BULLETIN July 2015
Inside this edition:
·Take Action on
the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA)
US Congress grants TPP Fast Track as Productivity Commission slams ISDS, medicine monopolies and campaign continues
US Congress grants TPP Fast Track as Productivity Commission slams ISDS, medicine monopolies and campaign continues
The
China-Australia Free Trade Agreement was finalised in November 2014 but
the text was
only released on June 17, 2015. It appears that the Australian government made
huge concessions on temporary labour and investor rights in
its desperation to complete the deal.
AFTINET's preliminary analysis reveals that
the Australian Government has made arrangements for Chinese investors to
increase the use of temporary migrant workers. It has also agreed that
Chinese investors will be able to sue Australian governments if they
can claim that a change in law or policy "harms" their investment,
known as Investor-State Disputes or ISDS, but those provisions are
unfinished and ambiguous. An unprecedented Memorandum of Understanding separate
from the text of the trade agreement gives Chinese investors in projects valued
over $150 million additional rights to bring in
temporary migrant workers. Critical media commentary includes
Sydney Morning Herald articles by Peter Martin and Michael West,
Kyla Tienhaara in
the Canberra Times and Joanna Howe in the Conversation.
The
text will be reviewed by the Joint
Standing Committee on Treaties and
by the Senate
Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. The
closing date is for submissions is July 24. It will be important that these
Committees receive a wide range of submissions. If you are an individual
member, and want to do a short submission, there are points you can use for both Inquiries on our website. AFTINET and other
organisations will do longer submissions. AFTINET’s longer draft will be
circulated shortly.
Parliament
will only get to vote on the implementing legislation, not on the whole text of
the agreement. Polling shows there is already strong public
opposition to the Agreement Email
your MP now to tell them to vote against the China FTA
legislation. .
After
months of debate, the U.S. Congress on June 26 finally passed the procedural Fast Track
legislation for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement (TPP). This means
the Congress has given up its right to amend the TPP text, and will only be
able to vote yes or no after the text is agreed and signed by the US
government. But the US public opposition to the TPP means the actual TPP vote will be also
be a battle in Congress.
Fast
Track does clear the way for further negotiations between the TPP Trade
Ministers, who may meet in the last week of July to try to finalise the deal.
If agreement is reached, the ceremonial signing of the text may then take place
from August, after which it will become public and be tabled in the Australian
Parliament for review by Parliamentary committees. However the text cannot be
changed and Parliament will get only get to vote on the implementing
legislation, not on the whole agreement.
Australian
Parliamentary debate on the TPP intensified with the launch on May 25 of a cross-party Parliamentary group
critical of the TPP led by Melissa Parke
MP (ALP),Senator Peter
Whish-Wilson (Greens), and Senator
Nick Xenophon (Independent), which received media
coverage in The Guardian and on
ABC Radio National..
The
public and community debate has also intensified. On May 27 one thousand union
delegates at the ACTU Congress endorsed a resolution calling on the Australian government to
release the TPP text or withdraw from the TPP negotiations. AFTINET
members in Sydney Melbourne and Canberra have continued to address community
meetings on the TPP, averaging two meetings per week.
Media
coverage of the TPP stepped up as the Productivity
Commission on June 24 launched a scathing attack on Australia's
latest series of free trade agreements, saying they grant
legal rights to foreign investors not available to Australians, expose the
government to potentially large unfunded liabilities and add extra costs for
businesses attempting to comply with them. Community opposition to the TPP was reinforced by a call from 10 United Nations Human Rights Rapporteurs for a halt to further TPP negotiations
and release of the full text so that proper human rights impact assessments can
be done. They say the TPP could have detrimental effects on human rights to
health, clean environment, improved labour standards and an
independent judiciary.
On the
same day the government sent to
many journalists a document defending the TPP entitled “TPP: Myths and Realities”. This
document creates straw people, misrepresenting the claims of critics and
failing to address substantial criticisms. AFTINET’s
reply is on our website has
been sent to journalists and all members of Parliament, and received a good
response.
This debate about the Productivity Commission and the Government’s
defence of the TPP was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald , and AFTINET was interviewed about it by
The Australian, ABC Radio National , SBS TV News and other media. There were further critical TPP
opinion pieces on June 29-30 from Peter Martin in the The Sydney Morning Herald, Ian Verrender in the ABC National News blog The Drum and Ken Davidson in the Melbourne Age .
If the
TPP text is finalised at the end of July, it may be signed and tabled in
Parliament for 20 sitting days by the end of August or beginning of September,
but the text cannot be changed. AFTINET will analyse the text and make
submissions to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties and the Senate Inquiry
if one is established. Parliament will only get to vote on the implementing
legislation, possibly in October or November. If the text is not in the public
interest, we will be asking for your support in our campaign to get the Senate
to block the implementing legislation, which is the only way to prevent the
agreement from being finally ratified.
