Joint press conference – Fremantle, WA

Josh Wilson, Member for Freemantle: I am glad to be here with the Tourism Council of Western Australia, and most particularly my colleague and friend Don Farrell, the Minister for Trade and the Minister for Tourism. And we're here to talk about Western Australia's incredible rock lobster industry and the way that it is increasingly related to Western Australia's incredible tourism offer.

The last time I was here with Don, we were celebrating the end of the trade impediments that had prevented the West Australian rock lobster fishery from being able to supply people in China. That was a remarkable change, a momentous change that benefits fishers in my community and benefits Western Australia more broadly, because it is Western Australia's most valuable fishery.

Today, we're looking at another aspect of the rock lobster fishery, the cook to catch format, in which people are able to come from overseas, a lot of them from China, and literally have the kind of closest experience you can have when it comes to seeing the incredible marine environment that supports the sustainable rock lobster fishery, first MSC certified fishery in Western Australia, and then of course enjoy the many ways in which rock lobster can be served and eaten. As I understand it, the vessel that we're on today gives people a very auspicious eight course menu, seafood menu, which I can imagine would be delicious. But let me hand over first to Evan to talk about the catch to cook phenomenon.

Evan Hall, CEO Tourism Council Western Australia: Thank you, Josh. Evan Hall, CEO of Tourism Council Western Australia. Welcome on board this lobster catch and cook luxury tour boat. The WA marine tourism operators have done an amazing job bringing international visitors into Western Australia. These lobster catch and cook tours bring together our world-class, iconic lobster with our world-class coastal destinations, like Fremantle, Mandurah, Rottnest Island and Geraldton. We have a lot of international visitors coming in, booming. We are back to where we were before 2019 with our lobster catch and cook tours. It's an amazing experience. Our guests get to pull the lobster themselves. It is then cooked by a world class chef, and they enjoy a luxury meal here while enjoying the coastal waters of Western Australia, particularly around Rottnest Island, a real mecca for international tourism. These lobster tours are really a result of regulatory reform undertaken by the state government that started in 2019, which basically gave us a sustainable catch of lobsters, so we could provide one lobster per guest on the boat and that's really taken us forward. But the resumption of exports of lobsters to China basically opens up a whole new market. They love the iconic rock lobster, but the best rock lobster is the one you pull fresh out of the pot off the back of the boat and have cooked right in front of you, and it's a bucket list tour that's bringing plenty of international guests to Western Australia.

It is critical that we support these tourism operations. An important part of this is the role that Tourism Australia and Tourism Western Australia plays in marketing and distributing these great tours around the world. We're bringing a lot of visitors now from China, from Southeast Asia, from the UK, who all enjoy these great lobster experiences. We're looking to grow our international tourism. We're still not back to where we were in 2019, but the recovery is going strong. But if we were to bring back all the international visitors that we had in 2019, we'd be injecting another $5 billion into the Australian economy and $400 million into the Western Australian economy. So it's critical that we develop these great tourism experiences and market them around the world, because it is a bucket list item bringing international guests here to Western Australia.

Minister for Trade and Tourism, Don Farrell: Well, thank you Evan, and thank you Josh for bringing me down to this beautiful place. And what a week to be the Australian Trade Minister. We had some bad news yesterday of course, with the American tariffs. But we've got some really good news today, and the good news is that the work that we did over the last three years to get our trade back into China has been proving wonderful dividends for Australia, but particularly for Western Australia. We got the figures yesterday that our crayfish sales in the first month for trade back into China hit $118 million. That's the highest figure, that's the highest figure that Australia has ever had in terms of trade between Australia and China. And of course, the biggest beneficiary of that are fishers right here in Western Australia.

Western Australia was the hardest hit state when those bans were imposed, but they are now the big beneficiaries of all of that trade. We started with $20 billion worth of trade impediments with China. All of those have now been removed. And it doesn't matter what product that you're talking about, we are now selling more of those products into China than we did before the impediments were imposed. That's great news for Australia, but particularly good news for Western Australia because you have such fine food and wine and other products – minerals, that we export into China.

Now, one of the other aspects of my portfolio is tourism, and it's a double barrel benefit here because not only are we selling our crayfish back into China at record volumes, but of course the Chinese are coming here to experience, right from the start as to where those crayfish come from. And this cook and catch, or catch and cook, that we've got here in Fremantle is a wonderful way that we can continue to expose our fantastic food and wine to that Chinese audience. On average, a Chinese consumer will spend about $5,000 on a trip to Western Australia – that’s really good news for the Australian tourism industry, but particularly for Western Australia.

