Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

'Strange rant'—that is okay. This is the thing with the Greens political party, hypocrisy knows no bounds. Here is a party talking about 'surrendering Australia's sovereignty'. Which party would have the one-world government, to have Australia sign up and be bound by every single international treaty brought on by anyone around the globe?

You only have to look at the facts of these issues to realise that most everything you hear from people like Senator Ludlam and Senator Milne simply are not supported by truth and accuracy. Sure, pick all the prejudices: fracking, big end of town, nuclear—and the US corporate predators. Never mind any other corporate predators. US corporate predators are the real ones.

Senator Cameron made a very measured address. He clearly indicated the facts. It is obvious that no-one from the Greens political party has read the agreements that have been entered into so far. Senator Canavan quite rightly assisted those Greens members who were interested in truth and accuracy—and I am not sure there are many—on what section 18(1) of the Korean free trade agreement said. He read it out. I could repeat it, but I will not take the time of the Senate.

Australian governments, not just this government but previous governments as well, have entered into a number of interstate dispute-settlement arrangements over a number of years. In free trade and bilateral agreements we already have interstate dispute-settlement provisions in Investment Protection and Promotion Agreements. These include countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Chile, 10 ASEAN countries and New Zealand. We also have agreements with Argentina, China and the Czech Republic. I have not got to the 'big predator' US government yet that the Greens like to talk about. I am sure that is here.

We have entered into these sorts of agreements with all these countries: Argentina, China, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Laos, Lithuania, Mexico, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uruguay and Vietnam, just to name some of them.

I will try to put a little truth and accuracy into this debate. I will indicate to the Senate the types of obligations covered by ISDS. One of them is that foreigners and locals should be given a similar treatment. How bad is that? It applies to Australians. Do we have different rules for people from other countries? Talk about xenophobia in the Greens political party! It seems to know no bounds. These agreements say that foreigners from one country should be given similar treatment to foreigners from another country—so the Chinese and their trade agreements with Australia will be treated the same as the Americans; they will be treated the same as the Hungarians; they will be treated the same as the South Africans. What sort of a problem does anyone see in that? These agreements also limit the circumstances under which expropriation can take place, and they require provision of adequate compensation. Under the Australian Constitution, if the Australian government expropriates property for good reason, it is required to pay compensation. But the Greens do not think the same should apply to other countries who have property rights in Australia which are expropriated by the federal government. It is okay to pay Australians compensation, because the government is required to under our constitution, but forget the foreigners! We will just take their property and we will not allow for any compensation. These obligations also provide for non-discriminatory treatment and for compensation in the case of armed conflict or civil strife, in any country which Australia has these arrangements with.

While the Greens political party think that this is not appropriate, a company from one country that invests in a different country should be able to freely deal with profits they make as a result of their investment. Otherwise they would not be making the investment. Most countries around the world are seeking investment in their own countries—to help their countries—but are expecting that those who invest will make profits, and will be able to take those profits home as they intended. In fact, the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee yesterday had a very interesting roundtable meeting with all of the ambassadors from the Arab countries in the world. It was a great get-together, talking about two-way trade between our countries. I asked all the ambassadors to quickly run through and indicate which of their commodities or services they would like to sell more of to Australia. Some of the ambassadors responded as you would expect—more clothing, more chemicals, more olive oil—but a lot of them said, 'we want Australia to invest in our countries, and to bring Australian expertise into our countries. We know that is good for Australia; they will make profits and help employ some Australians, but we also want that because it will help our countries to develop.' And yet the Greens, by not allowing these ISDS provisions, would seek to make it difficult for Australians to take action against these countries if these countries introduced laws that expropriated Australian investments in their country without compensation. That is what this is all about.

To anyone who is following this debate: do not take anything the Greens say as accurate, but please look into it and please look at history. You will find that almost everything the Greens political party will stir you up about turns out to be absolutely incorrect, but time does not permit me to go through all of those issues.

It is hypocrisy—sheer hypocrisy—for the Greens political party to say that we are surrendering Australia's sovereignty to international corporate giants, when everything the Greens do in this parliament is all about international treaties, and about how Australia should subject itself to the dictates of all of these international bodies; the United Nations and other bodies. They do not want Australia to have a view on uranium, or climate change. They do not want Australians who, by majority, have a different view to some of the members of the international community views on climate change. They want Australia just to accept, willy-nilly, the views of these international bodies without allowing the Australian people to have their say.

The Australian people clearly share my view on the irrational accusations of the Greens about climate change. We all accept the climate is changing. I often say that once upon a time the world was covered in ice and snow, and clearly over the aeons that has changed. Once upon a time the centre of Australia was a rainforest. Clearly that has changed. Clearly climate changes. But there is no accepted evidence at the moment that man's emissions of carbon have been responsible for it. There is no evidence that there has been global warming for 20 years. In fact, the actual scientific evidence suggests otherwise. But the Greens would have Australia's sovereignty—

Senator Siewert interjecting—

That is true. I am sorry. I can give you 50 scientists who say that.