Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers in relation to my question on free trade agreements.

What this calls for is a reality check—or a raincheck. This government said in their very first speech, the address-in-reply to the Governor-General's speech, that the mark of their time in government was going to be on signing free trade deals. Regardless of what Senator Brandis said, the Greens are not opposed to trade. We have very clear, longstanding policies supporting trade, but we want to see fair trade. Fair trade is when you take into account the environmental, social and ethical factors in business decisions, because, as we know, environmental problems, social problems and a lot of ethical problems tend to be economic problems—which has been repeated by the CEO of Wesfarmers this week on this exact issue. So, when we do trade negotiations, we need to be very careful about what is taken into account in those negotiations and the final outcome. So I asked three very important questions in question time.

I think Australians are rightly sceptical and cynical about yet another trade deal being announced with all the usual pomp and ceremony, as another visiting dignitary comes into the country—promises of roads being paved with gold in this country and of endless bounty, with no detail; secret negotiations done behind closed doors, with no modelling and no evidence whatsoever that this trade deal will deliver what is promised. We had the same thing in 2004, with the US fair trade agreement. Tens of billions of dollars it was supposed to deliver to this economy; but, as has been proven by the Productivity Commission in their analysis of trade, there is no evidence at all that it delivered. So let us take a reality check.

One of the very important questions that I asked Senator Brandis was: what is happening in the negotiations around Foreign Investment Review Board approval processes and the barriers that they present to Chinese state owned enterprises? And it is not just the Greens who are asking this question. I want to read from an article by Dr John Lee, a professor at the University of Sydney and a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute in Washington DC, who wrote:

Finally, one should note that the real prize that China wants out of this FTA is for its SOEs—

state owned enterprises—

to be exempt from FIRB—

Foreign Investment Review Board—

scrutiny for investments of $1bn or less. … China is desperate that this concession be eventually made since it is determined that its SOEs be allowed to invest in leading Australian firms to hasten the technology and know-how transfer that they desperately need.

In this article, he goes on to talk about what the Chinese government are seeking. That is also a very big issue in the bush in terms of the purchase of agricultural land.

Senator Williams interjecting—

The FIRB protections in place at the moment about state owned enterprises are there for a reason. All I asked was: when was this negotiation going to be completed? This is a trade deal, supposedly; but what we got yesterday was a photo opportunity, a headline, a deal to sign a deal. Negotiations have not concluded on what is probably the most controversial and most sensitive issue in this trade deal, and that is: are we going to give state owned enterprises access to buy the farm in this country? It is also a big issue in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. This is the first trade agreement that includes state owned enterprises and attempts to restrict their operations. I asked about that.

I also asked: what happens when we have investor-state dispute settlement clauses in these deals? And we do have them in this China deal. By the way, Senator Williams—through you, Mr President—John Howard refused to put these ISDS clauses in the US free trade agreement because they were dangerous, they were unnecessary and they were undemocratic. They have been included in this China trade deal. This gives a foreign investor the right to sue Australian governments if they enact legislation or policies that are not in the interests of that foreign investor. So what happens when that foreign investor happens to be the Chinese government, through a state owned enterprise?