Liz Truss and I will fight anyone for Australia trade deal, says UK trade secretary

London: Britain and Australia say their trade deal should be ready to go in the new year following the UK international trade secretary’s visit to Australia.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan was privately hosted by the trade and tourism minister – and part-time winemaker – Don Farrell at his vineyard in the Clare Valley on the weekend.

Federal Trade and Tourism Minister Don Farrell and UK International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan speak to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age from Farrell’s Clare Valley vineyard.Credit: Latika Bourke

In an exclusive joint interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age from Farrell’s Clare Valley vineyard via Zoom, the ministers said they were confident there would be no barrier in either parliament to getting the deal signed off.

Farrell hosted his British counterpart over the weekend, showing her the 1800s St Aloysius church at Sevenhill where his daughter was married, the riesling trail and vineyards.

The pair dined with newly elected South Australian MP Matt Burnell, the member for Spence, who will be critical to how soon Australia can ratify the free trade deal with the UK.

The agreement was struck by the UK’s former trade secretary and current Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. Truss is the frontrunner to be named the UK’s new prime minister on Monday.

Truss’ leadership rival, Rishi Sunak, criticised the agreement, saying it would leave British farmers worse off, but said he would not seek to renege on the deal if he became prime minister.

Trevelyan, Truss’ successor in the trade portfolio, said no one would come between her and Truss when it came to ensuring the deal got through.

“She started it and I finished it off so between her and me we’ll fight anyone who wants to slow it down,” she said.

She said she did not foresee any political or parliamentary barrier to getting the agreement finalised in the Commons, regardless of whoever was installed in Number 10.

“Both candidates, whoever wins, are very focused on growth and making sure that we support our business because it’s a critical element in that puzzle,” she said.

Trevelyan is backing Truss for leader.

When asked if a Truss premiership was in Labor’s interests, Farrell, a Labor powerbroker who helped roll Kevin Rudd on the night of the long knives in 2010, said he had been involved in too many leadership contests during his career.

“So I’m happy enough to stick to the Australian ones,” he said.

Farrell said he would have liked for Australia to have ratified the agreement before the parliament was dissolved for the May election but said: “We’re not looking back.”

He has referred the legislation to the treaties committee, on which Burnell sits, which he has asked to report back by November.

“So it’s my ambition that we get this signed, sealed and delivered by the final two sitting weeks by the end of the year,” he said.

Trevelyan will present the agreement to the Commons for its second reading when she returns home this week.

It will then go to the committee stage and be put into effect via a statutory instrument which she said she would be “done and dusted” by January 2023.

“Then we can crack on,” she said.

Once implemented, all UK products imported into Australia will be tariff-free. Eventually, Australia’s beef and lamb producers will be able to sell unlimited quantities to the UK with a tariff-free clause kicking into effect after a certain quota has been met, as currently happens under Australia’s trading arrangements with the EU.

While much of the focus has been on the increased number of retail and food items that will be flown and shipped between the two countries and improved access for skilled workers and backpackers, Trevelyan said the real boom could be in the countries’ efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

When the free trade deal is operating, the UK will be able to export wind turbine blades and electric vehicles to Australia without incurring the 5 per cent charge that is currently applied on top.

Climate change minister Chris Bowen has begun the process of establishing offshore wind at six potential sites around the coast of Australia. By contrast, the UK established its first offshore wind farm 22 years ago.

Bowen has compared Australia’s minuscule rate of EV take-up, currently 0.7 per cent, unfavourably to the UK’s 11 per cent adoption of electric-powered vehicles.

The new government has been criticised by the teal independents and the Greens for not committing to higher short-term carbon reduction targets than the 43 per cent currently pledged for 2030. This compares to the 68 per cent reduction committed to by the British for 2030 and 78 per cent for 2035.

Australia has not yet outlined its 2035 pledge.

But Trevelyan said: “It’s great to see that ambition ramping up” and dismissed the idea that a carbon border tax should be part of the trade agreement, to hasten Australia’s decarbonisation.

“We’re not about imposing regulations on each other, we’re about working together to help each other meet the challenges that a net-zero strategy demands,” she said, adding that British businesses were keen to help hasten Australia’s decarbonisation.

Farrell, a South Australian senator, predicted that Australia’s critical minerals would make the country “a renewable superpower”.

“We’re happy to help,” Trevelyan said. “It’s a great ambition.”

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