Downer’s comments, during a 90-minute Q&A with the House of Commons International Trade Committee, come at a time when unemployment is a hot issue ahead of South Australia’s election. The final job figures before the March 17 election gave South Australia a 6% unemployment rate, the second highest in the nation. Trade is also a sensitive political topic in Britain. The last day of manufacturing of Holden cars in Adelaide. The last VFII Commodore Redline to come out of the Elizabeth Factory. This week, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said the UK should be in a customs union with Europe after Brexit – a move which would preclude striking its own trade deals with other countries.

But Corbyn said the new customs arrangement would depend on Britain getting a seat at the table when the EU negotiated new trade deals in its national interest Downer said the UK would be a passive “rule taker” if it stayed in Europe’s Customs Union after Brexit. Australia would go to Brussels rather than London for trade talks, he said. Loading “You obviously wouldn’t be involved,” he told the committee of MPs. He said Australians would never put up with their own government “contracting out” its trade policy.

“Australia as a sovereign country – we wouldn’t contract out our trade policy to the ASEAN countries or the East Asia Summit. The public in Australia would absolutely insist they had a say if we were starting to pull down tariffs.” Downer was invited to give evidence to the committee’s inquiry into UK-US trade relations. As foreign minister, Downer oversaw the negotiation and signing of Australia’s free trade agreement with the US. “We like to put the interests of the consumer before the narrow and selfish interests of producers,” he said. “In the EU you have an average of something like 17 per cent tariff protection on footwear … we used to have that kind of thing. And that means poor people [in the EU] are paying a hell of a lot more for their shoes.” Trade between the US and Australia had grown by 50 per cent and investment by 130 per cent since the trade deal was since, Downer said, with investment boosted by the “psychological” effect of the deal.

Reducing tariff protection had been one of the factors behind Mitsubishi and General Motors Holden closing their manufacturing businesses in South Australia, Downer said. But he said the overall level of unemployment in South Australia had stayed “pretty low” because older workers in the auto industry had retired while younger workers “found it relatively easy in most cases to find alternative employment”. Downer said Australia’s US trade deal had been done quickly because the president at the time, George W Bush “was up for free trade, he said he was happy to do that”. “All free trade negotiations depend on one thing … political will. If the political leadership is uncertain about the merits or otherwise, it could be quite a problem and they can be very protracted.” But since the 2016 presidential election an “America First, we’re being done over by foreigners” sentiment has “caught fire” in the US, Downer said.