Trade deals put PM in good place
PRETTY soon you will see Malcolm Turnbull wearing high-vis and a helmet, happily touring a thriving Australian business, talking about jobs.
This business, Mr Turnbull will likely say, put on workers due to rising demand thanks to the free trade deals Australia has signed.
It will probably happen dozens of times during the next election campaign. “Trade means jobs,” he will say for maybe the 900th time this year. And he is right.
It is why the Prime Minister toured Europe for more than a week, meeting leaders from Germany, France and the UK, trying to stitch up new trade deals.
The signs are positive, because the international winds are good for Mr Turnbull. The UK is not only still committed to a free trade deal with Australia after Brexit, it is also trying to reinvigorate the Commonwealth.
The Brits see their old empire as a bit of a replacement for the European Union, a collection of diverse trading partners who can plug the gap. This suits Australia, because the UK reengaging with the Pacific nations brings another welcome source of investment that is not China.
The UK has already announced it will open diplomatic posts in three Pacific countries, with potentially more to come, and it is also interested in joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership once it is out of the EU.
After a week in which Mr Turnbull had personal reassurance from Vanuatu that it would not allow the Chinese to build a military base there, the UK’s fresh interest is a welcome boost.
“You can see the attraction of it to the UK, because if they were to join the TPP they would be entering into a high quality trade agreement with 11 other countries in one hit,” he told reporters in London.
The EU is also keen on a freetrade deal with Australia — more keen than even Australia perhaps expected — but this has less to do with the deal and more to do with what it represents.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel picked Mr Turnbull’s brain on how to handle Donald Trump, as French President Emmanuel Macron met the US President in the White House.
Mr Trump’s erratic protectionism is a danger and an opportunity for the EU, and it appears its key leaders are working both angles.
A free trade deal with Australia sends a message that Europe will use its market power to support free trade and the rules-based international order. The EU can be the sensible counter to Mr Trump’s America.
But Mr Macron and Ms Merkel are also working to keep the US on track, which is why Mr Turnbull’s insights were sought.
The EU also sees Australia as something of an “anchor” in the Indo-Pacific region, a place to safely take advantage of new opportunities.
“Germany has always been in favour to meet Australia’s wish for a free-trade agreement and I think we’ve made significant progress,” Ms Merkel said in Berlin.
With barriers for Australian beef producers less of an issue than before, the hurdles could be in the area of product names and branding colours.
“Negotiating free trade agreements is a laborious business, but if you don’t start and if you’re not tenacious you won’t get there,” Mr Turnbull told reporters in Berlin.
The Prime Minister will be back in Sydney to meet with Mr Macron this week and push Australia’s case for the trade deal over the objections of France’s notoriously powerful farming lobby.
While Mr Turnbull was away, he saw his best poll numbers since soon after the 2016 election, the two-party preferred vote now 49-51.
The continuing strong jobs figures could have been part of it, or maybe it was being seen looking like a statesman in Europe on the nightly news. Or it was because Tony Abbott was on a plane to Europe and keeping unusually quiet while the $100 million Sir John Monash Centre was officially opened in France on Anzac Day.
Mr Turnbull’s jobs agenda appears to be working and it may be starting to cut through just when he needs it.