Free trade and fair trade

Already 80% of food in supermarkets is foreign-owned and far too much of it is imported. Where are the promotions of all-Australian products in shops? We have promotions of say, Dutch or Italian goods. At Christmas, fine chocolates on display in supermarkets are all imported. You may look vainly for the many Australian makers of fine chocolates and other sweets. Why should lemons in the shops come from the United States, at up to a dollar each, in suburbs where gardens grow lemons by the bushel?

Government tenders can seek the cheapest suppliers, while Australian heavy industry languishes.

In agriculture, farmers may be uprooting their long-term investments - for example, their orange trees, because they cannot afford to harvest them. Sometimes this is because the area is not suitable for continued growth of these crops. But often, it is simply the competition from other countries that have cheap labour and low exchange rates.

If we cut our carbon emissions by abandoning our aluminium industries - an obvious industry to maintain with our abundant raw material, and the needs of continuing manufactures - we are only sending the emissions overseas by buying the aluminium that we import. Greater innovation in production would be the better option.

The future requires that we have food security, self-defence, and jobs for youth.

We should still be protesting and asking for re-negotiated clauses in Free Trade Agreements. Tell the politicians to defend their country.

Up for grabs under the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (The Agreement) are Australian agriculture, manufactured goods, financial services, intellectual property, freedom of information, investment, health, education, entertainment, media, automotive, telecommunications, e-commerce, quarantine, technical regulations and standards, environment and labour.

The Agreement goes far beyond a trade agreement. It includes foreign investment, competition policy, government procurement and makes many of our own laws subject to US regulation, such as quarantine and copyright.

United States corporate interests can prevent legislation that protects Australia's interests, including environmental or social welfare, and can sue our government in costly litigation paid for by us taxpayers. The powers of the Foreign Investment Review Board are crippled.

Such agreements make Australia lose the power to govern itself.

Canadians complain about losses of power to self-govern in their own country. Mexicans complain that the initial rush of United States investment because of lower labour costs has now shifted to Asia, where labour costs are lower still. But these countries have the benefit, which we have not, of being next to the United States, so that bilateral trade agreements for goods to flow across borders make sense.

It does not matter whether we are in name a republic or not, if in effect we become an economic colony of the United States or China. We should be friends, not subordinate to other countries interests. The United States' history of assertive colonization and 'free trade'should warn us. They want 'freedom to' and we need 'freedom from.'