Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The most important thing to understand about the Customs Amendment (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation) Bill 2018 and the related bill is that they are customs and tariff measures. They are not a ratification of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, known as TPP-11, which the government signed in March this year. Australia's parliament is not given the opportunity to ratify trade treaties of this sort, which is why Labor is proposing that substantial reform of the treaty-making process is necessary. Our view of what must change is set out in a second reading amendment which I shall move later and in a private senator's bill which I shall introduce. TPP-11 replaces the former Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP-12, which included the United States. The other signatories to TPP-11 are Canada, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and New Zealand.

Labor have always been absolutely clear that we have serious concerns about aspects of TPP-11, as we did about TPP-12. Supporting these customs and tariff bills does not amount to the full endorsement of the agreement in its present form. The agreement includes investor-state dispute settlement—or ISDS—provisions, which Labor opposes. ISDS provisions allow foreign companies to sue national governments. These provisions compromise Australia's sovereignty by limiting the ability of Australian governments to act in the national interest. In government, Labor will not agree to include such provisions in trade agreements and will seek to remove them from existing agreements. We note that the Ardern government has successfully negotiated the removal of TPP-11's ISDS provisions as far as New Zealand is concerned. So there is a precedent for the removal of these provisions. It's not a matter of being locked into them forever.

The agreement also waives labour market testing for contractual service suppliers for six countries—Canada, Peru, Mexico, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam. Labor believes that trade agreements must not be used to undermine Australia's immigration system, and the waiving of labour market testing contradicts the commitment of the former Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, that testing will take place before applications for temporary skills shortage visas are granted. As Labor members of the JSCOT inquiry into the bill noted, more than 450 professions could currently be covered by the term 'contractual service supplier'. They include electricians, plumbers, carpenters and nurses. No other country has provided Australia with such generous reciprocal visa rights, and it is unclear why such concessions were offered by the government. Labor acknowledges that foreign workers play a role in the success of our economy, but it is a fundamental principle of fairness that Australians should be offered work first and that foreign workers be brought into Australia only for a demonstrated need. The temporary migration system is intended to supplement the skills of Australians. It is not meant to remove the ability of Australians to get jobs. In government, Labor will seek to reinstate labour market testing for contractual service suppliers and will not allow such concessions in future agreements.

There's also a concern that the ISDS provisions in the agreement will leave Australia vulnerable to protracted legal disputes with foreign owned corporations. Senators will recall that the global tobacco corporation Philip Morris used the ISDS provisions in early agreements to try to overturn the Australian plain-packaging legislation for cigarettes. They sued the Australian government in the Singapore register of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Philip Morris was not successful, but it's idle to say, as some do, that the outcome of that court action shows that there is nothing to fear from ISDS clauses in trade agreements. It is outrageous that the case ever got to court in the first place, and there is no guarantee that future cases initiated under ISDS provisions would end successfully for Australia. That's why the former Labor government excluded ISDS provisions in early negotiations on the TPP. Remember that the Howard government also had such concerns and excluded ISDS provisions from Australia's free trade agreement with the United States. The present Liberal government evidently does not have the concern for Australia's national interest that John Howard did.

Warnings about the dangers of ISDS provisions in trade agreements have been issued by the Productivity Commission, an agency that could hardly be called a den of die-hard protectionists. In 2010, the Productivity Commission reported on bilateral and regional trade agreements and commented that the Australian government should:

… seek to avoid accepting provisions in trade agreements that confer additional substantive or procedural rights on foreign investors over and above those already provided by the Australian legal system.

The commission report also stated:

There does not appear to be an underlying economic problem that necessitates the inclusion of ISDS provisions within agreements. Available evidence does not suggest that ISDS provisions have a significant impact on investment flows.

Experience in other countries demonstrates that there are considerable policy and financial risks arising from ISDS provisions.

The Productivity Commission trade and assistance review of 2013-14 included the following observation:

The provisions depart from national treatment principles by affording substantive appeal rights to foreigners not available to domestic firms, risk impeding domestic regulatory reform …, include safeguards and carve-outs of uncertain effect, lack transparency and have inadequate parliamentary scrutiny.

The substantial scepticism about ISDS provisions from an agency that I think many in this chamber regard as an advocate for the free market should have been a wake-up call for this government. So Labor in government will eliminate the dangers posed by agreements with ISDS provisions and labour market waivers. We will follow the example of the New Zealand government and negotiate side letters to release Australia from those aspects of any agreement.

A Shorten Labor government will not stop there. As the member for Blaxland announced in his speech on these bills in the other place, Labor will introduce legislation prohibiting the inclusion of ISDS provisions or waivers of labour market testing in future free trade agreements. Labor will establish a system of accredited trade advisers from industry, unions and civil society groups to consult on the draft text of agreements during negotiations. Labor will legislate to require that an independent national interest assessment be conducted on every new trade agreement before it is signed. Labor will strengthen the role of parliament in trade negotiations by increasing the participation of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, JSCOT. JSCOT will also be provided with a statement of objectives for the negotiations for consideration and feedback, and will be briefed at the end of each round of negotiations.

Labor have already announced that in government we will introduce a science, medicine, academic, research and technology visa, or SMART visa, to remove the obstacles created by this government's clumsy draft temporary work visas. Although Labor supports labour market testing to ensure that Australians are not disadvantaged when employers seek to hire from overseas, we also understand that, for Australia to remain a world leader in innovation, science and medical research and in high-tech industries, we need to access the very best minds from around the world. The SMART visa will provide a path to permanent residency for educators, innovators and researchers of global standing. A Shorten Labor government will establish an Australian Skills Authority and will seek advice from this authority and from industry to determine the skills and the areas of specialty available for SMART visas. Also, the minimum level income for the visa will be set in consultation with industry.

So Labor's changes will remove the secrecy that surrounds the negotiation of trade agreements—for example, this government's refusal to commission independent economic modelling of the TPP-11, the agreement which is of course the subject of this bill, which I find incredible. In The Australian this morning, Senator Birmingham was reported as saying that failure to adhere to TPP-11 would cost Australia some $15.6 billion in export income. Now, he didn't acknowledge the source of this figure. In fact, he didn't say what projections he was relying on. They were in fact from a report that was commissioned by the Minerals Council and other groups, including the Business Council, the Australian Industry Group and the Food and Grocery Council. The government itself did not commission independent modelling that you would expect to be publicly available during the negotiation process—and that's one of the problems with the present treaty-making process, which Labor will seek to rectify.

The Victorian Labor government did commission independent modelling by the financial consulting firm Grant Thornton. That report concluded that participation in the TTP-11 would result in a modest initial gain for Australia primarily from agricultural goods. The analysis concluded that, although the TPP-11 would not benefit all sectors of the economy equally, no sector would be worse off. But that judgement should be qualified by other data in the Minerals Council report—data that Minister Birmingham did not cite in his media interview this morning. The report, prepared by Peter Petri from Brandeis University and Michael Plummer from John Hopkins University in the United States, states that adherence to the agreement would slightly reduce Australia's output of durable manufactured goods. That is because other countries participating in the agreement have comparative advantages. Petri and Plummer, like Grant Thornton in their analysis for the Victorian government, describe the benefit for Australia under TPP-11 as 'relatively modest'. They estimate it to be below one per cent of real income. And by 2030, Australia's adherence to the agreement would result in a two per cent fall in durable manufacturing. Petri and Plummer say:

… trade agreements that deepen economic relationships with Asia lead … to higher net imports of manufactured products.

