TPP: MP critics have their say
With the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement formally signed in New Zealand in the first week of February 2016, it is now up to individual nation states to formally agree to it by their parliament passing legislation.
The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) of the Australian Parliament will consider the TPP agreement in the first half of 2016. With a government majority on the committee, changes are not likely – even though significant opposition exists throughout Australia to it. For example, the Productivity Commission and trade unions find themselves, unusually, on the same side of the fence against it; academics and activists oppose it; even at least one Liberal member of the governing Coalition is against it (see Bill Heffernan, below).
Senators Nick Xenophon (Ind, SA) and Bill Heffernan (Lib, NSW) at the forum at Parliament House on 3 Feb 2016.
The main proponents of the TPP are the National Party and the Trade boosters within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: unsurprisingly, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade can find only good things to say about the TPP.
Those who oppose it can find good reasons why it should not go ahead:
- It produces so little benefit over the next 15 years to Australia – and to the USA, a 0.036% increase in growth rate, provided all the positive assumptions prove to be true – that it has been virtually a waste of the time to have negotiated the treaty https://www.cla.asn.au/News/tpp-mps-should-resist-ratifying/ ;
- The treaty was negotiated by the world’s giant multinational corporations, whose lawyers had access to all drafts over the past five years: civi society and opponents were only allowed to see the treaty for the first time two months ago once it had been locked in stone;
- Australia cannot change a word of the draft, no matter what JSCOT and the Australian Parliament might want. However, the USA retains the right for its Congress to change the deal unilaterally…AFTER everyone else has agreed to the treaty;
- A provision in the TPP, the Investor State Dispute Settlement clauses (ISDS), take away sovereignty from Australia, usurp the role of the Australian High Court as final arbitrator of Australian law, and allow unqualified “tribunal” members to make judgements binding on Australia that are completely ad hoc, and follow no mandated precedent trail; and
- The main argument against Australia not ratifying the TPP treaty in 2016 is that we do not have to ratify it until the end of 2017: by then Canada and the USA might well have pulled out of the deal…leaving Australia with egg on its face for rushing in where only foolish MPs would tread.
Here is what the speakers at a major forum at Parliament House Canberra in early February 2016 had to say about the TPP:
TPP Forum: independent assessments needed before Parliament votes
A report by Pauline Westwood, CLA member and expert on TPP issues
The Parliament House forum was hosted by Melissa Parke MP, Senator Nick Xenophon, Kelvin Thompson MP and Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, all of whom spoke. Wednesday 3 February 2016, 11.30am-12.30am, Committee Room 1R1 Parliament House, Canberra.
Speakers
Pat Ranald (AFTINET Convenor)
Michael Moore (CEO Public Health Association of Australia)
Ged Kearney (President ACTU)
DaneyFaddoul (Senior Campaigner, GetUp)
Above: Dr Patricia Ranald, from AFTINET, explains barbs and thorns in the TPP agreement during a forum at Parliament House Canberra on 3 Feb 2016. Others are Senator Peter Whish-Wilson (Greens, Tas), convenor Melissa Parke (Lab, Fremantle WA), the ACTU’s Ged Kearney and Kelvin Thomson (Lab Wills Vic).
Pat Ranald (AFTINET)
Spoke about the need, after all the unrealistic spin, to do a reality check on the TPP. A letter endorsed by 59 civil society organisations has been sent out to parliamentarians, detailing some of the major concerns about the TPP. See http://aftinet.org.au/cms/sites/default/files/010216%20%20CSO%20letter%20final%20on%20letterhead%20links%20website%20version.pdf
-especially the implications for the cost of pharmaceuticals, workers’ rights and protection of the environment. There is also a draft letter for members of the public to send to their representatives. http://aftinet.org.au/cms/civicrm/petition/sign?sid=33&reset=1
DrRanald suggested that the TPP was not a fait accompli. Although Australia and other countries (excluding US) will sign the agreement in Auckland on February 5, this is only a first step, and ratification is still a long way off.
There is a lot of opposition from both sides of politics in the US, and several of the major presidential contenders have come out against the TPP. It is unlikely to go through prior to the US presidential election, and Congress haveannounced they won’t even consider it before the US election. It is worth bearing in mind that Congress wants changes made to further US interests. It would be very foolish for the Australian government to race ahead to pass the enabling legislation before the final form is even available. Although Canada will be signing the agreement this week, they say that they regard their signature as largely symbolic, and not as a commitment to proceed to ratification.
Due diligence needs to be done. So far, the only official analysis conducted is the National Interest Analysis, done by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. As they were involved in negotiating the agreement and are implementing this government’s policy agenda, their work cannot be regarded as impartial.
To date all impartial predictions by academics, think tanks (even the US Department of Agriculture) indicate that there will be if any economic benefits from the TPP for Australia, apart from a couple of agricultural sectors. A recent study by the World Bank predicted few benefits for Australia.
