New life for historic partnership

Throughout the long, rancorous Brexit process, Britain and Australia recognised one of the eventual upsides was likely to be a free-trade agreement between our nations. The time has come to clinch the deal, Geoff Chambers writes on Monday, as Scott Morrison travels to the UK for the G7 meeting this week. The Prime Minister and British counterpart Boris Johnson are set to sign an Agreement in Principle at Downing Street during the visit. The legal text of up to 1200 pages should be finalised by early November ahead of a deal effective from July 1, 2022. Negotiations are also under way for an FTA with 27 European Union nations.

As Trade Minister Dan Tehan said in April, Australia was aspiring to a “world’s best … gold-standard free-trade agreement’’ given the history and special relationship between the two nations. Under such an agreement, all goods and services would be tariff- and duty-free. It remains to be seen the extent to which British farmers’ concerns about imports of Australian beef and lamb affect the outcome. Nor is it clear how much issues related to climate change and sustainability will feature. Such matters should not be allowed to detract from the benefits of freeing up trade in goods and services. Mr Tehan says there will be an environment chapter but it will be focused on “international co-operation and multilateral environmental agreements”.

Australians in their mid-50s and older will identify with what UK Trade Secretary Liz Truss writes about on Monday when she refers to the agreement righting “a historic wrong … We left some of our oldest allies behind when joining the European Common Market in the 1970s”. Britain, as she says, was once Australia’s foremost trading partner. The quality of our exports, however, allowed us to rapidly unlock other markets, especially in Asia. Fast-forward half a century to a much changed world and Ms Truss makes an important point when she says Britain’s first post-Brexit trade deal would “stand up for rules-based trade’’. She acknowledged Australia’s “principled stand as a great pro-trade champion against pernicious practices from the likes of China”. In recent months, China, angered by Mr Morrison’s pertinent call for an inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, has put an 80 per cent tariff on Australian barley and barriers against coal, beef, wine, copper, cotton, lobsters, sugar and timber.

The deal is important to both nations. Australia is continuing to diversify markets and the UK, as it branches out post-Brexit, is increasingly turning its attention to the economic growth of the Indo-Pacific region.