We should also note the independent economic analysis of the original Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, the TPP-12, the forerunner of the agreement that is the subject of these bills. This agreement is sufficiently close to the TPP-12 for it to retain the provisions that would be activated should the US choose to join. So the independent modelling that was done for the early agreement continues to be relevant for the present one. And, under modelling for the World Bank, the projected economic benefits for Australia under the TPP-12 were very modest indeed. The World Bank projected a 0.7 per cent increase in GDP to 2030. That amounts to a 0.07 per cent increase in GDP per annum. An increase on that scale is nothing more than a minor blip.

With the new agreement, the TPP-11, nothing much seems to have changed. And I have noted that the evidence of the independent analysis prepared by Grant Thornton for the Victorian government also projects very modest economic benefit for Australia. So what is it that the Australian government has given up in exchange for this modest benefit? It's given away labour market testing that protects Australian workers' rights. It has agreed to provisions under which a future Australian government could be sued by foreign companies. It has made decisions which it presumes are in the strategic interest of the country. And, therefore, we'd argue that, on balance, Labor supports this agreement.

The absence of the US in this agreement means that some of the odious aspects of the TPP-12 have been suspended. This agreement suspends contentious provisions in the original agreement related to biomedical products, copyright and some aspects of ISDS. Australian farmers, manufacturers and exporters of services will gain increased market share and tariff reductions in economies with nearly 500 million consumers. In 2016-17, nearly a quarter of Australia's exports, worth $88 billion, went to countries participating in this agreement. The agreement will remove 98 per cent of tariffs in a trade zone spanning the Asia-Pacific region with a combined GDP of $13.7 trillion. The agreement creates Australia's first agreements with Canada and Mexico. For the first time, Australian exports will gain preferential access to two of the world's top 20 economies. For these reasons, and acknowledging the modest economic benefits estimated by the modelling commissioned by the Victorian government, Labor supports these bills. But it would have been better if there had been Australian government modelling to demonstrate independently the benefits of these arrangements.

We stress, however, that these trade agreements can't be changed through this process. It will require a change of government to change that process. There must be an end to the secrecy. Before an agreement is signed, a net benefit must be demonstrated for Australian participation in the agreement. Provisions in the existing trade agreements that undermine Australia's sovereignty or conflict with the principles of our migration system must be removed. To rely on assurances of economic benefit that have not been demonstrated, whilst surrendering the basic rights of Australians, is an affront to democracy. The democratic principles that should guide any future trade agreements between Australia and other nations are set out in the amendment standing in my name, and I urge all senators to support that vision. Accordingly, I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(1) acknowledges that this preferential trade agreement cannot be amended by these bills, only accepted or rejected;

(2) is of the opinion that:

(a) the way Australia negotiates trade agreements of this type needs to change,

(b) the role of Parliament in trade negotiations should be strengthened by increased oversight of trade negotiations by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, including providing the committee with:

(i) the government's statement of objectives for negotiation for consideration and feedback, and

(ii) regular briefings at the conclusions of each round of negotiations; and

(3) calls on the Australian government to:

(a) seek to remove Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms and reinstate labour-market testing for contractual service suppliers in existing trade agreements,

(b) ensure that future governments are prevented, by legislation, from including ISDS mechanisms or waiving labour-market testing in future trade agreements,

(c) establish an accredited trade advisers program to allow industry, unions and civil society groups to provide real-time feedback on draft trade agreements during negotiations,

(d) subject all new trade agreements to an independent national interest assessment to examine economic, strategic and social impacts before they are signed,

(e) enforce mandatory skills testing in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and all future trade agreements, and

(f) fix the problems in the existing skills testing regime by ensuring that the skills of foreign workers are tested by qualified professionals and required to meet current Australian standards and not by immigration officials."

(Time expired)

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

I rise today to contribute to this debate on the Customs Amendment (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation) Bill 2018 and the Customs Tariff Amendment (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation) Bill 2018, and to clearly outline the Greens' strong opposition to the TPP. We have stood in this place for a number of years now, very concerned at Australia's signing up to a shocker of a trade deal when it comes to sovereignty of our nation, the rights of Australian workers and protecting our environment.

We've just heard a number of opposition issues and concerns outlined by Senator Carr of the Labor Party in relation to this TPP agreement. There are big problems with the TPP, and it is so tragic that, rather than standing up for these principles and fighting to ensure Australia doesn't get locked into this dodgy deal, the Labor opposition are prepared to roll over and vote with the Morrison government on this deal today. We know that a number of Labor opposition members in this place and in the House are very concerned about Labor's position on this—and rightly so. Kudos to those members who stood up in their own party room and tried to fight and to hold back the tide. I'm sorry you didn't win—because Australia needed you to, democracy needed you to and the Australian environment needed you to. And Australian workers need you more than ever. Yet what we have got is the opposition rolling over to vote with the Morrison government to tick this dodgy deal through.

The irony, of course, is that we can list as many as possible of the terrible things that this deal does, but, because of the way trade negotiations are undertaken, we can't fix any of this in this piece of legislation. So we have to take it or leave it, and this is such a bad deal that we should be leaving it. There is no point in playing around and saying, after the fact, that we might fix it—which is what the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, is doing. Well, you can't fix it afterwards, mate—that's the point. It's a dodgy deal and it has been done. We've got to kill it once and for all. That is what has to happen. That is the mettle that needs to be relied on in this place today. Don't tick this through with some false hope being given to Australian unions and Australian workers that, somehow, down the track, if Bill Shorten were ever to become Prime Minister, you could fix it—because we know that is just not the case. It cannot be done.

The truth is that Australia would have to withdraw from the TPP altogether before anything could be amended. So why sign up to it in the first place? This is a bad deal designed in the back room to benefit the boardroom and corporations. This deal is for corporations, not for the community. This deal is for big multinational corporations, at the expense of people. We know that the economic benefits are exaggerated and the costs are downplayed. Big industries' own modelling shows that grain exports will not change and other agricultural exports may decline—as well as the potential of a two per cent decrease in durable manufacturing. This is a pretty cruddy deal. At the time this deal was negotiated by the former Minister for Trade, Mr Ciobo, he was so desperate to come home with something that he signed Australia up—despite the fact that there really aren't the economic benefits that those on the other side are trying so desperately to crow about.