So, well done. Well done to Fremantle, to Western Australia, for all of the effort that you’ve put in to getting our trade back so successfully with China. I know it's been tough, it's been a tough few years. But we're going to make sure that we move forward from here and that we give our Chinese and other tourists the wonderful experience that you get from coming here to Western Australia and to Fremantle. Thank you.

Journalist: Minister, how telling is it that the China relationship has improved to where it is now versus the trade relationship with the US that's on a downward trajectory at the moment. Is that contrast a concern?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: Look, I think this is the way to look at the China situation. Our two-way trade with China last year was $327 billion. Of that, $230 billion was trade that we sold to China. $100 billion was trade that they bought from us. Overwhelmingly, our relationship with China has been one that's been very, very much in Australia's favour. And as I pointed out before, in the period that we're talking about, since those impediments were introduced, we're now selling more of our product into China than we ever did. And of course we are selling it into China tariff-free. The relationship with the United States is quite different. Our total trade with the United States, two-way trade is about $100 billion. So, less than a third of what we do with China. And that, strangely enough, is overwhelmingly in America's favour. We buy $70 billion worth of product from America. We sell them $30 billion.

So, our trade with China has always been much greater than the United States. I think the United States have done a great act of self-harm by imposing these tariffs. We're a trading nation, we rely on our ability to export our products. In the last couple of years, we've encouraged, particularly Western Australian businesses, to diversify their trading relationship. We now have a new free trade agreement with the United Kingdom. We've doubled our trade to the United Kingdom. We have a new trade agreement with India. Agricultural sales to India are up 168 per cent. And of course, in the last few months, we've negotiated a new free trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates, every product getting into the United Arab Emirates tariff-free. What's the closest state of Australia to the United Arab Emirates? It's Western Australia, and a wonderful opportunity.

So, okay, bad news from America, but we have a whole lot of other countries around the world where we want to sell our wonderful food and wine, and we'll continue to do that. We are going to expand our trade relationship, not contract it.

Journalist: Is China now a more trustworthy trading partner than America?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: We want good trading relationships with all of the countries that we trade with. Our objective as a government, the Albanese government, is to create diversified trading relationships so that we never again rely on one single country for our trade, and that's what we're going to continue to do.

Journalist: Should you be on a plane to Washington today?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: No.

Journalist: Why not?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: Look, it doesn't matter whether you are a President, a Prime Minister, a trade minister, or an ambassador. No country has secured an exemption from these tariffs on steel and aluminium. And if you go back to the first comment that President Trump made about this issue, he said ‘no country will get an exemption’, and that's exactly what happened.

Journalist: So you’ve given up trying?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: No, no, we haven't given up trying. And there's another round of tariff impacts, starting the 1st of April. We'll be talking with our American counterparts to try and convince them that they're heading in the wrong direction. Tariffs are not a way to increase your prosperity. Free trade with countries like Australia is the way to improve your prosperity, increase your prosperity. If you're an outward-facing Australian business, then your profits are higher, but more importantly, the wages of your workers are higher. We'll continue the discussions, but we're not going to panic. We're not going to panic. We didn't panic in the relationship with China. We were cool, calm and collected, and that's the way we're going to be in our relationship with the United States, and every other country.

Journalist: You mentioned that more tariffs are due to come online. What Australian products are you worried could be next?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: Well, we sell a lot of agricultural products to the United States. We sell a lot of pharmaceutical products to the United States. There’s $30 billion worth of products that we sell to the United States. We don't want any of those products that haven't yet been subject to the tariff to be subject to the tariff. And that's the argument that we're putting to the United States, and that's the argument we will continue to put to the United States.

Journalist: The last time you were here, we heard that some fishers had actually been pushed out of the market by the tariffs on rock lobster. Is the industry still feeling that impact locally?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: Oh, look, I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly what's happening to every single company in the business. But what I can say, that $118 billion worth of new crayfish that has been sent to China in the last month, the biggest beneficiaries of that have been Western Australian fishers. They've had a tough time, there's no doubt about that at all, but they've stuck with us. And I'm confident that as we move forward, that stabilising of the relationship between Australia and China, the recovery of that $30 billion worth of trade is going to be very beneficial to all Western Australian businesses, but particularly people in the crayfish business.

