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

This is really, really important, because that is what this is about. This is why there's no transparency at all in our treaty-making process. This is why parliament is cut out of these deals. This is extremely important. This is 13 years of negotiation on, supposedly, the biggest trade and investment deal in the world that our country's ever been in, and you are treating us with contempt when we're asking you some simple questions. Shock-horror that we would actually ask you for some detail before this parliament votes and ratifies this deal!

I want to make it very clear to senators how the process works. Negotiations occur between member countries and between hundreds, if not thousands, of stakeholders over a long period of time. Some drafts of texts are released. Some are released on WikiLeaks, which is where we got all our information from. I was at most of those Senate estimates, Senator Reynolds, since 2012, asking DFAT for information on this, and I can tell you I got most of my information from WikiLeaks, because someone was leaking drafts of the text—but they change; they evolve. We didn't get to see anything before your government signed the agreement. You signed it on our behalf, and, when you signed it, you signed us up to every bit of detail in that trade deal. As Senator Birmingham has just said to the chamber, of course we can amend it, but, if we do, the deal's off. It's lock, stock and barrel; we can't change a thing. We can't do our jobs. What you have said here tonight, Senator Birmingham, is we can't do our job to improve this legislation. Senator Bernardi has a perfectly reasonable amendment. We can't put up any amendments to improve this bill. It is not possible, thanks to our treaty-making process—our dangerous, undemocratic, treaty-making process.

It's a treaty-making process, senators, that's been in place since this parliament was set up under the Westminster system. It was built not only for a different generation; it was built for a different century—and not the last century but the one before, when treaties were essentially about peace and war. They were totally different to the TPP, with its over 30 chapters and thousands of pages of complex information relating to just about every aspect of our economy and our life in this country. Yet we have the same process we've had for hundreds of years, where parliament has no say—no say. It is ratified by the Prime Minister and the executive of the day, and it's given to parliament. Those are the extraordinary powers that the executive has in relation to trade, and they are absolutely fundamental to what we need to change.

So I want to make it really clear here tonight that we are dealing with a totally flawed process—and you must answer our questions with detail, Minister. This is our only chance. I've got a lot more questions to come, especially on those suspended clauses that Senator Hanson-Young has already asked about and how they relate to new countries applying to get into the TPP. I understand that the UK's interested in joining the TPP, and no doubt you'll be trying to talk to Indonesia about it—if they're still talking to us after our foreign affairs faux pas today about moving our embassy in Israel. These things are extremely important. We could be de facto voting for a provision, for a TPP, that brings the US back to the table with all their toxic clauses around monopoly pricing on medicine and all the things that we fought so hard to try and knock out.

There is a reason, as I said yesterday in my speech in the second reading debate, that this deal took 13 years. It took 13 years because it's controversial and it's highly complex—and it's dangerous and completely undemocratic. It's completely undemocratic.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: The question is that amendment (1) on sheet 8542, standing in the name of Senator Bernardi, be agreed to.

Question negatived.

Progress reported.