To make matters worse, the agreement represents an affront to democracy and sovereignty because of the insidious ISDS causes. It should be absolutely rejected, up-front, in the strongest possible terms. These investor-state dispute settlement provisions mean big corporations will have more power than ever before to sue Australian governments and the Australian people, regardless of whether our governments are doing things that we have asked them to do or not. This means that these measures advance the interests of these corporations over the interests of governments and the citizens whom they are accountable to. ISDS provisions expand the legal rights of multinational corporations based on legal concepts not even recognised in our domestic legal systems and offer advantages to multinational companies that are not even available to domestic investors. So they are simply unfair, even from a business perspective. They are unfair, they are unrepresentative and they are unnecessary.

The fact that they are unnecessary has been recently upheld in the European Court of Justice. The decision made in 2017, and again in 2018, by the European Court of Justice found that ISDS provisions are fundamentally incompatible with national sovereignty. We should be listening to the experience of others before we sign up for something that includes these provisions. As a result of this finding, the EU is now proposing that ISDS clauses are not to be acceptable in any of their trade negotiations or trade deals, including in the EU's trade negotiations with Australia. So in our negotiations with the EU, which have only recently commenced, the EU has said, 'We're not going to talk to you if you want ISDS provisions.' That is the same approach that we should be taking in relation to the TPP or any other trade negotiations that are on foot.

The New Zealand government has made it clear throughout negotiations that it does not support the inclusion of ISDS provisions as part of the TPP, and it spent time negotiating before signing on the dotted line to ensure that ISDS provisions were removed through four supplementary, legally binding letters with Brunei, Malaysia, Peru and Vietnam. They obviously saw that there was a desire amongst the New Zealand community to have their government stand up for sovereignty, democracy and the right of New Zealanders to have laws in their interests, not in the interests of big corporations.

Australia has not negotiated any such agreement. We are now left with a TPP that signs Australia up to these terrible provisions, undermines our democracy and sovereignty, and, of course, cannot be renegotiated after the fact. We've heard from the Labor opposition that they promise to renegotiate them if they form government. This is an absolute farce and needs to be called out for the furphy that it is. They cannot have it both ways. Why would any country enter into renegotiations with Australia just because there's a change of government when the opposition at the time had the opportunity to fix it once and for all? The sad reality is that this legislation, when it passes this place today, will be subject to ISDS provisions. Labor will not be able to wind them back without withdrawing fully from the TPP. They will be committing Australian taxpayers and citizens to an agreement which they themselves say is against their own party's platform. No wonder Australian unions and workers are furious at the Labor position today.

ISDS powers are routinely used by corporations to attack governments and communities for doing what governments are supposed to do—namely, regulate in the interests of their citizens. In 2016, Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis filed an ISDS dispute against the Colombian government over the government's plans to reduce prices on patented treatment for leukaemia. The Colombian government wanted to reduce the cost of medication for leukaemia so that its citizens could access it, and the big pharmaceutical company came in and said, 'Oh, no, we'll sue you for that.' It is just appalling that this type of power is being handed to these big multinational corporations at the expense of the rights of the Australian people to have our government legislate and regulate in our best interests.

Over and over in this place we talk about the power and influence of big corporations on politics. Well, there is no better example than this TPP legislation before us today. This deal has been put together for the interests of big corporations at the expense of the community and of the rights of the people. We know that in Canada, in 2017, the Canadian Bear Creek Mining Corporation was awarded $26 million from the government of Peru because the government cancelled a mining licence after the Canadian company failed to obtain informed consent from indigenous landowners. In that case, we had a big multinational mining corporation going into Peru and not getting the right consent from the indigenous owners and, when the Colombian government wanted to do something about it, the big multinational company said, 'We're going to sue you,' because the government was standing up for its own people. Just imagine if we signed this piece of legislation into law today and the world's biggest coalmine in Queensland, run by Adani, started thinking that it can sue its way into operation. Giving these corporations this massive amount of power to undermine the interests of the Australian people is on the line today. We are opening ourselves up to the risks of ISDS, and it is simply unjustifiable. The government will argue, and we've heard it time and time again, that these provisions are needed because they give certainty to investors. Well, how about certainty to the Australian people, to know that when they demand action from the government the government will do it and it will stand; that it won't be overridden because of the desire of a multinational corporation?

Of course, these provisions are even more inexcusable given the United Nations IPCC report which was tabled last week, which served as yet another reminder of our gross inaction on climate change. While successive governments have frittered away the last decade squabbling over climate and energy policy, we have moved closer and closer to thresholds that our scientists warn will dramatically and drastically change life on the planet. While the environmental provisions in the TPP are wholly inadequate, the real risk is that these ISDS provisions will stop real action on climate change, because these big multinational companies don't give a damn about the impact of their operations on the people and communities, and they certainly don't consider the impact on the environment or future generations.

Stopping governments from taking necessary action in the best interests of their citizens and our environment is unthinkable. That is what our governments should be doing: looking after our community and acting in the best interests of their citizens—which is why I'm foreshadowing that I'll be moving a second reading amendment that will stop this TPP legislation in its tracks. We should not be considering this legislation anymore until these provisions are removed and until the issues are resolved specifically in relation to the right of Australian workers to know that there is proper labour force market testing in place.

This TPP legislation commits Australia to accepting an unlimited number of temporary workers from Canada, Mexico, Chile, Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam. These workers will be spread across a wide range of professional and technical skilled trades and occupations. The agreement does not require that there be any labour market testing to establish whether there are local workers who could do these jobs first—not even an initial check is required. These workers would then be brought to Australia to work in jobs and on projects regardless of whether there are Australians—particularly young Australians—who are ready and able to do the job on the same project. This weakens our domestic labour market and exploits these temporary workers all at the same time.

Migrant temporary workers remain tied to one employer for the course of their time in Australia, and they face deportation if they lose their job for any reason. This means the exploitation of these workers will remain high and their positions will be very risky. Australia has benefitted greatly from the contributions of migrant temporary workers, and they perform a vital role, but they must be protected by genuine rules and regulations that ensure they are not exploited. This TPP deal not only opens them up to exploitation but also, as a result, pushes down the rights of workers here in Australia domestically. We already know that the Fair Work Ombudsman says that one in 10 complaints to the agency in 2015 came from the exploitation of migrant workers. It is happening already, and this deal will make it even worse. When we sign up to trade agreements we should be signing up to ensure that they maximise job opportunities for Australian workers and give proper protection to both domestic and migrant workers as a gold-clad guarantee, not allow people to be further exploited and undermined. These agreements are written for corporations so that they can continue to exploit Australian and foreign workers twofold. Meanwhile, those corporations get to bank their profits, and nobody looks in either direction.

Even if all these reasons weren't enough, we're sceptical, as the Productivity Commission has been, of the economic modelling promised by the government in relation to this deal. We've had no independent modelling from the Australian government in relation to this. They promise that things will get better, but, in fact, all the modelling that has been done proves otherwise. The government makes generous assumptions of full employment and costless adjustment to claim that there will be only winners, not losers. But anyone who's watched trade negotiations unfold knows that there are always winners and losers. It's a question of whether the government of the day is willing to be up-front about that; that's what counts. We've seen over and over again that this government is wanting to brush all the issues under the carpet.

