How do we make free trade fair?

The article goes on to list comments from people in the industry, saying that current free trade deals under negotiation are significantly jeopardising an industry that was clearly already struggling.

What type of risk-weighted analysis was provided for the shutdown of these industries that are so critical to our country, and particularly to the states of Victoria and South Australia? How was this assessed? Clearly, it was seen as a very high probability by people in the industry. I remember the discussions we had around the Thailand free trade agreement, after which we saw a massive increase in car imports from Thailand. The article talks about that, saying that more than 170,000 Thai-made vehicles were imported into Australia last year alone. Their numbers have risen by 50 per cent over three years. Ford sold just 100 SUVs to Thailand in return.

This issue has been in the public arena: who are we trading down the river to get increased agricultural exports for Australia? While I understand the importance of agriculture and want to help our farmers and primary producers export more commodities, we have to acknowledge the risks. We need an adult conversation about trade. Trade is important—it is critical to our economy—but let us forget this notion of free trade and focus on fair trade.

The Greens negotiated with Labor in 2012 that any future trade deals would need to have the potential benefits and costs assessed up front. It is very important to keep these factors in mind when you are embarking on the long road that leads to trade negotiations. As we have seen with the Productivity Commission's report, the benefits of free trade agreements have been oversold and have not been delivered, particularly in relation to the US free trade agreement. The Greens call on the government to release its modelling so these questions and others can be answered.

Successive governments have talked down to the Australian public by only ever spruiking the benefits of free trade agreements. It is time to have an honest discussion about winners and losers that come out of trade agreements, who gets to pick them and who they are. Are the winners the special interests that are in the government's ear; those special interests that have the lobbying power to get their way? And how do such agreements overpower areas of public interest such as preventing whaling in our southern oceans?

Minister Robb came clean last week. Although the coalition did have a very clear policy to try to prevent whaling, at the end of the day sending a customs vessel could have jeopardised a trade deal with Japan. In that instance, the government was not prepared to act on its promise about something that is clearly of public interest in Australia—more than nine out of 10 Australians do not want to see the illegal slaughter of whales under our law, because they love these creatures—because of the potential ramifications with Japan. I could not put in dollar terms what the death of whales means to me, but I do know that it is very important to the public and that that type of trade-off should be actively discussed, not just here in parliament but also in the media.

Such a discussion involves releasing the text of this trade agreement and any economic modelling. The Senate has already compelled the government to release the text, but it has not complied. It refuses to do so. It remains to be seen whether that can be delivered, both for this trade deal and for the Trans-Pacific partnership agreement.

Rushing in to sign these agreements is not in our national interest, particularly when the agreements are so unclear. In fact, they are totally lacking in any detail. They have been done in secret, with no transparency, by good negotiators at DFAT, I suspect on behalf of special interests in this country who have the ability to get in the government's ear to get what they want and also by special interests in the US: big, powerful multinational corporations. We should not put the power of corporations and profits ahead of the people.