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

Don’t forget, such rights in an FTA also protect Australian investment in the US. Most foreign investment from Australia goes to the US. It has grown rapidly over the past decade. Australia invests more in the US than in France. I’ll bet your union’s pension fund has investments in the US. All good funds do. It is the heart of the world economy.

The pharmaceutical companies do not want the pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme scrapped and never have. You and others continued to say this when it was never true. They employ 12,000 Australian workers and are one of our largest manufacturing exporters. They want to continue to invest in Australia. But if they cannot get a commercial return on their investment, it is not worthwhile.

If the government wants the people to have lower drug prices, the effective way to do this is to subsidise the prices from tax revenue, not force drug companies to sell at uncommercial prices. The result we need from an FTA is one that supports continuing investment in the pharmaceutical industry and access to affordable drugs.

There is no threat to Australian film production. In fact, it is thriving. Last year it produced half a million dollars worth of film, mostly for US studios. It has never created more work or jobs. The key interest of the US film industry in Australia was tougher penalties for piracy of DVD movies. Canberra has already agreed to do this. I am told that Australian rules requiring TV broadcasters to show a certain amount of Australian product (local content) is not likely to be a major issue.

Quarantine and GMOs. The latter are not an issue - ask the Americans. The only person who said they were was a rookie journalist at The Sydney Morning Herald. On quarantine, we have as much to challenge in regulations as they have in ours. I predict a nil-all draw on that issue.

If these are the so-called costs of the Agreement, then it will be painless indeed. Normally in any deal, Doug, you measure the gains against the losses. As I said earlier, the big long-term gain for Australia is being kitted out to succeed in the global economy as we move into the Information Age. Imagine being able to do that without pain and in the interim secure increases in Australian exports to tune of over $2 billion dollars for agricultural and manufacturing industries? Looks like a bargain to me.

Alan

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