The government assumes perfect labour mobility and assumes away any income-distribution effects or trade-balance effects. The government can't promise anything except that this is a dodgy deal. What is surprising is that, once you've factored in all those rosy assumptions that are coming from the government side, the economic benefits remain stubbornly minuscule. The Peterson Institute for International Economics in the US has produced a study estimating a very small increase in Australia's GDP after 15 years—0.6 per cent. For Australia, this represents a growth of between zero and 0.1 per cent per year. This is somewhere between nothing and a rounding error.

Today we have before us a deal that signs away the rights of citizens to have the government implement policies and laws in their best interests; a deal that undercuts the ability for Australian workers to get a look-in, first and foremost, if they're able to do a job; and a deal that allows for multinational corporations to exert even more power over the government of the day to create a chilling effect on regulation. And for what? A rounding error, perhaps, of economic benefit. It's a dodgy deal, and it should be thrown out.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I move on to speak about the Trans-Pacific Partnership and, in particular, these associated bills, I will just point out that one of my favourite words in the English language is 'furphy'; I think it's a great word. And what we've just heard is a very large number of furphies about this legislation, in particular about the ISDS provisions. I ask those listening and those in the gallery: for all the criticism of the ISDS provisions that we've heard—provisions supported by governments of all persuasions over 30 years—how many times has the Australian government actually been taken to a tribunal on the basis of ISDS provisions? The answer is once—once in 30 years. So this is not, as it is painted to be by the Greens and, sadly, by some in the Labor Party, a huge thing to fear.

The ISDS provisions are there for a very good reason: to protect Australian companies investing abroad. ISDS promotes investor confidence and can protect our sovereign and political risk. If a country does not uphold its investment obligations, an investor can have their claim determined by an independent tribunal, usually consisting of three arbitrators. As I said, ISDS provisions have been around for a very long time—30 years, in fact. There are ISDS provisions in six FTAs, including the China-Australia, the Korea-Australia, the Chile-Australia, the Singapore-Australia, the Thailand-Australia and the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand free trade agreements. Obviously, there are also ISDS provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This is a fairly standard part of international trade agreements.

Sadly, though, we are in a world where the benefits of trade are being forgotten and where the benefits of trade are being undermined by populists from all sides of politics, unfortunately. In this debate, we've heard it from the left of Australian politics but we've seen it in the US from the right side of their politics. They are uncertain about the benefits of trade and the importance of trade, but we on this side of the chamber know the benefits of trade and know the benefits of increasing our trade with the rest of the world. Australia is at the end of the line when it comes to trade. We are a trading nation; we have to trade. We have to trade for our wealth, we have to trade for our security and we have to trade in order to grow our economy and in order to give future opportunities to the next generations of Australia. That's why this government has been so committed, right throughout its period of office, to delivering free trade agreements that grow the economy, that grow jobs, that grow wages and that actually give this country the opportunity for the next generation to succeed and thrive, doing what we do best. I will move on to talk about something that's very close to my own heart—the agricultural sector—in a little while.

Just in general, the TPP-11 is one of the most comprehensive trade agreements ever concluded, including Japan, Chile, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Peru, Brunei, Vietnam, Canada and Mexico. Those last two, which I'll speak a little bit more about later, obviously open up markets and open up preferential access to two of the top 20 economies in the world. The TPP-11 eliminates more than 98 per cent of tariffs for these 11 countries. Those 11 countries have a combined GDP over A$13 trillion and 500 million consumers. Those consumers want our high-quality produce, our minerals and our high-tech exports that Australia does so well.

The TPP-11 will eliminate all remaining tariffs on Australian exports of non-agricultural products to the TPP-11 countries. Australian farmers, Australian manufacturers, Australian service providers and Australian small businesses—in fact, all exporters—will be big winners from this free trade agreement. That is because it will be easier to sell their goods and supply their services into a free trade area that spans the Americas and Asia. In 2017, nearly one-quarter of Australia's total exports, worth nearly $92 billion, went to the TPP-11 countries. This will continue to grow as those tariffs start to go down. This sort of boost will drive the future of growth. It will drive future jobs, it will drive higher wages and it will drive investment to allow the next generation to have the sort of opportunities that we all had.

It also provides improved access to markets where we already have FTAs, such as Japan. In the process, there is an acceleration of the reduction in Japan's tariffs on beef and the elimination of a number of tariffs on cheese. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, as I mentioned earlier, also creates the first opportunity to have a free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, giving Australian exporters preferential access to two of the top 20 economies in the world for the first time. That's why it is so important that the TPP is put in place as soon as possible—to lock in those benefits and allow those small and medium-sized businesses who are doing the hard work of growing the economy and creating jobs to secure those new market opportunities around the world but particularly in the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership will enter into force 60 days after the first six TPP-11 members complete all necessary ratification procedures. Our government, the Morrison government, will continue to pursue a trade agenda that opens new markets for Australian businesses, contributes to a stronger economy and creates Australian jobs. It was not that long ago that those opposite—in particular Bill Shorten—said this deal was dead in the water. Well, this government didn't accept that. This government got on with the job. Even though there were challenges to having this agreement finalised, it got on with the job with the 11 countries who were still interested in having one of the largest free trade areas in the world and managed to get the deal done. Opponents are risking $15.6 billion in annual benefits to the Australian economy, forecast to be realised by 2030.

As I said earlier, agriculture is close to my heart. Again, we are a trading nation. Australian farmers export around 77 per cent of what they produce. We need to get our trade policy right for our farmers to ensure they have ongoing access to the markets they need but also have growth opportunities to supply the clean, green produce from Australia to the rest of the world. Australian farm exports were valued at $44.5 billion in 2016-17, and obviously that's been one of the significant growth sectors in our economy. TPP-11 does ensure better access for farm exporters, including beef producers, sheepmeat producers, dairy producers, canegrowers and sugar millers as well as cereal and grain exporters, rice growers, cotton growers, woolgrowers, horticulture producers and wine exporters. That certainly covers the gamut of the major agricultural assets in Australia.

I will go through some of these in detail. I will start with beef. Japan's beef tariffs will be reduced to nine per cent within 15 years of entry into the TPP. This will improve access for fresh, chilled and frozen beef exports into Japan. We'll also see elimination on tariffs on offal exported to Japan. That will give us the potential to boost those exports. Canadian beef tariffs will be eliminated within five years of the TPP coming into force. Currently, those tariffs run at 26½ per cent. We do have a market in Canada at the moment. It was around $100 million in 2016-17. But we certainly see the potential there to increase significantly with the removal of a 26 per cent tariff. There's also elimination of Mexican tariffs on beef carcasses and cuts, which are currently 25 per cent. That will take place over a 10-year period. Tariffs on offal, which are currently at 20 per cent, will come into force immediately the TPP is ratified by those six countries. So there will be significant gains for the beef sector.