The
analysis of Blind Agreement, the Report of the Senate Inquiry into the Australian
trade agreement process released on June 25 reflects the views of the
overwhelming majority of submissions. These criticised the current secret
and undemocratic process and called for the text of trade agreements to be
released for public and parliamentary scrutiny before they are signed. These
demands have grown because trade agreements now deal with issues like
medicines, copyright, food regulation, labour rights and other public interest
issues which should be decided through the democratic parliamentary process,
not secretly signed away in trade deals.
The
majority report came from ALP members of the committee, with dissenting reports
in the same document from the Greens
arguing for more change and the Coalition supporting the current system without
change.
The
Report’s actual recommendations, while improving on the current process, fall
short of full transparency and democracy in a number of areas. For example, the
report recommends that the Australian government seek agreement from
negotiating partners for the final draft text of trade agreements to be tabled
in parliament prior to authorisation for signature, but does not make this a
condition of entering negotiations.
The
Report recommends that, during negotiations, parliamentarians and their
principal advisers and stakeholders with relevant expertise from industry,
civil society, unions, consumer and other groups be granted access to draft
treaty text but only under conditions of
confidentiality. This severely limits debate of the details of
the text during negotiations. The report also recommends that the Join Standing
Committee on Treaties take a more active role prior to and during trade
negotiations, but only through confidential briefings.
.
The
report criticises National Interest Analyses, which are currently very limited
documents prepared by DFAT, which is also responsible for trade negotiations.
The report recommends that they should be prepared by an independent
body, be more comprehensive in addressing the environmental, health and
human rights effects of trade agreements and be presented to the government
before an agreement is authorised by Cabinet for signature, but
only “wherever possible”.
The Report presents a robust
analysis of the problems of the current process, but it is disappointing that
it has failed to follow the example of the World Trade Organisation which
releases draft negotiating texts, and the example of the European Union which
has agreed unequivocally to release the text of the Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership before it is signed. The report also shied away from
recommending that Parliament vote on the whole text of trade agreements, rather
than just the implementing legislation, despite agreeing that there were no
constitutional barriers to Parliament having this role. Media coverage included
articles by Gareth Hutchens in the Melbourne Age and
Peter Martin in the Sydney Morning Herald.
AFTINET will continue to pursue these
issues with the government and with the ALP, Greens and independents.
RCEP: more leaks on proposals for
stronger medicine monopolies
The Regional Comprehensive
Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations between 10 ASEAN countries plus
Australia, NZ, China, Japan, India, South Korea began in 2013 and have now intensified.
Following concerns in May about a leaked Japanese document which proposed extensions of monopoly
rights on medicines, AFTINET and the Public Health Association met with TPP
negotiators to express our concerns. On June 8, Dr Deborah Gleeson and
colleagues published an article in The Conversation which revealed a leaked South
Korean text with
similar proposals. The Public Health Association and other health organisations
have written to the trade Minister and other ministers expressing their
concerns that such proposals would delay the availability of cheaper generic
medicines and mean prohibitive medicine costs in RCEP developing countries. AFTINET
and health organisations will continue to meet with R CEP negotiators about
these issues.
The Pacific Island community campaign to halt negotiations has received media publicity and community network PANG is hosting
teach-ins with church, gender and environmental groups.
There are still reported differences
in the negotiations over trade in goods, services, investment, seasonal workers
and development assistance. Negotiations are expected to continue into 2016.
The Australian government announced in
June an expansion of the seasonal labour arrangements
with Pacific Islands, apparently with no further safeguards to protect workers’
rights. A 4 Corners Report recently exposed exploitation of Holiday
Visa farm workers from non-Pacific countries.
Consultations are being held around
Australia about Pacer-plus and seasonal worker arrangements by the Pacific
Island lead negotiator for Pacer-plus, from the OCTA. The Sydney consultations
are to be held on July 14, at 10 AM level 3, Trades Hall building, corner of
Goulburn and Dixon Sts, Sydney . Dates in other cities are listed below. For
further details of times and venues in other cities ring 03 9664 7277.
-
Melbourne on Monday, 13 July 2015
-
Adelaide, Wednesday 15 July 2015
-
Brisbane, Thursday 16 July and Friday 17 July 2015.
Trade in Services Agreement (TISA)
leaks expose corporate deregulation agenda for financial and human services
On June 4, 2015 WikiLeaks published leaked documents from the
secret TISA negotiations between the US, the EU Japan, Australia and 20 other
countries, mostly developed countries which are services exporters wanting to
reduce government regulation seen as barriers by global services corporations.
These negotiations are taking place outside the World Trade Organisation
because many of the WTO’s 161 members are developing countries who want to
retain the right to regulate services. AFTINET Coordinator Dr Patricia Ranald
was interviewed in a Sydney
Morning Herald article which criticised TISA
proposals for weaker financial sector regulation despite the experience of the
global financial crisis and recent financial planning fraud. There are also
proposals for less government regulation of licensing, qualifications and
technical standards, which in areas like child care and aged care could prevent
future governments from improving staff qualifications and quality of care in
those services. On July 2, further
leaks of TISA documents confirmed these trends.
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