEVE LEWIS: So on top of that gratuitous advice, you'd probably quite enjoy to have Dr Nelson sitting there. All of your Labor colleagues would love to have him there.
SIMON CREAN: Well I think when we look across at them, we just see inconsistency after inconsistency and that's the problem. They haven't been able to get their act together on climate change. They weren't able to get the story right on water. But most importantly, they want to claim a legacy for having the laid the basis for things, when the fact is, in truth, they didn't. They should have been out of the blocks ages ago on climate change, on water policy, on forging the national consensus. They didn't. They were prepared to coast. The nation is paying a price for that coasting and we're having to pick up the pieces from a long way behind.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Can we now switch to your role and your challenge on climate change…
SIMON CREAN: Yep.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: …this legacy that you've got. The Opposition and others would say that the collapse of the trade talks have shown - has just shown that it will be almost impossible, at Copenhagen, to get an agreement on climate change from countries like India which, after all, was one of those who wouldn't agree on trade at the end. Isn't that a solid argument? Don't you really face an impossible situation here, getting an international deal?
SIMON CREAN: Difficult, very difficult, but not impossible. And again I come back to the Doha talks Michelle. You've got to understand that compared to seven years ago, or compared to when Uruguay was done, the power balance has shifted. We've got to understand that. Previously it was the western economies. Now we've got to deal with the BrICs - Brazil, India and China.
But despite all the difficulties and all of the complexity, we were able to get agreement with Brazil, agreement with China…
MICHELLE GRATTAN: But at the end…
SIMON CREAN: …but not with India.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: …you did not get the…
SIMON CREAN: At the end…
MICHELLE GRATTAN: …the necessary agreement. Won't it be the same in the climate talks? And what does that mean for Australian industries, especially the export industries that you're - you have a direct interest in and responsibility for? Aren't they just going to be disadvantaged when all this collapses?
SIMON CREAN: No, I think - I think what it means is we have to persist and we have to work our strategies out better. Now I believe in this Doha round of negotiations that we did get a long way. I've made the point before…
MICHELLE GRATTAN: But I'm talking about the climate talks.
SIMON CREAN: …in fact - yeah, no, no, but I'm - but the climate talks themselves Michelle involve this concept of common, but differentiated approaches. A common commitment, but recognising that countries, at different stages of development, need to make different contributions.
That's exactly what we had to deal with in Doha, in terms of commitments to trade liberalisation, in terms of commitments to opening up markets. My point is, that we made a great deal of progress in getting there. Now yes, we did not conclude the deal, but we have - I've personally learnt a hell of a lot about this. The dynamic of being in the room with people, day in, day out, rather than just engaging them six months, 12 months apart and rehashing the same arguments as before is terribly…
STEVE LEWIS: [Indistinct]
SIMON CREAN: …important. I think the dynamic of getting people in the room and working towards a solution, provided the political will is there, and that's a big proviso which we have to work at, I think it is possible and we have to try every avenue to make sure we realise the outcome.
STEVE LEWIS: Simon Crean, while you've been away negotiating these trade talks, there's been further very bad economic data, including on retail, in Australia. Do you believe a recession is possible in Australia? And what message are you picking up from talks in Geneva about how bad the world economy really is?
SIMON CREAN: Well there clearly are concerns about the impact of the global economic slow down. Australia is somewhat cushioned by that, because of this still continuing strong domestic demand in both India and China, which is reflected in our terms of trade.
But Australia's not immune from that global economic slow down and I think the message…
STEVE LEWIS; Do you think a recession is possible?
SIMON CREAN: …that we…
STEVE LEWIS: Do you think a recession is possible in Australia?
SIMON CREAN: I think…
STEVE LEWIS: The Prime Minister, the Prime Minister would not rule it out the other day. You've been talking with other world leaders about the global economy. Do you think a recession is possible for Australia?
SIMON CREAN: I think there are many things that can be done to avoid that circumstance. Part of that exercise was the pressure, the dynamic if you like, that was driving most of us - not all of us - but most of us to try and conclude an outcome in Doha. The reason for that Steve is that as slow down as world output is at the moment, world trade grows as a multiple of output. If we can get trade flows going again, we can inject that much needed economic impetus.
This is why the round in itself was so important and why most people understand the significance of trying to get it back up.
Now I hope in the cold light of reflection, I hope that there's a realisation that we did get that close, that we can conclude it if we want to avoid the sorts of consequences that you speculate about. I think we have a robust world economy. I think it's one that Australia can participate much more actively in. And it's why we're paying a lot of attention to getting the fundamentals right here, so that we don't suffer.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Thank you very much for being with us this morning Simon Crean.
ENDS
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