We exported around $8.5 billion worth of grains and cereals in 2016-17. Nineteen per cent of that, worth $1.6 billion, was exported to the TPP countries. Again, the TPP builds on the existing free trade agreement with Japan, where there will be increased quotas for Australian grains and the mark-up on wheat and barley will be reduced by 45 per cent over an eight-year period. There will also be elimination of Mexican tariffs on wheat, currently at 67 per cent. I think many people thought the world had already moved on a lot of these tariffs and had started to bring down these barriers over the last 30 years, when people did widely share the view that tariffs were detrimental to the economy and particularly detrimental to those who bought products within an economy—detrimental to consumers. But there are still some very significant tariffs out there, including 67 per cent on wheat and 115 per cent on barley in Mexico. These will be reduced progressively over the years ahead. In Canada there will be the elimination of tariffs on grains and cereal. Canada is a significant grain and cereal producer and exporter in its own right, but there may be some niche market opportunities into Canada that our very high quality producers in Australia can access.

Dairy products exported from Australia were valued at more than $2.1 billion in 2016-17. Almost half were exported to Trans-Pacific Partnership countries. The TPP includes significant improvement to access to the Japanese, Canadian and Mexican dairy markets. The National Farmers Federation stated that the TPP-11 will lock in new valuable market access for our farm exports. Improved access to global markets is critical to achieving increased farm gate returns. We've been talking a lot in this place—and I'm sure many in this place would have heard from dairy farmers in their states—about some of the difficulties dairy farmers are facing, so opening market access will improve the bottom line for dairy farmers.

Australia's wine export volumes have improved over the last year. The value of wine exports is up 20 per cent to $2.7 billion and export volumes are up about 10 per cent, which I believe is a new record. Around 20 per cent of our exports go to the TPP-11 countries. The Winemakers' Federation chief executive said that the TPP-11 is a very good deal for Australia and a very good deal for rural and regional Australia in particular:

At a time when farmers around the country are experiencing crippling drought, deals like TPP-11 give hope for a long-term sustainable future.

That hope is real, that hope is there and that hope is built on increasing our market access to countries right round the world, which the TPP-11 does.

It is great news for the wool sector, which has been going gangbusters in the last six years or so after a very lean period. From entry into force the TPP eliminates all remaining tariffs on Australian raw wool exports to TPP-11 countries. We have all seen the burgeoning of high-quality merino wool in fashion labels right around the world. It is a fabric of choice now across so many different parts of the market, from the suit I'm wearing to sporting gear. People love wool. People love Australian wool. This will, as I said, eliminate all remaining tariffs on raw wool exports. That's great news for the Australian wool industry.

A majority of mining income is derived out and about in rural and regional Australia. It contributes about eight per cent of Australia's GDP and around 60 per cent of our exports. Iron ore accounts for 52 per cent of world trade. My home state of Western Australia accounts for 38 per cent of the global iron ore export market. Iron ore sales reached a record 270 million tonnes in 2016-17, valued at $63½ billion. Our mining sector depends on exports for its survival. The Minerals Council of Australia said:

Australian workers, jobs and business will benefit significantly from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP-11) trade agreement, with increased national income, exports, investment and wages …

It is pretty clear from the above that industries in rural and regional Australia are positive about trade and about the TPP in particular, and this isn't a surprise. There has been modelling conducted for Australian industry associations by Professor Peter Petri and Professor Michael Plummer, which looked at the impact of improved market access for goods, services and investment under the TPP-11 trade deal. The modelling showed that by 2030 the TPP-11 would increase national income by $15.6 billion, boost Australia's exports by about $30 billion, generate additional direct investment into Australia of $7.8 billion and additional overseas investment by Australian businesses of $26 billion, and lift real wages with higher wage gains for lower skilled workers.

Just briefly in the time left, I want to get back to the ISDS issue and why it isn't something that needs to be worried about. ISDS provisions have been in operation as part of free trade agreements for 30 years. They have only been used once. They're not automatically a part of free trade agreements; they're included on a case-by-case basis, always based on whether an ISDS mechanism is in Australia's national interest.

An ISDS mechanism is very clearly not a threat to Australian sovereignty. It does not prevent the government from changing its policies. It does not prevent the government from regulating in the public interest. It does not prevent the government from regulating in the interests of the environment or regulating in the interests of our own health system. It does nothing to freeze existing policy settings. Australian companies have used ISDS in proceedings against other countries to protect their investments overseas, so this isn't a one-way street. It isn't about giving evil multinationals the ability to tie up the Australian government in tribunals, because 30 years of evidence shows it's only happened once—whereas, on a number of occasions, it has given Australian companies the right to protect their investments overseas in that tribunal setting.

That's a very important note to end on. The TPPs are an excellent addition to our armoury of free trade agreements around the world. The government continues to negotiate a range of free trade agreements, including the Australian-European Union Free Trade Agreement; we have ongoing discussions with Indonesia about the comprehensive economic partnership agreement, and there has been some movement on that; the Australia-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement; the Australia-Hong Kong Free Trade Agreement; the Pacific Alliance Free Trade Agreement; and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. And, of course, we are also talking to the United Kingdom about the possibilities of a free trade agreement with them in the post-Brexit era. Trade is good for Australian business. It's good for Australian families. It's good for consumers. It will reduce the cost of imports. It gives us increased opportunities to do what we do best and sell it to a global market. I absolutely commend these bills to the chamber.

Fraser Anning (Queensland, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to oppose and condemn the Customs Amendment (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation) Bill 2018 and related bills, that enable what is commonly called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This agreement is bad for Aussie business and bad for Aussie workers and families. Because of this, I foreshadow that I will be moving a second reading amendment to the bill.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement might be great for Vietnam, the Philippines and other low-wage Third World economies, but it is very bad for Australia. This agreement is but the latest in a long line of deals with foreign countries that give away Aussie jobs and industry to supposedly disadvantaged foreign nations, beginning with Whitlam, who put a wrecking ball through Australian industry with his unilateral tariff cuts. Subsequent Liberal and Labor governments have all been infatuated with the internationalist vision of trade. In 1975, the Whitlam government signed the United Nations Lima Declaration, through which the Australian government sold out Australian industries and workers by specifically agreeing to transfer manufacturing to Third World countries, supposedly to help them develop. Almost every move to liberalise trade since that day has led to a net transfer of jobs and industry away from Australia, and the current TPP is just the latest outrageous example. Giant transnational corporations love the Lima agreement, of course, since taking jobs away from decently-paid Aussie workers and instead employing Third World semi-slaves made them a fortune. Perhaps that is the reason why both Labor and the Liberals agree on these kinds of trade deals. The Left think that our national prosperity is something to apologise for and that we have an unending obligation to subsidise foreigners. In practice, if not intent, the capitalist globalists agree with them. Transnational corporations don't care about the best interests of Australians, only their own profits, and profits are larger if you employ Third Worlders on slave wages than if you employ Aussies on decent award wages.

