Interview with Laura Jayes, Sky News, AM Agenda

Laura Jayes, Host: Joining me live now is the Assistant Trade Minister Tim Ayres. Tim, a lot to unpack there-

Tim Ayres, Assistant Trade Minister and Assistant Manufacturing Minister: G'day Laura, g'day.

Laura Jayes: - with our chat with Bob Carr. He didn't want to be Ambassador after being the Premier. Thought it was probably not going to pique his interest as much as he would like. But what do you think about what he says about Joe Biden? I mean, he's, he can be honest. He's unshackled because he doesn't have the pressure of being in office currently. He's saying what a lot of you are thinking, I reckon.

Assistant Minister: Well, he's always an interesting bloke to listen to. Bob, he's really deeply engaged, has been for his whole political life, interested in foreign affairs, interested in American politics. What I would say about all of this is what I've observed of President Biden's interactions publicly, but also with Prime Minister Albanese and others, is he is active, engaged, focussed on the region.

It's a useful American initiative, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework Agreement with an area that is closer to my portfolio area. He is a very active president. Now, there are some challenges in the American political system. It is evolved, it is different. Some of those polarisations are obvious for everyone to see. But, I know that all of the Australian leaders have engaged with President Biden, particularly Prime Minister Albanese, have valued and welcomed that engagement and that relationship. And you can see there is some real chemistry between the Prime Minister and the President that is useful in the relationship.

Laura Jayes: Okay, well, let's talk about something a little closer to your portfolio now. An article in The Australian today, extraordinary really, that China is trying to make their own Australian made lobsters. One, how does that work? And President Xi has said it's about making China more resilient in a hostile world.

Assistant Minister: Well, it's a hell of a segue, Laura, from the President of the United States to sort of what appear to be some form of crustacean, if you follow the article. Look, it's really clear that one of the consequences of impediments being put in front of Australian exports to China has been it's created problems for consumers, and particularly Australian lobsters are very highly prized in China and it's had a -

Laura Jayes: What are they actually trying to do here, create their own lobsters and call them Australian? Surely, you've got a problem there.

Assistant Minister: I read the article. I'm not sure if it's provenance, but the thing we've got to do here is unwind these trade impediments. Chinese consumers know that authentic Australian lobsters are the best Australian lobsters, the only Australian lobsters.

Laura Jayes: Do they know that? How do you know they know that? Because if they're being marketed as Australian lobsters and they're not.

Assistant Minister: The market for Australian lobsters has been very -

Laura Jayes: This could be quite damaging for our industry though.

Assistant Minister: Well, let's see, the first thing to do is unwind these trade impediments. That's what the government's been focussed on. And of course, in every market that we're in, making sure that there's not fake replicas of Australian products is absolutely a focus of the trade.

Laura Jayes: Sure. Just finally, before we've got to wrap this up, Don Farrell, before he went to China last week, was pretty optimistic, briefing out that he thinks there'll be sanctions will be lifted by the end of the year and that our relationship will be back on track. He went to China, and he had a very different tone. So, where are we at now?

Assistant Minister: Well, Don brings enthusiasm and drive and purpose to this project that we have in China. It's part of-

Laura Jayes: Did he go to China and get a bit of a dose of reality that wasn't matching his optimism?

Assistant Minister: He's been completely focussed on this. He is correctly applying pressure, making the arguments, doing it publicly, doing it privately. This is another useful step forward, having Australia's Trade Minister active in talks in Beijing.

It follows a long series of careful, systematic, programmatic approaches to stabilising the relationship and removing the trade impediments. As Don says, these impediments weren't imposed overnight, they won't be resolved overnight. But, the government has been very, very focussed on this task and will continue at official level and ministerial level to push this ahead.

Laura Jayes: Quickly, by the end of the year, do you think, or is it a longer time frame?

Assistant Minister: Well, the progress in this ultimately is going to be determined by how quickly the Chinese Government resolves these trade impediments. We are going to keep making the argument. There are multiple strands to our approach, and we're going to continue to push in the Australian national interest.

Laura Jayes: Okay. Thanks for coming in.

Assistant Minister: Go on you, Laura.