Havachat: Free, fair or foolish? The Australian-US FTA - Day 4

• Australia's quarantine laws;
• requirements for labelling of genetically modified foods;
• government procurement;
• controls on foreign investment;
• commodity boards and agricultural support;
• local media content requirements;
• the government holding a stake in Telstra.

The US government sees the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme as contrary to free trade because it keeps prices for Australians too low and, therefore, limits the profits for the US drug companies. Polls have shown that up to 90 per cent of Australians oppose a US free-trade deal that would change the PBS. The community opposes changes to the PBS because Australia has been founded on the ideal that access to good health should be based on need, not ability to pay. This is an ideal that is worth "Protecting".

The cost and quality of our quarantines, post and telephone services are similarly under threat. Trade agreements like NAFTA have clauses that have been used to challenge the right of States to subsidise their essential services like communications and these clauses have even been used to challenge laws protecting the environment.

The real concern for ordinary Australians is that, unless specifically excluded, services such as health, education, water and post will be affected by a USFTA. Surely the people, through their parliament, should be determining the policy and direction of the delivery of these core services.

Free-trade agreements mean trading away the ability for our governments to form independent economic, environmental, social and cultural policy.

As to your final comment about "self-appointed civil society groups", perhaps I need to remind you that positions such as my own, and indeed most others you have listed, are elected by the people they represent. The union movement represents about two million Australians. "Pat Ranald’s small network" consists of over 65 organisations including the ACTU, Oxfam, the Australian Council of Social Services, the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, UnitingCare and others.

Doug

From: Alan Oxley
Sent: Monday, May 28, 2003 17:38
To: Doug Cameron
Subject: Re: First response

Doug,

You warned at the outset that the FTA would be too costly. Australian culture and social systems would be undermined. This is not the case. If these are the only problem areas, we are in for an easy time.

You claimed the FTA would free foreign investment, double pharmaceutical prices, undermine Australian film production and scrap controls on quarantine and GMOs. This is a scare campaign - the claims are hollow, or we benefit.

We need foreign investment. It has given us world-class automobile, pharmaceutical, mining, food processing or metals processing industries. Are your members worse off working for companies that are foreign owned, like Ford in Geelong and Mitsubishi in Adelaide?

Today, every new foreign investment over $10 million has to be scrutinized by a committee of Canberra officials in Canberra. This is pointless red tape. We do not make Australian companies do this. Most proposals are approved anyway. Such controls deter investors. If an FTA can make foreign investment more automatic, we win. More foreign investment means more growth, more new technology and more jobs.