Like all post-Lima declaration trade deals, the TPP will allow foreign multinationals the right to dictate terms to our government regarding rules and regulations. The TPP will see Australia's sovereignty further eroded. This agreement will allow cheap foreign goods from countries with historically bad safety regulations to flood the Australian market. The TPP will see food from countries with almost non-existent workplace health and safety standards enter Australia—just like the Asian white spot disease, which was introduced and devastated our prawn sector. The TPP will see hardworking Australians fighting against workers whose wages would be considered slavery in Australia. Their wages are so low that they struggle to afford food, shelter or clothing. To protect our sovereignty, food security, wages and work, the TPP agreement must be rejected.

Australia was once a nation of doers, hard workers and builders. We tamed the harsh, dry land of the outback. We built massive infrastructure projects, like the Snowy scheme. Australia was the land of the worker and the farmer. Now, ever since the Whitlam era, we have seen a Liberal-Labor consensus in favour of globalism, foreign ownership, exporting jobs and importing cheap foreign labour. This has resulted in Australia becoming the land of unemployed university graduates and foreign workers. Our major parties have allowed Australia to become a nation without work, with our remaining major industries, mining and hospitality, digging things up and selling them to foreigners, and serving dinner and drinks to our foreign overlords. Our once prosperous economy has been raided and pillaged by multinational corporations. That is exactly what Australia has seen with these global trade agreements.

We have seen the demand for labour drop as factories move overseas, while the major parties allow foreign workers to flood the country. This has caused the devastating problems of wage stagnation and the casualisation of our workforce. Without a proper wage and stable, full-time work, how can Australians provide for their families? Before Whitlam, 70 per cent of the Australian workforce were employed in decent, well-paid jobs in manufacturing. Now there are barely any. One-sided trade deals since the Lima declaration, like the TPP, have seen almost all of our manufacturing closed down. The Liberal-Labor consensus is happy to see the whitegoods industry gone, the textile industry gone, the glass industry gone, the steel industry gone and, of course, the Aussie motor industry gone. Whatever we have left will be destroyed by the TPP.

The first focus of any Australian government should be the long-term security and prosperity of Australian families and Australia. Families are only strong when there is stable, well-paying, full-time work. A nation is only strong when families are thriving. My amendment goes to the heart of this issue. My amendment will provide that further consideration of the bill will be postponed until the TPP agreement is renegotiated to exclude countries with low wage levels and countries that provide direct or indirect subsidies for key products. My amendment will protect the jobs and conditions of Aussie workers. I ask my Senate colleagues to think again about this UN-inspired globalist compact, voting for my amendment or rejecting these bills if my amendment is unsuccessful.

Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this bill before the Senate, the Customs Amendment (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation) Bill 2018, and related legislation. It will enact the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that was signed in March, and it is the latest success in the coalition government's ambitious trade agenda. Following remarks in the other house from the Labor Party—which showed, at best, tepid support for the TPP-11—I am delighted to see that those opposite now are in support of these important bills today, and I commend them for it.

The coalition team consistently supports increased free trade agreements with our international partners. We're a team that recognises trade as a major economic driver for industry, particularly in my home state of Queensland. The confident trading approach taken by the coalition government will see our farmers and manufacturers more competitive in the Asia-Pacific region into the future. The TPP-11, which will enter into force before the end of this year, strengthens our existing free trade arrangements in the Asia-Pacific region. Parties to the agreement include Canada, Chile, Japan, Brunei, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam. The agreement will eliminate 98 per cent of tariffs on our exports in a marketplace consisting of over half a billion people and a combined GDP of $13.8 trillion. Last year nearly a quarter of all Australian exports went to TPP-11 countries. This deal will see preferential access to the additional markets of Canada and Mexico for the first time—the world's 11th and 15th largest economies, respectively. The modelling shows that the TPP-11 will see $15.5 billion, or a 0.5 per cent increase, in net annual benefits to our national income by 2030.

The passage of this bill into law is incredibly important for rural and regional Australian industry, especially for those who are already doing it tough in dealing with the difficult circumstances of the drought. The economic prosperity of communities throughout regional and rural Australia depends upon strong export markets. Farmers produce more than there is demand for in this country, and that's something on which they should be commended and supported. The increase in trade that the TPP-11 will deliver increases the wealth of our nation and concentrates that opportunity into the areas that are doing it tough, like rural and regional agricultural industries and the manufacturing sector.

As Australia is a net exporting country, greater access to the international market will not only benefit our farming communities but also enhance opportunities for our manufacturers. Across Australia, manufacturers of iron, steel, aluminium, paper and leather goods will benefit from the TPP-11. In Queensland, this extends to the agriculture, resources and coal industries. Let's not be mistaken: more trade means more Australian jobs, every day of the week. We are a trading nation, and the enactment of the most comprehensive trade deal ever negotiated will see more Australians employed directly and indirectly in the exporting, manufacturing and farming industries.

The TPP-11 is expected to reduce compliance costs for Australian exporters. I get pretty excited about a reduction in red tape, and that's something we will deliver with the TPP-11. Exporting to the various nations at present requires eight separate forms. That will now be streamlined to a single set of documents for our free trade agreement partners. The arrangements that are in place are even more complex for non-agreement partners, and anything we can do to make doing business simpler and easier for Australians in business is a good thing. Australians will also benefit from being able to self-certify the origin of their goods for export, unlike the current outgoing system, in which non-preferential certificates of origin had to be sought.

These are just some of the simple but practical ways in which the coalition government's ambitious and confident agreement with our international partners will achieve greater efficiency for Australian exporters. An example of the real benefits that this deal will provide is the advantage from which beef exporters from Australia will benefit within two years, when the tariffs they face will be 13 percentage points lower than those faced by their United States counterparts, one of our most significant competitors. Our manufacturers will benefit from the elimination of tariffs on industrial goods. Raw wool will see the immediate elimination of all remaining tariffs. There will be improved access to Japanese markets for our cereals and grains, including new quotas on barley. Mexican tariffs on wheat, currently sitting at 67 per cent, will be eliminated within 10 years—in addition to the elimination of the 115 per cent tariff currently on barley that goes into Mexico, which will be gone within five years. Dairy, pork, cotton, sugar and rice growers will also benefit from the TPP and similar measures. I could go on and on listing who and how this deal will benefit each of our rural and regional industries. Suffice to say that more products produced in Australia will have a market to go to with returns that will benefit Australians from coast to coast.

Given these significant benefits, it's really important that Australia implement the TPP-11 as soon as possible to ensure that we have a competitive advantage. The TPP-11 will enter into force 60 days after six member countries have ratified the agreement. Currently three countries—Mexico, Japan and Singapore—have ratified the agreement. A number of other countries, including New Zealand, Peru and Canada, have indicated that they will ratify the agreement in the coming months. If the TPP-11 were to enter into force this year without Australia having ratified it, our exporters would be placed at a significant competitive disadvantage. We would risk other countries having superior access to the beef, dairy, cheese and wine markets, for instance. That's why we need to move now to implement the TPP-11 and maximise the advantage we can gain for Australian exporters.

