Click through for an ABC Radio National Sunday Extra discussion on free trade, specifically an Australia-China trade deal.

Six months ago Craig Emerson was representing Australia in Paris, chairing an OECD meeting on the Asian Century and hectoring key member countries of the World Trade Organization on the necessity of opening up their markets in the long-running global trade talks.

Now the former Australian Trade Minister and Minister for Tertiary Education is working with business clients as Managing Director of Craig Emerson Economics Pty Ltd, one of the newest members of the Australia China Business Council.

AUSTRALIA'S rebounding dollar is threatening the transition from the peak of the mining boom to a more diversified economy capable of taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the Asian Century. It also helps explain why the federal government has foreshadowed deferring the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook until January as the high dollar further weakens government revenues.

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Several of the Coalition's investment and trade plans will harm the national interest. 

Among the lowlights of the election campaign, few were as low as the two leaders' statements of anxiety about Chinese investment in Australia.

In May this year the Coalition declared a budget emergency, that spending and debt were spiralling out of control. Yet its response to this alleged crisis was deliberately withheld until Thursday afternoon, later still than the final Wednesday evening of the 2010 election campaign. The 2010 manoeuvre to avoid public scrutiny led to the debacle of an $11 billion costings error and the accounting firm the Coalition hired to audit the costings being fined for its professional association for misconduct.

Indonesia has figured prominently in the federal election campaign for all the wrong reasons. Instead of recognising the enormous potential in closer economic and personal relations between Australia and Indonesia, the Coalition seems intent on straining the friendship with our nearest neighbour to breaking point with its ridiculous boat buy-back policy.