The following article was published by The Guardian, newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia, in its issue of February 18th, 2004.
Reproduction of articles, together with acknowledgement if appropriate, is welcome. The Guardian, 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills, Sydney 2010 Australia. Editor: Anna Pha Communist Party of Australia, 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 10 Australia. General Secretary: Peter Symon Phone (02) 9212 6855 Fax: (02) 9281 5795 Email CPA [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Guardian [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription rates are available on requests. CPA statement on Free Trade Agreement Defeat the FTA The proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Australia and the United States of America poses a most serious threat to the sovereignty, independence, economic prosperity and security of the people of Australia. It is not simply a trade agreement but an outright sell-out and betrayal of Australia to the US corporate agenda for global domination by a government that cannot do enough to please its Washington masters. Trade Minister Mark Vaile described the agreement as "a great example of government working with industry". It is certainly is! It was negotiated in secrecy by government and big business representatives, and the details of the agreement have still to be released to Parliament and the public. The honourable minister appears to have a lot to hide, judging by the vagueness of his statements and obvious lies. US reports reveal that there will be changes to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. These include establishment of an "independent" committee with the power to override decisions of the government committee over listings and a strengthening of the big pharmaceutical companies' patent rights at the expense of cheaper generic medications. This will result in higher prices. At first the Government may absorb these, using taxpayers' money, but eventually they will emerge in the form of higher script payments. As prices of medications move towards those in the US, Australians can expect to pay between three and ten times as much for their scripts. Minister Vaile is clearly lying when he tells the Australian people that "the price and listing arrangements that ensure Australians access to quality, affordable medicines, remains intact" and that the price of prescription medicines will not increase as a result of the FTA. "This is the most significant immediate reduction of industrial tariffs ever achieved in a US free trade agreement", the US Trade Office proudly declares. It estimates US exports of manufactured goods to Australia will increase by US$2 billion (A$2.6b) compared with a corresponding increase of only US$1.4 billion for Australia. This will increase Australia's trade deficit with the US (already A$6 billion) and lead to the loss of many thousands of jobs. In return Australian rural exporters (especially large agribusiness concerns) will benefit from the removal of tariffs on lamb, sheep, cereals and some horticultural products, and increases in some quotas. The beef quota, for example, will be increased in small increments over 18 years, and tariffs on wool removed within four years and other wool items within 10 years. But for sugar growers, the US markets remain as tight as ever. The FTA covers much more than just trade in manufactured goods: it also covers "trade in services", that is, the provision of education, welfare, health, financial services, transport, telecommunications, energy, water, entertainment, media, audio visual, and other services. It also goes beyond trade to cover foreign investment, securities markets, quarantine regulations, customs, industrial laws, environmental, intellectual property, competition policy, deregulation, health and safety, and other issues. Environment to rely on "voluntary market-based mechanisms" Quarantine and environmental regulations are also seen as barriers to investment and trade. The FTA will see an easing of our vital quarantine laws and a weakening of existing environmental protection. The agreement advocates instead the promotion of "voluntary, market-based mechanisms to protect the environment". But the handing over of quarantine matters to "market-based mechanisms" endanger the health of our people and the security of crops and animals. They could have catastrophic effects. Possible changes to labelling requirements (eg for genetically modified foods) also pose a serious threat to public health. The transnational corporations (TNCs) consider protection against foreign takeovers and preference to domestic companies to be barriers to investment and trade. The clear aim of the FTA negotiators was to remove such "barriers". The FTA opens up the Australian economy to US corporations and financial institutions. Trade Minister Mark Vaile claims that Australia "retains the right to examine significant foreign investment proposals in all sectors". But his US counterpart says, "All investment in new businesses is exempted from screening under Australia's Foreign Investment Promotion (sic) Board (FIRB)". (The correct title is Foreign Investment Review Board - was this a Freudian slip or does it indicate that major changes to the FIRB have in fact have already been canvassed or agreed on?) The US statement continues: "Thresholds for acquisitions by US investors in nearly all sectors are raised significantly, from A$50 million to $800 million. This higher threshold would have exempted nearly 90 percent of US investment transactions from screening over the past three years." Vaile makes an amazing pronouncement about provisions on media and audio visual issues: "The agreement ensures that there can be Australian voices and stories on audiovisual and broadcasting services, now and in the future." Can be? Must be! But in fact the elimination of "Australian voices and stories" seems likely judging by US claims: "In the area of broadcasting and audio visual services, the FTA contains important and unprecedented provisions to improve market access for US firms and television programs over a variety of media including cable, satellite, and the internet." These examples show that the FTA is a comprehensive document going far beyond trade questions. It picks up on many of the provisions of the previously discredited and aborted Multilateral Agreement on Investment and some of the most contentious demands made by the US, Japan and European Union that led to the collapse of the Seattle and CancFAn WTO ministerial meetings. The FTA says there may be "joint cooperative activities to advance common objectives and work on labour law and practice ." What does this mean? In the context of the far greater power of the US and the grovelling, capitulating nature of the Howard Government this can only mean Australia adopting the pro-corporate, anti-union laws and practices of the USA. The claim by the Australian Trade Department that "Both parties