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If it's not in our national interest to do the deal, then we won't

Murray Watt says Australia will walk away from the trade deal with the EU if it's not in the national interest:

We would walk away if we can't get the kind of agreement that we're seeking. If we can't get the kind of market access that we're seeking. Then it's not in our interest to do that deal.

Obviously our our strong preference is to have a deal reached to open up that market access for our agricultural producers and all sorts of other Australian goods and services producers. But if it's not in our national interest to do the deal, then we won't do it.

I actually spoke to Don Farrell, the trade minister, last night. He's just finished two days of trade talks in Brussels ... negotiations that he's just undertaken have reached a difficult stage.

We've obviously been very clear about our position from the beginning of these negotiations that we really need to see some commercially meaningful expansion of new markets for our producers for this deal to be worth doing ...