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

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I present Report 188, entitled Investments Uruguay, ISDS UN Convention and Convention SKAO and move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The report that has just been tabled contains the committee's review of three treaty actions:

The observatory is something that is very important to myself and my fellow senators from Western Australia, as one of the key sites for the SKA will be in the Murchison region of WA.

Australia's approach to investment treaties has evolved over time to keep up with modern investment treaty practices. To reflect these changes, the government has undertaken reforms to update our older-style treaties. This is the case for the new investment treaty with Uruguay. The agreement replaces a 2002 bilateral investment treaty. Updated provisions include explicit procedural and substantive safeguards for investor-state dispute settlements, or ISDS.

The need for greater transparency in relation to ISDS proceedings has been a longstanding matter of public concern. The United Nations convention will enhance transparency and public accessibility to ISDS arbitration. It will allow for the existing UN Rules on Transparency in Treaty-based Investor-State Arbitration to apply to a wider pool of investment treaties.

ISDS provisions provide protection to Australian businesses investing abroad and for that reason are desired by countries entering into trade agreements with Australia, such as Uruguay. ISDS allows investors to enforce their rights directly under international investment treaties. Rights include being treated the same as local investors, being treated the same as other foreign investors and receiving compensation if investments are expropriated or nationalised. ISDS does not stop the government from regulating in the public's interest, including in relation to health and the environment.

Australia has had ISDS arrangements in place for over 30 years and during that time has had only one ISDS case brought against it before a tribunal, which Australia successfully defended. In contrast, the government is aware of at least five Australian corporate companies that have made ISDS claims against other governments. Australia is not party to these disputes.

Most particularly from a Western Australian perspective, I wish to acknowledge the work being done by Australian scientists, particularly around the work they are doing in establishing the Square Kilometre Array Observatory in the Murchison region of Western Australia. The SKA is a global big-science project to build the world's largest and most capable radio telescope. The project began in the early 1990s and is an international partnership to build and operate the world's largest, most advanced radio observatories. Australia and South Africa will each host SKA telescopes. The governing body, the SKAO Council, which is headquartered in the UK, will be responsible for the overall strategic and scientific direction of the project, including policies, rules, regulations and budget. Australia's involvement in the project is expected to provide a range of benefits. These will include reinforcing Australia's commitment to international cooperation in scientific and technological fields. Australia's astronomer-at-large Professor Watson assured the committee that the SKA is expected to generate Nobel prizes. He expects some of those to come to Australian scientists.

My fellow senator Matt O'Sullivan and I were fortunate enough to travel to the Murchison region around a month ago and visit the SKA future site. Already in that location we have the SKA Pathfinder, which is doing groundbreaking work gazing back into the earliest origins of our universe. To see some of the equipment they're using up there—some of which looks like it was put together by a farmer while some of it is the most highly scientific apparatus, such as a giant Faraday cage housing a massive data centre—is quite remarkable, and it is in the middle of one of the most remote parts of Australia. As a Western Australian, I am very proud that Australia is being a very important part of this in an international sense.

As a whole, the committee recommends binding treaty action be taken for all three treaty actions reviewed in this report.

On behalf of the committee, I commend the report to the Senate.