Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

I'll only take a couple of minutes of the chamber's time. Centre Alliance, formerly the Nick Xenophon Team, has had a very longstanding concern with ISDS provisions. We should not give multinationals the green light to sue our nation over our laws that we make in the best interests of Australians.

I will briefly touch upon the Philip Morris v Australia case from 2011. That took four years to resolve. That cost taxpayers time and money. The reason for that is Philip Morris thought they could use ISDS provisions to sue Australia for its plain packaging of cigarettes. Many countries are now looking at ISDS provisions and realising that they are not in their nations' interests, and I would urge the government to very strongly consider removing any ISDS provisions from any free trade agreement that we are about to decide and sign as a nation. We should never allow multinationals to have rule and control over what happens in this parliament. This parliament should only be for the benefit of Australians, for laws for Australians, and we should not allow multinationals to get in between.

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