The AFR has reported today that trade deals are on the nose with the minor parties and cross-bench, which means they could force change to the way that governments negotiate future agreements:
There’s a strong vein of protectionism running through the minor parties and independents who could hold the balance of power in both the House of Representatives and Senate.
Queensland MP Bob Katter, previously of the National Party, has a long-standing belief that the government should give local industries a hand up.
Others are later converts. Enthusiasm for the cause by Nick Xenophon, for example, appears to have risen in direct correlation to voter anger about job losses from tanking industries such as car and steel manufacturing…
[Xenophon] wrote in The Australian Financial Review on June 9 of this year: “As the Productivity Commission has revealed, predictions of growth and jobs from free trade agreements have rarely been delivered because the economic models employed exaggerate the benefits, ignore many of the costs and assume away unemployment effects”…
He does not agree that Australia should be part of the landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, warning Australians will face more expensive medicines and restrictions on accessing online content.
The minor parties and cross-bench are not alone in their criticism of Australia’s recent “free trade agreements” (FTAs).
Just last month, the Australian Greens demanded greater parliamentary oversight of FTA negotiations and approval of deals before they are signed, as well as an end to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions that allow foreign corporations to sue taxpayers.
Labor, too, committed to reviewing Australia’s trade agreements that enable foreign corporations to sue Australian taxpayers if it won the Federal Election.
Greater oversight and scrutiny of FTAs is a great idea. Even if the Coalition forms minority Government, Labor, The Greens and the cross-bench should band together and force the Productivity Commission (PC) to evaluate all of Australia’s FTAs for all clauses that may be contrary to Australia’s interests, including ISDS and restrictive patent and copyright provisions.
The PC has previously called on the texts of Australia’s trade deals to be publicly released for scrutiny before they are signed:
The emerging and growing potential for trade preferences to impose net costs on the community presents a compelling case for the final text of an agreement to be rigorously analysed before signing. Analysis undertaken for the Japan-Australia agreement reveals a wide and concerning gap compared to the Commission’s view of rigorous assessment.
Similarly, a Parliamentary committee last year released a report slamming the lack of adequate “oversight and scrutiny” pertaining to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and lamented that “parliament is faced with an all-or-nothing choice” on whether or not to approve trade agreements and can only officially review trade laws once they have officially passed.
While DFAT claims that it consulted widely on the TPP, these consultations were largely a sham.
The TPP is an incredibly complex agreement whose text numbers some 6,000 pages and 30 chapters. There’s only one way to properly assess the deal: get the PC to undertake an assessment before Parliament votes to ratify the deal. It is far too complex for the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) to comprehensively review.
Moreover, under the terms of the TPP, member countries have two years from signing to assess the TPP before it must be ratified. Therefore, there is still plenty of time for a thorough assessment by the PC.
Thorough assessment of Australia’s trade deals, particularly the TPP, should be a condition of forming a minority Government with either the Coalition or Labor.
