Australian PM hopes for swift end to trade talks

The Japanese tend to forget that there are many countries lining up to get Australian exports. Japan needs the produce more than Australia needs their business and that wombat Abbot should be making this very clear to them.

Glad Tony wasn't wearing his budgie smugglers! (though he did put on some lycra for a bicycle ride around the Palace).

Why has not the Japanese Press asked? Why The Abbott has not supported Toyota to stay in Australia.as it would benefit Both Japan and Australia.. also, Why don't he believe in climate Change.

Ron Barnes - Toyota and all the Japanese car companies in Oz have been nothing but money pits for the Oz-gov for many years and the Oz-gov has poured millions of bucks into supporting them. The only reason Toyota pulled out was because the Oz-give refused to bail them out again.

Actually, Toyota are closing because Ford and GM have both announced their departures from Austral manufacturing. I suspect the "give us money or stupid gets it" was more FoMoCo's and GM's method than Toyota's in Australia.

And when Ford US and GM (US) fell on hard times and needed US Government bailouts in 2008, their Australian operations basically were on borrowed time (small branch office in an out-of-the-way location building a product that neither parent company were too interested in supporting or exporting).

This is great news for both countries. Japan will have access to cheaper dairy imports from Australia, and Australia will benefit from cheaper cars & consumer electronics. There are reports that a car costing AUD$30,000 (about 2.8m yen) will be about $1,500 (~ 130,000 yen) cheaper from this deal alone.

However, knowing how Japan works, the bureaucrats controlling Japanese dairy products (especially from Hokkaido) will have something to say about this. Let's see how much longer we're forced to pay exorbitant prices for things like cheese & butter!

The only reason Australia had tariffs on imported vehicles in the first place was to protect their local car manufacturing industry, but since all major manufacturers in Australia are closing up, the tariffs are redundant and likely to disappear anyway, so it's not the bargaining chip the Australians would like it to appear to be.