COALITION agricultural backbench committee chairman Dan Tehan says the ferocious public campaign against the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) by Australian unions was "economic vandalism of the worst kind".
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The Victorian Liberal MP said the union campaign was economically irresponsible and its warnings about ChAFTA having inadequate labour provisions are wrong.
"This campaign by the unions against the ChAFTA is trying to destroy our economic future, especially for the agricultural sector. This is economic vandalism of the worst kind."
He said despite being originally in support of the agreement, the Australian Labor Party was "helping and assisting" in their campaign.
"We've had members of the Labor Party actually encouraging the union campaign, who are trying to undermine and destroy the ChAFTA but this will have a real impact on regional and rural Australia.”
Mr Tehan said if the ChAFTA was not ratified by the year's end the loss of immediate cuts to tariffs and a second round, on January 1, would result in a $300 million hit to the national economy.
He said delaying ChAFTA's implementation could potentially cost $60 million in tariff savings for Australian dairy products, delay the elimination of beef tariffs of 12 to 25 per cent over nine years, cost $50m in tariff savings for Australian winemakers, cost $43 million in savings through tariff reductions for Australian grains and a loss of $300m next year alone for Australian wool.
However, opposition trade spokeswoman Penny Wong said the Abbott Government was not engaging with the detail of the concerns about labour provisions in the ChAFTA.
"I think there are risks in this agreement in terms of Australian jobs - we want to fix that. I think it is legitimate for people to raise concerns about the effect on Australian jobs of this trade agreement and all trade agreements,” Senator Wong said.
CFMEU’s Michael O'Connor said if the ChAFTA was good for Australian workers the Abbott Government would have had no problem getting that message across to the general public.
"No amount of advertising will change the anti-worker provisions in the agreement - they need to remove them if they want to win the public back over," he said.
"Under the agreement, Chinese companies will be able to bring in their own workers on projects worth as little as $150 million, a move that will lock qualified Australian workers out of many construction and mining projects.”
