Australia–United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement

The Australia–United Kingdom free trade agreement (AUKFTA) was signed 17 December 2021. The broad terms of the agreement had been agreed six months earlier, following almost a year of negotiations. It was the first trade agreement signed by Britain since leaving the European Union that was negotiated completely anew.

Australia secured a seven-fold increase in tariff-free access to the UK market for its beef and lamb exports, to be phased in after ten years. In return, British citizens under 35 can get working holiday visas for three years instead of the previous two, and Australian employers do not need to show economic necessity to hire them. Observers took the agreement as a sign that the British government, in negotiating future trade agreements with nations with large agricultural sectors, will favour the interests of consumers over farmers.

In mid-2022, as both governments worked towards final ratification, the deal began coming in for heavy criticism on the British side. The National Farmers' Union expressed concern about the possibility that Australian exporters could flood the British market and drive down prices, as well as the lack of any protections for geographical indicators on foods such as Cornish clotted cream. Food-safety groups like the Pesticide Action Network were alarmed that the agreement had no provisions requiring Australian produce comply with stricter British standards. In November, as the Australian parliament's ratification vote neared, George Eustice, a Brexit supporter who had until September been in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and negotiated parts of the deal, reiterated these concerns on the floor of the House of Commons when he denounced the deal, which the British Parliament did not get to vote on, as one-sided, blaming former Secretary of State for International Trade Liz Truss for forcing an agreement to be reached swiftly to make then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government look good; he also called for the lead UK negotiation, Crawford Falconer, to be replaced.

British defenders of the agreement noted in response that Eustice had had his chance to block the agreement while he was in the government and did not. They further said that it was unlikely that Australia would be fully exploiting the new quotas, since it did not even meet the current ones and found it more profitable to sell to large markets closer to it in Asia due to the time and distance involved in shipping to the UK. The British government also argued that it had maintained food-safety standards, with Australia agreeing to its high sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) regulations for all food.