Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I can tell you that the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, Justice Robert French, has raised his concerns that ISDS is effectively establishing a parallel legal system where Australian judges have no voice. Senator Macdonald thinks, obviously, that he knows better than the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, Justice Robert French. But I think, Mr Acting Deputy President, that when you have the Chief Justice saying that what you are doing is selling out the sovereignty of the Australian parliament and the Australian legal system, you should start thinking about that. When the Chief Justice is saying that the ISDS is setting up a parallel legal system where Australian judges have no voice, that should be of major concern to Australians. People are already worried that this government is governing for the big end of town. We are seeing it—absolutely—when it comes to their refusal to crack down on tax avoidance; in the huff and puff of the Treasurer before the G20—all about tax avoidance—until we had to ask for a delay in Australia actually engaging in the exchange of information around the world that would lead to a crackdown of tax avoidance. We saw it in MYEFO before Christmas: the tax avoidance measures that were in that document were removed. We are seeing it left, right and centre.

The two greatest threats to humanity and to the planet are the growing inequality around the world in the accumulation of wealth, and global warming. Those two things together are driving massive social unrest and ecological destruction. And the people driving it are the corporate world—the one per cent who own the vast majority of the Earth's resources now, and their wealth, want to secure a regulatory environment which is lowest common denominator, and they want to use these investor-state dispute resolution clauses to do it. This is a dangerous assault on the integrity and capacity of the Australian parliament to govern in the best interests of the Australian people, for our wellbeing and our health. It is being done in secret, handing over to the United States the right to actually change the text—after the Australian parliament has signed off on it. And we will be subject to it after that. What sort of government acts as a doormat to that kind of agreement? I can tell you which sort of government: it is the Abbott government. It is the very people who pretend they are interested in Operation Sovereign Borders, while actually undermining the sovereignty of our nation in a very frightening way.

We only have to look at what is going on with the power of the corporates. We have to take our democracy back, and one way of taking our democracy back is banning investor-state dispute resolution clauses in any agreement that Australia signs. That is the way we take our democracy back, that is the way we restore the sovereignty of our parliament and our legal system, and that is the way we prevent the multinational corporations of the planet from overseeing the best interests of Australian and the environment. And if we do not, we are going to see billions of taxpayers' dollars over the years being set aside in legal cases. And the culprits responsible are sitting in this parliament, pretending to be a responsible government as we speak.