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

In the US as I speak now and over recent weeks there has been an extraordinary political debate occurring around trade deals or what are called 'modern partnership agreements'. I intend to use my time today to talk about what is happening in the space of globalisation, how that impacts on Australia and what we need to do about it. The debate has been around the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. It is not a trade deal; it is a partnership agreement. It is essentially a deregulation agenda driven by big business.

What is going on in the US in getting votes to support this in Congress in the Senate is straight out of a House of Cards episode. What is extraordinary about it is not just that it is the biggest hot-button political topic in the US at the moment. What is extraordinary about it is that the Democrats, essentially the labour movement in the US, are turning their backs on their President on this deal. It has now been called 'Obama trade', although I do not like using that term because I do not think it is a trade deal. Nevertheless, the Democrats themselves have rebelled against their President. Hillary Clinton has been making comments that she will not support it in its current form, as have other significant senators and congresspeople with high profiles.

Yet we do not have any debate like that in this country. In fact, the debate in Australia on the deregulation agenda of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and even other agreements that are being negotiated in secret, such as the trade-in-services agreement, is dismal.

There are a couple of reasons why the debate in this country is dismal, especially in the mainstream media.

The first is that I think the Labor Party are terribly conflicted on these kinds of deregulation agendas. They have not commented much to the media because of that conflict. It has been hard to generate interest with many in the press gallery and journalists across the country; although, some have attempted some very good coverage of what the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement could mean for this country.

The other reason that I do not believe we have anywhere near the debate that is needed is our treaty process. The way we conduct trade and other partnership treaties in this country is broken. It is outdated and it is downright dangerous. Trade and partnership agreements are so complex now. They are not like they used to be. It is not just about putting things on ships or bringing things over on planes. These modern partnership agreements impact right across our society and economy. The treaty process has not changed to keep up-to-date with these developments in trade agreements. They are secret. There is no chance for parliament to change them once they have been signed by cabinet. Part of that secrecy not only leads to distrust in the community—and rightly so, when we know that powerful corporations are driving these deregulation agendas; it also leads to a lack of interest by stakeholders in the business community, as the Senate foreign affairs, defence and trade committee recently found out. So they are counterproductive in terms of getting participation in the treaty process. Senator Gallacher is here today, and he has heard all the evidence.

We need to fix the treaty process in Australia. We need to have parliamentary input and input of the Australian people through their parliamentarians and through direct input into the hearings around these modern agreements. They need to be transparent. There are some really good complex agreements being negotiated around the world where they are open to the public—all the minutes; in fact, there are live broadcasts of the negotiations while they are occurring. But these deals are being done in secret.

I want to read something that Nancy Pelosi wrote yesterday that is very valid for us to consider here in Australia. She said:

In order to succeed in the global economy, it is necessary to move beyond stale arguments of protectionism vs. free trade.

To do so, we must recognize that—

in modern agreements—

workers' rights, consumer and intellectual protections, and environmental safeguards must be just as enforceable as the protection of the economic interests of investors.

…   …   …

As we look to the future, it is clear that the debate on the trade authority—

which is what they are debating the moment—

is probably the last of its kind.

This is the absolutely crucial bit:

The intense debate of the past few weeks has further convinced me that we need a new paradigm.

The reason this debate is occurring in the US is that congress has to give permission to the executive—that is, Obama—to fast track their deal. Fast track means that parliament will not get to scrutinise it. They are at least debating whether the US parliament will fast track this legislation to get it done. Guess what? The way our treaty process is set up is fast track by default. The parliament here does not get to scrutinise any of the treaty text before it is signed by cabinet. At least in the US they are having a healthy, robust parliamentary debate. And the labour movement in the US has got behind this and has mobilised civil society. This is a rebellion against a neoliberal agenda on a scale that I did not think I would see. I genuinely did not think I would see it. It is really significant. We need to have the same debate in Australia.

Here today, the government is going to be announcing their Chinese free trade agreement conducted under the same failed treaty process, totally in secret, with no cost-benefit analysis ever put up as to the benefits of these deals and why we enter into them in the first place. No doubt, the Minister for Trade and Investment, Mr Robb, and the Prime Minister will be spruiking the rivers of gold that are going to be delivered by these deals. There has been some information given to selected press.

We have strong business ties with China. It is good. China is a very important economic partner of ours, as is the US. These new agreements have things such as investor-state dispute clauses that give not just Chinese companies but the Chinese government, through state-owned enterprises, the right to sue our government for enacting policies in the public interest. The Chinese government will be able to sue us if we enact policies in the public interest. That is what is going to happen under a Chinese free trade deal. It happens with investor-state dispute clauses in other deals. We are being sued by Phillip Morris through a Hong Kong trade deal for plain packaging of tobacco and trying to protect our public. There are over 500 cases around the world. These are proliferating—and they are downright dangerous and undemocratic.

Minister Robb is going to be spruiking this deal. He has already talked about a $50 billion benefit to the Australian economy. The same modeller who is providing these figures to Minister Robb—and I have not looked at the detail yet, but we have seen some stuff in the press today—did the modelling for the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement. At the time they said it would lead to a $5.6 billion benefit in extra trade. Now, 10 years later, a study by the Australia-Japan Research Centre found:

The agreement was responsible for reducing—or diverting—$53.1 billion of trade with the rest of the world by 2012. Imports to Australia and the United States from the rest of the world fell by $37.5 billion and exports to the rest of the world from the two countries fell by $15.6 billion over eight years to 2012.

Beyond the $53 billion of trade that has been diverted, there is no evidence that the agreement has been associated with an increase in trade between the two countries, or the creation of efficient low cost trade.

So this modelling is not worth the paper it is written on, if we base it on previous studies.

I was involved in the JSCOT and the foreign affairs, defence and trade committee processes where we were being urged to sign the Korean deal and the Japanese deal as quickly as possible. Well, guess what? Our terms of trade have fallen in the last six months since those deals were signed. I know that is only short-term, but the urgency with which we were being pushed as a parliament to vote for these undemocratic and secret trade deals has not delivered. It is just another reason to be sceptical of politicised so-called free trade deals.

The China deal will also cover really important aspects of our society. We are going to be talking about intellectual property rights, digital rights, immigration laws and labour laws. I know the Labor Party have significant concerns with some of these laws and will be scrutinising them closely, as will the Greens.

We have to have a mature debate in this country around this neo-liberal agenda. The economic rationalists are no longer winning the day in the US. They are now being challenged by a very strong civil society movement, who have seen the evidence that trade has not delivered for their country. The bill to get assistance for workers that has been put up by the Democrats in the US has so far gone down, but at least it is an acknowledgement that the government has to pay for the damage done by these free trade deals. We only ever hear about the benefits. We need a mature debate, we need to change the treaty process, we need democracy in these deals and we need to make sure that workers and the environment are put up there with corporate profits. (Time expired)