retain the right to establish their own domestic environmental and labour standards and to adapt or modify their own laws" is not convincing, especially since the TNCs criticise differing laws and practices between countries as a barrier to trade and investment. The FTA threatens the sovereignty and independence of Australia. It undermines the right of elected governments to regulate key aspects of essential services, investment, industrial development and environmental protection. Government powers in the sphere of labour protection would also be curbed. Decisions about all those promised new jobs would be made in New York boardrooms. Even local government faces loss of control of services. Based on NAFTA We are told that much of the FTA is based on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA,) between the US, Canada and Mexico. When the Mexican Government signed on to NAFTA, the people there were similarly bombarded with tales of export-led growth, economic security (we are promised 50 years of it!), employment opportunities, higher wages, environmental protection, improved welfare. We are promised all of these plus labour rights! But for the people of Mexico these promises proved to be myths. The reality for Mexican workers was quite different. NAFTA resulted in the distortion of trade flows, loss of productive capacity, a stagnant economy and foreign investment largely in the form of takeovers and mergers. Workers have born the brunt of NAFTA. There were job losses and wage reductions. Prices rocketed, unemployment rose and somewhere between 25 and 40 million Mexicans now live in extreme poverty. The toll in term of health and malnutrition is horrendous, with an estimated 60 per cent of indigenous children suffering from severe malnutrition. NAFTA has also been used by the TNCs to drive down wages and working conditions across North America by pitting US, Canadian and Mexican workers against each other as they vie for too few jobs. While conditions in Australia are not the same as in Mexico, the scene is being set for similar outcomes. The people of Australia would face further privatisation and US corporate domination of health, education, water, energy, welfare, transport, etc, with higher prices, poorer quality services and all the other ugly consequences of profit-first provision of essential services. Political decision The FTA is a mechanism for the economic neo-colonisation of Australia by US corporations. In Canada, under NAFTA, the Canadian Government was successfully sued by a US corporation for attempting to legislate to ban the sale of fuel containing a proven carcinogenic additive. Not only was the government forced under the provisions of the "free trade agreement" to allow the cancer-causing product to be sold, but it was obliged to issue a public statement that the additive was "harmless" even though all the scientific evidence clearly showed it was not. What the Australian Government describes as the integration of the Australian economy with that of the US is inevitably an unequal relationship - in the economic, political and military areas. Above all the FTA is a political decision with far wider implications for Australia and the world than the economic and social ones raised above. The Howard Government is primarily concerned about demonstrating to the US its strong political loyalty and that it can always be relied upon. It is less concerned about the interests of the Australian people or the Australian economy. For the Howard Government the main question is not whether the Australian people or even Australian industries benefited or suffered from the FTA. The main question is Australia's "partnership" with the US - economically, politically, militarily and in every other way. The FTA seeks to bind Australia even more tightly to the USA in a relationship where the US will be the dominant power and Australia at best, a deputy sheriff policing the region and running to the assistance of the Global Cop around the globe whenever summoned. Australia already blindly follows the US in its wars, carries out joint military exercises under US command, and provides facilities including Pine Gap for US military and intelligence services. The US is in the process of establishing bases near Darwin and in Western Australia. The Howard Government supports and is participating in the aggressive and hideously expensive Star Wars program and is about to embark on a massive $50 billion military equipment program to facilitate the integration of our military with that of the US. Much of that money will be spent in the US, whose corporations will rake in even bigger profits as tariffs are removed. Australia is important to the US in its pursuit of global domination because of its strategic position in relation to Indonesia, South East Asia, Korea, China and Taiwan and the Pacific Island nations. It is also important as a resource basin for the large manufacturing sector in the US and as a stepping off point for economic ventures in Asia. The FTA is a major step in the process of a US takeover of Australia. In global terms it sets a model for the US to push at the WTO and in other bilateral and regional negotiations for similar agreements. Just as there is pressure on Mexico and Canada now to extend NAFTA into other areas, including common laws and policies, there will certainly be pressure on Australia to extend the FTA to integrate Australia with the US in much the same way as the countries of the European Union are now integrated. The FTA must be defeated. Every ordinary Australian has an interest in seeing it defeated - students, workers and trade unions, actors and filmmakers, local manufacturers, small farmers, pensioners, the unemployed, environmentalists, peace activists... all have common interests in seeing it defeated. There is an alternative There is an alternative based on - Sovereignty and democracy: Elected governments should not be overridden by commercial interests or prevented from legislating or acting in the interests of people. The economy: Governments should control key economic levers such as banks, financial flows, investment, imports, telecommunications, postal services, water supply, job creation, trade to be put on the basis of mutual benefit and all other aspects necessary to protect Australia's sovereignty and independence. Social services: Governments should retain responsibility for the provision of basic essential public services in health, education and welfare. Regulation of the economy: Both the private and the public sector should be made accountable. Environmental protection should be a priority of government in their economic management. Industrial: Australian governments should be free to legislate on industrial issues without having to make any sacrifices of sovereignty and independence arising from trade legislation. ************************************************** -- Visit the proposed Leftlink web site at http://www.leftlink.net/ -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