Journalist: How will the Federal Government help encourage more Chinese tourists to take part in the catch to cook experiences right along WA’s coast including Geraldton?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: We're already doing that right now. We've been in discussions with the Chinese government about getting greater access for Chinese tourists to come to Australia. Tourism Australia, one of their key markets is China. And of course, we are heavily promoting Western Australia and all the wonderful food and wine and offerings like catch and cook here today. We are promoting all of those into the Chinese market and it's working. Our tourism is coming back from China. It'll only get stronger.

Journalist: Do you have any figures to justify what that increase in tourism has been?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: I just don't have them to hand, but I'm sure I can get some of those. As I said before, we know that for every Chinese tourist that comes to Australia, it's worth $5,000 to the Australian economy, per person.

Journalist: Just talking about approaching the tariff situation in a cool and calm manner as you've said. Is that in recognition of the strategic alliance, and is the government concerned about potentially overreacting and causing damage to AUKUS in particular?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: No, we adopt a cool, calm and collected approach, because that's the sort of guy I am. But it's the way we get the results. I've talked about all of those successes that we've had over the last three years. That's because we haven't panicked in any situation. We've tried to address the issues that other countries raised with us in a sensible way. And I personally think we want to keep the door open to discussion with the United States. We don't want to harm that relationship. We think the Americans have clearly made the wrong decision here, and as time goes by they will come to understand that they've made that wrong decision.

But my job is to not panic. To continue the discussions with the United States to make sure that they understand our point of view on this, and that we get, finally, the result. Remember this, when Prime Minister Turnbull was able to get an exemption, it took nine months from when the tariffs were announced to a favourable decision. We've only had a month now to deal with this issue. We'll continue to press what is in Australia's national interest. And what is in Australia's national interest is tariff-free access to the United States.

Journalist: Has AUKUS been raised by either side on the trade talks?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: No.

Journalist: And when you talk about negotiations, I mean, what is the next step? Have you actually secured any phone calls or meetings since yesterday?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: Yes. I'll be talking to the United States Trade Representative on Sunday. We have a very strong argument; two-way trade between Australia and the United States is very much in America's favour. I’ve talked about the figures before. We buy $70 billion worth of product from them. We only sell $30 billion worth of product. It makes absolutely no economic sense to impose tariffs on Australia in those circumstances. That's the argument we're going to be putting, and we're going to continue to put it until the Americans realise that they are heading down the wrong path here. This is not the way to increase your prosperity. The way to increase your prosperity is tariff-free trade between our countries.

Journalist: Is that Sunday our time or their time? And on the phone?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: Our time, on the phone.

Journalist: The Prime Minister has been on a buy local touting, urging people to buy local basically, in the past couple of days. Is there any suggestion that the government might ask people to boycott US products?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: Look, as tempting as it might be to retaliate, that is not the way to go. We are a free trading country. Free trade has been good for this country. Record levels of trade under the Albanese Government. We think free trade is the way to go. We had the opportunity when China imposed $30 billion worth of impediments on us to retaliate, for instance, by putting tariffs on iron ore that we get from the Pilbara. We resisted that. We didn't go down that track, and we continued to talk until the time came when all of those impediments were lifted, and we got that $30 billion worth of trade. We're going to do that with every country. We're going to continue to argue tariff-free is the way to go, and we're not going to retaliate in the way that some of the countries are proposing to do.

Journalist: That approach took years in China. So, is it going to take years, is it going to take the end of the Trump term?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: I hope not.

Journalist: And Howard Lutnick has this morning accused Australia of dumping aluminium on America. Have we been?

Minister for Trade and Tourism: This is absolutely untrue. Australian sales of steel and aluminium into the United States represent less than two per cent of all steel and aluminium coming into the United States. Less than two per cent. We have not been dumping our product into the United States. It's simply been a trickle. Australian steel and aluminium exports to the United States have been a trickle by comparison, for instance, to Canada. Canada exports 70 per cent of the aluminium into the United States.

Mr Lutnick has simply got this wrong. Australia doesn't dump. We produce good quality aluminium, good quality steel, and we sell it at commercial rates. That's how we've been successful. Bear in mind, what the Americans have done of course has meant that every country, including those other countries that had exemptions like us, like Brazil, like Argentina, like Canada, they are all now subject to this 25 per cent tariff. So, every country that now sells steel and aluminium to the United States is going to be subject to this tariff. What has that done? That’s simply pushed up the cost to American consumers of steel and aluminium by 25 per cent. That is not a sensible policy, that makes no sense at all. And in time, I think the Americans will come to understand when inflation goes up, jobs get lost, that this is absolutely the wrong policy for America to adopt.