The new Minister for Trade, Dan Tehan, must immediately set to work on repairing our failing trade relationship with China in an effort to save thousands of Australian jobs that are under threat.
 
Unfortunately, Mr Tehan’s abysmal record as Education Minister provides little hope he is the right person to help our export industries.
 
Mr Tehan has overseen the trashing of Australia’s higher education sector, which has been one of our most successful services exports of the past decade.
 
He leaves the Education portfolio as universities are reeling from 12,000 jobs lost, with 20,000 more to come and students facing US-style debts.
 
Labor hopes that the appointment of Mr Tehan proves to be a circuit-breaker in the trade tensions with China.
 
But appointing a dedicated Trade Minister should never have taken this long.

Scott Morrison has known for nearly six months that a Cabinet reshuffle would be required.
 
In October, the Government effectively downgraded the trade portfolio by making Senator Simon Birmingham the finance minister as well as Government leader in the Senate, in addition to the portfolios of trade, tourism and investment.
 
During the past two months, Australian exporters have been hit by a number of trade sanctions and delays in getting their goods into China.
 
There could hardly have been a worse time for this important portfolio to be in limbo.
 
Mr Tehan’s priority must be to come up with a genuine plan to support our exporters and to make trade diversification a national priority.
 
After more than two years, this do-nothing Government has done virtually nothing to ramp up the economic relationship with India. 
 
The Morrison Government has ignored the 2018 Varghese report that outlined a blueprint for how Australia can boost its trade and investment links with India.
 
All exporters must hope the new Trade Minister takes the long-term challenge of diversification seriously.