The Advertiser Bush Summit, McLaren Vale, South Australia

ASHLEIGH GILLON, HOST: Thank you for that address, Minister. And thanks for agreeing to answer a few questions. I’m going to pick up a few of the things you mentioned in your speech, you talked about the vulnerabilities of trade and unfortunately a lot of producers in Australia and probably a lot of people in this room know just how vulnerable we can be, particularly when it comes to China. You mentioned lobster. There was speculation a couple of months ago that that was imminently about to be lifted in terms of that trade barrier. What’s the timeline there? When can we expect an announcement? You’ve got agreement, the Chinese Premier was visiting, but it seems to have gone silent?

PENNY WONG, FOREIGN MINISTER: Look, you know, we work very hard to get rid of trade impediments. Don often talks about a figure, and I think it was $20 billion of exports were affected the year we came to government, and now I think we have less than a billion. But lobster is amongst them and obviously we continue to press. I’ve raised it a number of times with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and the Chinese Premier – I know the Prime Minister raised it also with the Chinese Premier.

The method we used to try and get the negotiation to get wine and barley out of the impeded class isn’t available to us with lobster. So we use World Trade Organisations negotiation/mediation processes and legal processes for those two. The complaint from the Chinese about lobster was contamination. Now, obviously DAFF and Department of Agriculture is working with Chinese authorities on this. We’ll continue to press, you know, particularly for some – we’ve had some representations with some South Australians – who may be here – on lobster. So I know that it’s been a real issue.

GILLON: Hopefully we’ll get some movement on that one soon. You mentioned wine is back. Obviously that’s great news. My family back in WA has a vineyard, so I know it is so heartbreaking to pull out vines, and we saw that happening. Can you give producers confidence that that won’t happen again, that China might just change its mind and off we go.

FOREIGN MINISTER: I might not be quite that powerful.

GILLON: The varieties of wine that China likes, it has no substitute.

FOREIGN MINISTER: Look, I had this conversation with a number of the leaders in the wine industry in the lead-up to this and I said – look, I was fairly confident that if we – one of those nice occasions – it’s not always like this – where you have a plan in opposition and you implement it in government and it works in the way you hope. So that was really good. I was pretty confident that we would get to where we got to on wine. But I did say to people, you know, we really do need to diversify. And I said look I know it’s easy for me to say that and, you know, industries are built on assumptions about markets, assumptions about preferences. There isn’t another market like China, right? There isn’t an easily replaceable market like China – over a billion people, rising middleclass, that sort of consumer taste there. But the hard reality of the lesson is that we do need to diversify. I know that will take time, and I think Peter might have announced previously a vine program so that people can make those decisions. And different markets will have different consumption and preferences. So I’m not at all trying to diminish that this is a hard process, but as my role, it is my job to say to people that I don’t think we should be assuming that one market will always be there for us. We have to be able to diversify. And we did quite well in a number of other sectors through that period of trade impediments, and I think we do need to look at that when it comes to the wine industry.

GILLON: It’s one thing when another government shuts you down, but it’s quite another when your own government tries to do it. One of our panellists raised the issue of live sheep exports earlier. I broadcast out of Perth, I’ve been talking to a lot of farmers about this in recent times. As you know livelihoods are at risk here, jobs are at risk here. The conditions on these ships have massively improved in recent years. Why are you pushing ahead with that policy?

FOREIGN MINISTER: We did go to an election on this issue. And I know –

GILLON: Conditions on ships have really changed a lot in that time period.

FOREIGN MINISTER: Yeah, I will just say, I understand that this is a very – this is a livelihood issue for many people. This is an issue that a lot of people feel really strongly about. I get that. But we’ve gone to two elections now with a commitment to this. And Murray, when he was minister, put in place quite a large adjustment package and we’ve indicated a phase out. So we are – we understand it’s a big issue. Without getting into the sort of policy of it, I think that it is true that a lot of people are upset about it. It’s also true that a lot of people in Australia who did support this. So it’s one of those very difficult issues. We tried to work our way through it. We delayed it and deferred it and provided an assistance package for the industry. No doubt it will continue to be a political issue. I understand that.

GILLON: And we did the Keep the Sheep boss last week and they’ve got 500 grand in the war chest ready to go to the election to fight marginal seats. So it could become a bit of a political headache, but we’ll see how that plays out obviously, it can be seen as a niche issue in those parts of the country.

