Exports to China were worth over $700 million in 2019. Trade barriers were imposed by China following Scott Morrison’s call for an enquiry into the origin of Covid, putting an end to direct trade in this commodity. Last week PM Albanese announced the imminent lifting of restrictions by the end of the year and credited the improvement of bilateral relations. Things however are a little more fishy.

As Lewis Carroll remarked,

“Tis the voice of the Lobster, I heard him declare

You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.”

The rock or spiny lobster (different from the European or American lobster) is uniquely found in southern and western Australia and is Australia’s most valuable wild capture industry. Nationwide, lobster exports are worth around $500 thousand annually. Import tariffs on Australian seafood had been eliminated in 2019 following the conclusion of CHAFTA (the China Australia Free Trade Agreement) and the future looked bright for holders of lobster catch licences and their export agents. Euphoria did not last long. After Scott Morrison launched an excessively hostile attack on China in 2020, a shipment of live Australian lobsters was detained at the airport in Shanghai on suspicion that it contained the heavy metal cadmium. (These were southern rock lobsters from Tasmania, which are practically all exported to China.)

An ABC Four Corners investigation in 2020 stated that Australian........

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