Thursday, 20 March 2025

United States trade

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:26): (866) My question is for the Minister for Regional Development, but it also affects the minister’s role as Treasurer.

Members interjecting.

David LIMBRICK: Well, everything does, yes. Recently, the United States signalled –

Members interjecting.

David LIMBRICK: I am going to run out of time.

The PRESIDENT: Do you want to start again?

David LIMBRICK: Yes, please. It was very noisy over there.

The PRESIDENT: Can we reset the clock. Just do not start until we hear the sounds of silence.

David LIMBRICK: My question is for the Minister for Regional Development, but it also affects the minister’s role as Treasurer. Recently the United States signalled that they would be bringing in agricultural tariffs on importers to the United States. I did a bit of research into this. The United States is saying that they will come in in a couple of weeks, on 2 April. Apparently Victoria has a fairly large number of agricultural exports, including beef, lamb and goat meat, and I was wondering if the minister’s department had done any modelling to see what sort of impact this might have on Victorian agriculture.

Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (12:27): I thank Mr Limbrick for his question. It is not regional development but probably more agriculture, but I think on the question that you have asked in relation to tariffs and the exposure of Victoria, I share your concerns. I am also conscious of the impact in particular on beef and lamb in relation to our export market. This is advice that I have asked for from the department, to see the exposure. It is information that I will be working on with the Minister for Agriculture, Minister Spence, and I will be happy to catch up with you after I have had that briefing.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:28): I thank the minister for that answer, but yes, we are running out of time very quickly on this. The other thing that I did recently is I asked the Minister for Finance to urgently activate the Global Victoria network to try and find alternative markets through our trade networks. I am wondering if the minister has been briefed on any progress on that.

Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Regional Development) (12:28): Thank you, Mr Limbrick, and again you are asking the same questions that we are asking in relation to making sure Global Victoria are working on diversification, which is BAU for them as well. I would say I support the federal government’s intervention and advocacy in relation to arguing that we do not need these tariffs and we should not have these tariffs, but being prepared for the impact and being aware of what the impact will be on Victoria is an important piece of information that we are working on at the moment.