FOREIGN MINISTER: Look, absolutely, I get it. You know, I get that there are parts of Australia – WA particularly – who are very concerned about it.

GILLON: Looking at what’s going on, we talked about energy security a bit earlier, and the Premier was talking about the need for energy security at a federal level. As we all know, you backed AUKUS wholeheartedly in favour of the nuclear submarines. So I’m assuming that there’s no issue with nuclear power on a safety ground. Is it only economic grounds that –

FOREIGN MINISTER: Yeah –

GILLON: Obviously with the uranium deposits here. Is there – does it make sense to close that loop of power in Australia and look at that plan that should also bring hundreds of jobs?   

FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, two points: first, it isn’t a closed loop. You have to enrich your uranium, so if you want to use uranium from Roxby, presumably you will have to build one here or you have to ship it offshore and then bring it back. But it’s economic grounds for me. And I was part of the ministry and I looked at it very closely and things have actually – the price differential was high. So the Peter Dutton plan actually is, at best, 4 per cent of Australia’s power by 2030-2040. Maybe 2035, he says 2035, the CSIRO says 2040, so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. That’s still a long way away. Industry calculates approximately $600 million. So that’s a lot of money for 4 per cent and a long way off. So I don’t think it’s a good investment. I never – I looked at it when I was climate minister and I said let’s take an agnostic view around nuclear power. So leave aside any of the other issues and just look at the economics, and the economics never stacked up.

GILLON: If you’ve taken that agnostic review, is there really need to have a ban on nuclear power in this country in the year 2024?

FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, the ban has been in place for a long time. But I don’t think there’s a reason to overturn it, to spend $600 million on 4 per cent of Australia’s power when there is that amount of money will sufficiently transition, I mean, the Australian energy grid, the Australian economy. We have had an economically irrational argument on energy for years, and, you know, from the period I was climate minister we’ve seen, I think, irrational economics. All that happened under the Coalition for nine years was baseload power exited the grid and no-one invested to put more into the grid. Now, I believe in markets. The weird thing is, I might be a Labor person but I actually think market signals are a pretty good thing. And because of the dispute inside the Coalition and the 22 energy plans, obviously the private sector said well, we’re not investing because we don’t know what the policies are. So you know what we had? We had baseload power exiting. And we are trying to deal with that. And I wish that it had not been that way, and I wish we could be further ahead on the transition because I think we’re all paying the price and consumers are paying the price. But I don’t think another plan for 2030 of the Coalition at $600 million for 4 per cent is a smart thing to do. What I would say is you see here in South Australia the benefit of a government actually giving some policies for the sector. And, you know –

GILLON: I was going to say, we are running out of time. But on that energy transition, would you agree that gas – obviously the biggest company Santos, that that is critical to that transition?

FOREIGN MINISTER: Yeah, this is where we get caught between the sort of rhetoric on the conservative side and then the Greens side as well. I mean, the point we continue to make is gas has a place. We need gas to invest in renewables. We need gas for industrial processes, and gas will be retained or continue to be part of people’s domestic consumption in their homes. So you have to continue to have that, just as you need to continue to invest in renewables. But can I make a broader point about transitions? Would that be all right?

GILLON: Please do.

FOREIGN MINISTER: For me it comes down to what sort of – the energy part is one piece of the broader transition of the global economy – but what sort of opportunities do I want for my two daughters? And we have done incredibly well as a country because of the resources we have, and that’s a great thing. It’s been great for our economy. It’s been great for – we build infrastructure, we build world-class education system, a decent system of Medicare, we’ve got decent system of social security. We have good universities et cetera. And a lot of that has been funded because we can export coal, iron ore, you know, we are resources rich. We have to work out how we remain lucky in a world that is moving to net zero – 84 per cent of the world’s economy has signed up to net zero. I want us to be able to be part of that. And recognise that that change is happening. You know, I’ve been in Japan, I’ve been in Korea. They are major export markets. I know what they’re asking for. We need to be part of that. That means we’ve got to take – you know, we’ve got to change – work towards ensuring what we sell to the world will be as valuable in that decade and beyond as it is now.

GILLON: Foreign Minister Penny Wong, thank you.

FOREIGN MINISTER: Thank you.