It's worth pausing to observe that the TPP-11 is an important example we can point to of this government demonstrating leadership when things look difficult. Reaching a deal for the TPP-11 was far from guaranteed. When the United States withdrew from the negotiation process early last year, the chances of securing the important agreement were far from certain. With no guarantee of success, this government nevertheless chose to stand firm and pursue the agreement rather than retreat or give up. And while the Leader of the Opposition in the other place preferred retreat—calling the deal 'dead', and labelling those on this side of the chamber 'delusional'—the government continued to advance Australia's agenda of free trade and open markets. I'm delighted to say that this government was successful in the process. In its dogged determination to secure more opportunities for Australian producers and manufacturers, it has delivered once more.

It's also regrettable that the actions of those who represent the Greens political party demonstrate that they don't understand the benefits of free trade to Australian industry and jobs. While the coalition government gets on with the job, the Greens' dissenting report to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee's inquiry into these bills now before the Senate details a striking ignorance about the benefits of free trade. It's rather curious that, in that dissenting report, they claim that the agricultural and manufacturing industries will be damaged by the TPP. The source for those concerns, a recent modelling report titled 'Australia will gain from continued Asia-Pacific trade integration', seems like an odd source for reaching that conclusion. While their dissenting report rejects passing these bills because of their impact on agricultural and manufacturing, we on this side of the chamber support passing the bills for that very reason. The impacts on these industries will be greater wealth, more jobs, more opportunity and more choice for our regional and remote communities. While we are strongly focused on creating greater export opportunities, the Greens seem to be more concerned about burdening our international markets with more and more tax-like effects. The government knows that Australia is an open-trading nation whose prosperity now and into the future depends upon our export markets and depends upon trade. For example, one in five Australian jobs relies on international trade, with that trade equating to 40 per cent of our GDP. It's no small measure. Today is a timely reminder of which parties are focused on delivering for Australia and which parties think that produce grows merely on the shelves of supermarkets.

The Liberal-National government has been focused on trade and creating more opportunities for Australia's farmers, families and businesses for every single day since its election in 2013. Five years ago, only 26 per cent of our goods-and-services trade received duty free or preferential access to overseas markets. During the time we have been in government this has substantially changed. We have concluded or updated seven free trade agreements, including with China, Korea, Indonesia and Japan, providing us with unprecedented access to overseas markets and bringing down prices for consumers. These agreements now account for nearly 70 per cent of our trade, with current negotiations potentially taking that figure up as far as 88 per cent. In 2017-18 Australia achieved record exports of $401 billion. Our global trade surplus was $6.3 billion. The TPP-11 continues on this work and is just another example of our tireless commitment to investment, jobs and trade.

The TPP-11 is truly a next-generation trade agreement and a significant moment for open markets, free trade and export opportunities for working Australians. The agreement will increase national income, remove tariffs, reduce red tape, and expand export access for Australian farmers and Australian manufacturers. It is for these, I suggest, very good reasons that I strongly support Australia's entry into the TPP-11 and, as a consequence, support the passage of these bills.

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

Today we have before us legislation, the Customs Amendment (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation) Bill 2018 and related bill, implementing the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. This deal started in 2005, nearly thirteen years ago, immediately following the failure of the Doha multilateral trade rounds. It didn't get supercharged until after 2010, when President Obama put his stamp on it, but it has been a long time coming. We need to ask ourselves as a chamber why that is. Why has it taken nearly 13 years for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement to come to us in legislation? You can draw your own conclusions. It's extremely complex, divisive, controversial and unpopular. I say to the senators in the chamber here today and those listening: for six years I have been campaigning against this so-called trade deal. Senator Milne before me opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement in 2010, and my colleague Senator Hanson-Young has done an excellent job in recent years flying the Greens flag on this.

There is a good reason that we oppose the TPP. This is a corporate takeover of our democracy, to put it in a nutshell. You can come in here and bung on as much as you want with speeches written for you by staffers about what a great deal this is for the country; if you have a look at it closely, you'll see that we already have bilateral trade deals with the majority of countries in the TPP 11, with very limited increases in market access. This is not a free trade deal in the way the coalition are describing it; this is much more about services and investment. This is a deal for large multinational corporations.

Let me tell you a little bit more about this. When the TPP negotiations were underway there was no access at all for community groups or other stakeholders, apart from big corporations who had exclusive access. They were covered completely by commercial-in-confidence clauses about what could be disclosed. And, of course, we had our DFAT negotiators, who I for five years tried to get answers from at every estimates and who, seemingly, felt insulted when we asked them questions about what was going on behind closed doors. And it wasn't just us in this country, I know our counterparts and stakeholders I've dealt with in other countries have had very similar issues. We have a deal that's essentially synchronising laws and regulations around things as important as investment and services. Things that cover nearly every facet of our lives in this country are being negotiated behind closed doors by people who aren't responsible to parliament.

What did I do when I took on this issue in 2012? I looked at our treaty-making process and I initiated an inquiry, which went for some time. I recommend senators have a read of that inquiry report. It's called Blind agreement: reforming Australia's treaty-making process. When the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee released this report I don't think there was any disagreement from any senator from any political party that our treaty-making process was in dire need of change and of reform. The report stated:

The committee correctly identifies that the scope and complexity of 'modern trade' or 'partnership' agreements—such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement—makes the case for reform compelling.

The committee identified, 'three major areas for urgent reform: transparency, consultation and independence'. The committee also acknowledged that:

The incursion of modern trade or partnership negotiations into matters of domestic policy and public interest is such that they now function as a 'de facto level of government'.

What have we done to reform our treaty-making process? Absolutely nothing. We've done absolutely nothing.

The Greens put in a dissenting report at the end of that committee inquiry. Unfortunately, while we got general agreement that our treaty-making process was in urgent need of reform, the Labor Party said: 'We're a party of government. We don't want to jeopardise the executive power that goes with government.' But that's ultimately the tension within trade deals. The executive is the one who control trade deals with their department, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and other negotiators. When they've got the deal to a point where they think it's good they then give it to parliament. Guess what? It goes through a JSCOT rubber-stamp process—a government-controlled committee. We have a references committee that is opposition-controlled and that often recommends change but nothing ever happens. We get lock, stock and barrel. We either vote for the whole lot or we can reject it. There are some good things in these trade deals. Why can't we change it? It's just not possible under our treaty-making process. It's a joke that we get given thousands of pages of text around these extremely complex trade deals and investment deals that cover just about every aspect of our lives in this country and elsewhere and we can't change a bloody thing; and if we do it jeopardises the entire deal, so nobody does.

I've seen it with the Japanese free trade deal. I've seen it with the Korean free trade deal. I have looked at it in relation to the Chinese free trade deal, the RCEP agreement and the new Indonesian deal underway. It's the same thing: no move at all to reform our treaty-making process. I recommend senators read that report, because there are a number of recommendations about what we can do to reform our treaty-making process so that we don't get ourselves into this situation here, this farce, where we have to say yes or no to thousands of pages of detail on extremely complex matters of investment and trade.

