Trade Minister Don Farrell vows to resume WTO case if sanctions not revoked

Trade Minister Don Farrell has vowed to resume the World Trade Organisation case against China if Beijing does not agree to completely overturn its trade bans on Australian products.

Trade Minister Don Farrell addresses the National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Trade Minister Don Farrell has vowed to resume the World Trade Organisation case against China if Beijing does not agree to completely overturn its trade bans on Australian products.

The Albanese government announced in April it would suspend its application to the WTO to facilitate negotiations to remove trade bans on Australian wine and barley, with Senator Farrell saying he would settle for nothing less than the complete revocation of the sanctions.

“We’ve got a free-trade agreement with China,” he said at the National Press Club on Thursday.

“It’s got certain provisions in it and we want the Chinese government to comply with their obligations under that free-trade agreement. That’s our expectation, and that’s what we’ve asked for.

“If we find ourselves in a situation where, having shown an act of goodwill to suspend our WTO application, and we don’t get the result we want, we’ve made it clear to the Chinese government that we will resume that application.”

Senator Farrell also confirmed Taiwan’s application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership would not be at the front of the queue, acknowledging the “slow and torturous proceedings” in processing applicants.

“We took the view that let’s finalise the UK,” he said. “And after we’ve done that, we’ll give consideration to all of the other applicants … That doesn’t just apply to Taiwan.”

Both China and Taiwan have pressed Australia and the 10 other CPTPP members to allow them to join the mega trade pact Canberra helped create, with China pushing member countries to refuse Taipei’s application.

In his speech marking one year in the trade portfolio, Senator Farrell revealed he would travel to Brussels next week to sit down with the European Union Trade Commissioner to push through the EU free-trade agreement.

He also promised to fight for Australian producers of European trademark products such as prosecco, describing the tension over naming rights as an “emotional issue”. “For these people that produce those products this is not just an economic issue, this is a way in which they maintain links with their mother country,” he said.

Senator Farrell also warned against being overly reliant on a single trading partner, saying he had spent his first year in office attempting to “diversify our trading relationships to invest in Australian manufacturing, Australian innovation and Australian skills to defend and reform global trade rules”.