Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to give a brief contribution on this Tobacco Plain Packaging Amendment Bill 2018. It is in light of recent decisions made by this government and, indeed, by the opposition to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership arrangements, which of course include the ISDS clauses—those investor state dispute settlement provisions. Those reasons are exactly why we are debating this bill.

This is why we have a problem: big corporations want to fundamentally undermine the sovereignty of governments and nations to put in place legislation or to make rules to represent the desires of their community and their citizens. If we weren't in a situation where big multinational companies could come and sue governments and challenge decisions that elected representatives made then we wouldn't be here.

We know that we had in the House just yesterday the Labor Party cuddling up with the Morrison government to vote through the TPP legislation. That TPP legislation comes to this House in the next month, and it will lock Australia into a raft of rules which say that if companies like Philip Morris or companies like Adani—big multinational companies—want to challenge the decisions made by a national government or a state government or a local government then they can.

We know it created a problem here when it came to the plain-packaging legislation. We know that Philip Morris and others got very stroppy with Australia. We know that hundreds of millions of dollars were spent defending the right of this parliament to implement rules and laws that the Australian people wanted. But we're just about to sign up to a TPP, a free trade agreement, that allows these companies to do this again and to continue to do this. It beggars belief that in 2018, when we've seen what these big multinational companies will do when they can get away with it, why on earth we would have the Labor Party selling out not just Australian workers but the sovereignty of the nation and undermining democracy.

It should be that if a government—whether it is a state, federal or local government—with the support of their people, their communities and their electors, wishes to implement laws in the best interests of the public that they should be able to do it. This should not be at behest of whether it suits a big multinational company overseas or not. Why on earth the Labor Party are rolling over on this is beyond me. But, let's just be really clear about this: the Labor Party are continuing to speak out both sides of their mouths on this issue. On one hand, we hear that they understand the insidious nature of those ISDS clauses and that when they win government they'll just change it, 'So don't worry about it now, flick it all through; it'll all be okay.'

We know that's not true. That is absolute bollocks! The Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, knows full well that once the TPP legislation passes this place there will be no reversing of these insidious rules that give more power to corporations than to the Australian people. Australia would have to withdraw from the TPP—that is the only way out of it. So it's time that the Leader of the Opposition fronted up and was honest with the Australian people, Australian workers and this parliament. You can't just tweak it afterwards. You either have to withdraw from the TPP or vote it down in this place when the legislation gets here in a couple of weeks.

I understand that the Leader of the Opposition thinks that he's got a home run to the election now: 'The Morrison government are in disarray, eating themselves, tearing themselves apart, so we don't need to worry about what's passing this place, because, in a couple of months time, Bill Shorten will be Prime Minister and everything is going to be A-OK.' Wrong. This is absolute bollocks. The truth is you cannot change the TPP once it gets through this place. The time to stand up for the sovereignty of Australia, for the rights of workers, for the protection of the planet, is now, not when it suits the Leader of the Opposition, when he gets to government, if indeed he gets to government. It is a hollow promise from the Labor Party. Of course, members on the opposition benches know this full well because they had a fight in their own caucus room about this. They know that what the Leader of the Opposition is putting to the Australian people is nothing more than a hollow promise. The Labor Party are speaking out of both sides of their mouths, hoping that no-one picks up on what's going on here.

Why on earth would we lock ourselves into a set of rules that allows the Australian people to be sued by big multinational companies? In the European Union, they have realised very quickly that these ISDS clauses, these rules that allow big corporations to sue governments, are a bad idea, which is why they have upheld the recent decisions of the European Court of Justice which said that ISDS clauses are fundamentally incompatible with national sovereignty. They have decided, as the European Union, that no more trade deals will include ISDS clauses. Australia is in the midst of negotiating free trade agreements with the EU, and ISDS clauses are not allowed to be included, because the European Union have worked out that they are bad for their people, bad for government and bad for democracy. These clauses are all about strengthening the arms of big multinational corporations. They have nothing to do with looking after the interests of the Australian people.

The reason we need to debate this here in relation to this piece of legislation is that we have lived the experience of what it is like when a big multinational company decides to sue our government. We shouldn't be allowing it to happen again. In that scenario, it was tobacco. Next time it will be something else. If the Australian people want laws that protect them, their communities and their environment, and this place implements those laws, those laws should be able to be upheld and not undermined at the behest of big corporate interests.

The Labor Party know that they are weak on this. They know that they've rolled over. They know that they're playing both sides of the fence. What happens when you play both sides of the fence? It's not a pretty sight. The Leader of the Opposition needs to be exposed for the hollow promise that is being made. The TPP legislation gives multinational corporations the right to sue governments and allows Australian workers to be put out of work because companies can just bring in as many foreign workers as they want, without having to look at whether there is anyone in the community who could do the job. The Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, either needs to front up and be honest that he thinks this is okay or do something about it now. It won't matter if he becomes Prime Minister in four or six months time, it won't be able to be fixed. It has to be done now. It has to be done swiftly. If it isn't, it just shows what a furphy the Labor Party are when they decide to cuddle up with the coalition to do the bidding of big business at the expense of Australian workers, the community and the environment.

In a couple of weeks time we're going to be debating the legislation here in the Senate and we're going to hear members on the opposition benches promising: 'When we're in government we will try to fix this. We think this is terrible. We'll try to fix it.' Fix it then. Do something about it now. There are enough members on the crossbench here to work with the Labor Party to fix this. The proof will be in the pudding if this legislation passes this place because the Labor Party decide to vote with the government, selling out workers, selling out democracy and selling out the environment.