Now, the Greens support trade, but we support fair trade. One of the reasons the Doha round of multilateral negotiations, which included all WTO members, fell apart was that there was enormous hostility from civil society all around the world. In what is now commonly called the battle of Seattle, nearly 40,000 people turned up in Seattle to protest against globalisation and the rules being written, behind closed doors, by multinational corporations for sovereign nations like Australia with compliant governments—the same governments who were taking donations from those large corporations—to the exclusion of civil society and parliaments around the world. So it fell apart.

Why did the Greens—Senator Milne and I and others—make an early decision not to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership? We have a fundamental philosophy that every environmental problem on this planet and just about every social problem on this planet is caused by a business or commercial activity. I want senators to reflect on that. Whether it's climate change, the warming of our oceans, the loss of half the Great Barrier Reef, overfishing, the trashing of our forests or the pollution of rivers—you name it—it's caused by business activity. So, when all the business CEOs are in one room secretly negotiating a deal, why wouldn't we include externalities and rules and regulations that control the business activity that causes all these problems and undermines workers' rights—all the kinds of criticisms that have been raised by my party in this debate?

I've raised this issue too—and, by the way, it's in the treaty reform bill—and the only answer we've ever got is: 'It's not the right forum for that, Senator. It's not the right forum for dealing with emissions.' Well, what is? The Kyoto Protocol? The Paris Agreement? Look at that. The fact is that what we are about to sign up to here, including state-to-state settlements and investor-state dispute settlements, are binding agreements. They are binding agreements. But do you think, between 11 or 12 countries, we can get anywhere near a binding agreement on environmental protections? Look at Japan. Japan took the leadership on the TPP-11 when the US pulled out. Only a few weeks ago, they threatened to walk out of the International Whaling Commission because they didn't get their way. So much for rules-based order! The legislation before us today has come to us from Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Prime Minister, the same Prime Minister who's agitating to increase the size of Japan's whaling fleet and walk away completely from an international rules-based order banning whaling, including in the Australian Whale Sanctuary in the Southern Ocean. Do you think there is something in the TPP that might hold the Japanese to account on an activity like killing cetaceans? There are a few platitudes in there, but there is nothing binding so that we can turn around to Japan and say: 'Wait a second. You want to be our friend and ally on all these things to do with investment. What the about the protection of cetaceans?' That's what Australians feel strongly about. What about action on emissions or the illegal trade in wildlife? There is nothing at all binding in these agreements on that, because it's not a priority. It's not a priority for the corporations that cause a lot of these problems, and it's clearly not a priority for our government or for most governments around the world. That's why civil society have been fighting these multilateral agreements: because they want fair trade. They don't mind trade agreements, but they want agreements that are fair for all stakeholders, not just agreements that are written for business.

Let's talk about investor-state dispute settlements, another thing that you, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle, may not be surprised that I wanted to know a lot more about when I was carrying the can for this portfolio. Once again, I had the committee's agreement to have another wide-ranging inquiry into ISDS, on my Trade and Foreign Investment (Protecting the Public Interest) Bill 2014, and it went for 18 months. We were the only parliament—the only parliament in the world—that had an inquiry into ISDS and banning ISDS. I had the French consulate and other people contacting us. There was a lot of interest in this inquiry. It has been quoted in journals all around the world since the inquiry.

Oddly enough, we got hundreds of pages of evidence from witnesses—including ISDS experts and lawyers who conduct investor-state dispute settlement cases—and there was agreement in the committee that these ISDS clauses had certainly outlived their use-by date and weren't necessary anymore. Yet do you think we could get them banned from future trade deals, like the Greens push for? The committee said, 'No, we're not going to ban these, because it might tie one hand behind our back in negotiations.' That was the key reason. If a country wants to include an investor-state dispute settlement clause, it may end up complicating future trade deals. Where's the principle that we shouldn't be giving special rights to corporations to sue sovereign governments in this day and age? If I've done anything in this place, it's stand up to excessive corporate power. That's what this TPP is; it's a blueprint for excessive corporate power.

I must say, I was very disappointed that, in a speech he made just two weekends ago, the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, commented that there's never been a better time to be a multinational corporation. He was saying that sarcastically, yet it seems as though Labor is going to vote for this legislation and give them exactly what they want. They have spent 13 years trying to get this legislation through this parliament and other parliaments—that is 13 years of opposition all around the world to the TPP, not just here in Australia but elsewhere. Here are some of the conclusions from the report on ISDS:

(a) Litigation using ISDS has proliferated in recent times and this is likely to increase into the future.

(b) ISDS clauses have outlived their usefulness and are now under review in a number of countries and trade negotiations, including 10 countries in Latin America, South Africa, India, Indonesia and the European Union …

In fact, the new NAFTA negotiations have excluded ISDS between US and Canada, so they are backtracking on the use of ISDS. The report continues:

(c) There is no evidence that ISDS clauses have any economic benefits for trade or investment, however the risks of using them are clear and supported by evidence and numerous case studies.

(d) Trade deals are changing from historic "market access trade" … considerations to facilitating … "foreign investment" … laws and policies in a wide range of areas, including public health, patents on medicines, the environment, food labelling, Internet use and privacy and local media content …

All these are in the TPP. As I said earlier, nearly every aspect of life in this country is going to be impacted by this trade deal, yet now is when parliament gets to look at it—at the very end of 13 years of negotiations. The report continues:

This makes the inclusion of ISDS more dangerous.

…    …     …

(f) There was strong evidence presented to the inquiry that ISDS "safeguard" clauses can and have been reinterpreted and overturned through the arbitration process.

Lastly but most importantly the report states:

(g) Parliament has no oversight or control over the inclusion of ISDS in trade negotiations—

except that we can reject the entire trade bill before us today because of the inclusion of ISDS clauses in the agreement.

I've only got a few minutes left to go before question time, but let me say this—

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's good.

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

You might learn something Senator Williams; I'll take that interjection. You might think this is about agricultural exports or you might think this is about selling more commodities to the world. Have a very close look at the fine detail; this is a deal about trade and investment. And what do we mean by investment? We mean direct foreign investment which, by definition, is significant investment. It's significant investment between countries. And, of course, the companies that conduct significant investment are, by their nature, usually large multinational corporations—the exact 300 or so businesses that had exclusive access to the negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. These were negotiations that civil society was excluded from, negotiations that we senators were excluded from, and negotiations about which I could get no detail from Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials at numerous estimates over recent years: 'This is it; you can take it—lock, stock and two smoking barrels.'

And the US has pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but, in case you didn't notice, there are 22 clauses that have been suspended in the TPP-11—including clauses related to monopoly pricing of medicines and pharmaceutical companies—that will be reopened if the US rejoins the TPP. What is the process we have to go through if the US wants to join the TPP? So far, we have very little illumination on that point. I would ask senators to think very closely about whether you want to sell your sovereignty down the river in a so-called trade deal.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You want a one-world government!

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

I know you would, Senator Colbeck. I'm very happy to take that interjection.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 2 pm, we will interrupt the debate. Senator Whish-Wilson, you will be in continuation later.