See World Bank says Australia will not benefit from trans-pacific partnership http://www.ibtimes.com.au/world-bank-says-australia-will-not-benefit-trans-pacific-partnership-1500140and
Potential Macroeconomic Benefits of the Trans Pacific Partnership by the World Bank http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/GEP/GEP2016a/Global-Economic-Prospects-January-2016-Implications-Trans-Pacific-Partnership-Agreement.pdf
On the other hand, Australians will be penalised in many ways. The cost of medicines will rise as copyright periods are extended, there are serious risks to our health, environment and to labour rights and working conditions. Furthermore, because of the Investor State Dispute Settlement Provision (ISDS) clause, Australian governments at all levels will be liable to be sued by foreign corporations for government measures which may affect foreign corporate profits, most notably in the areas of protecting the environment, workers’ rights and public health (although fortunately tobacco regulation has now been excluded). Acclaimed economist Joseph Stiglitz has written about his concerns that ISDS clauses will make it difficult for governments to regulate about financial markets and climate change
Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) is extremely worried about the delayed availability of generics and the impact of increased costs of medicines in third world countries.
AFTINET and the civil society organisations recommend that until such time as independent recommendations have been carried out and find in favour of the TPP, if enabling legislation is introduced into the Parliament, it should be blocked.
For more information: http://aftinet.org.au/cms/2016-01-Tpp-vote-coming-soon
Michael Moore (Public Health Association)
Initially, Michael thought free trade agreements were beneficial, as they reduce barriers to trade. However, he soon discovered that the Trans Pacific Partnership is not really about free trade; it is actually protectionist, and supports corporate monopoly rights. ISDS clauses allow foreign corporations not only to sue our governments, but even to challenge decisions of our High Court (for example, the unsuccessful suit brought by Phillip Morris). In fact, the chief US negotiator is on record stating that the TPP is not really about trade, but about setting up a template for future trade negotiations – and of course, it is designed to serve the interests of large US corporations.
PHA wants an impact assessment before the agreement is put into place. They have already carried out a preliminary assessment in conjunction with various universities, but that was before the full text was released. As positives, he thought some agricultural sectors would benefit
Main areas of concern for PHA are the cost of medicines, tobacco, alcohol, nutrition &labelling. Only the treatment of tobacco has been dealt with satisfactorily to date. We really need a new public health assessment statement before we consider ratification.
Apart from the problems experienced in Australia, countries such as Vietnam and Peru will be seriously impacted by the TPP, especially the increased cost of medicines. As global citizens, we should also care about the impact on poorer countries.
The PHA recommends that that ratification be blocked unless there is a satisfactory public health impact assessment.
For further information: https://www.phaa.net.au/documents/item/494
https://www.phaa.net.au/documents/item/694
Ged Kearney (ACTU)
The ACTU is particularly concerned about the labour mobility provisions in the China Australia Free Trade Agreement and the TPP. The relevant section of the TPPA is Chapter 12 – Temporary Entry for Business Personshttp://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/tpp/official-documents/Documents/12-temporary-entry-for-business-persons.pdf
This opens up Australia to temporary entry to foreign workers, without a requirement for labour market testing, and these workers are available to both foreign and Australian businesses. Each party sets out its own conditions, and Australia has opened its borders to large numbers of overseas temporary workers, without obtaining reciprocal access for Australian workers to other partnership countries.
It should be noted that the United States made no such commitments under this section, effectively opting out of opening up its borders to temporary workers under the terms of Chapter 12. On the other hand, Australia has extended its open doors beyond business people to “contractual service suppliers.”
Australia appears to have opened up its borders to a greater extent than any of the other participating countries, and more so than under ChAFTA. Countries such as Chile, Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam have much narrower entry profiles than Australia. Labour market testing is required for certain specific occupations such as engineering and nursing. It should not be removed from other categories. DFAT have admitted that labour market testing will be a casualty of the TPP. Although there are provisions in the text for regulating temporary entry, they are fuzzy.
In addition to the potential impact on Australian jobs, these provisions leave vulnerable workers wide open to the sort of exploitation we have seen already, such as agricultural workers and 711 employees. Although there are references to ILO standards, there is no provision for enforcement or any remedies to be applied.
For more on the ACTU and its policy on the TPP, seehttp://www.actu.org.au/our-work/international/campaigns-and-issues/trans-pacific-partnership-agreement
DaneyFaddoul (GetUp)
The GetUp petition includes more than 300,000 signatures.
This is a dangerous deal. It is a corporate power grab, which among other things, puts the public internet at great risk. GetUp is asking Malcolm Turnbull and Andrew Robb to reject the TPP, Otherwise, it should be rejected by Parliament. (Parliament, it should be noted, can only vote down the enabling legislation, not the agreement itself).
For GetUp campaigns, seehttps://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/tpp/email-your-mp/the-trans-pacific-partnership-whats-at-stake–2
https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/tpp/tpp/the-dirtiest-deal-you-ve-never-heard-of
https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/tpp/write-to-robb/write-to-minister-robb-we-cant-risk-the-tpp
Parliamentary Speakers
Senator Peter Whish-Wilson
The TPP is not a trade deal – certainly not a free trade deal. Michael Froman (USTR) calls it a blueprint. It is a partnership. There are other similar agreements on the horizon. It is about monopolies. A deal this size should be democratic. There were ten recommendations by the Senate committee looking into the making of trade agreements. The government responded that the executive had the power to make treaties and ignored the recommendations. SeeBlind agreement
The Parliament can only scrutinise (and it can block any enabling legislation, but cannot amend or block the treaty itself).
The present treaty-making process is anti-democratic and needs to be reformed. Compare this with the Paris climate change meeting, which included input from many civil society groups and which was more open. However, any agreements were non-binding.
The TPP is really about looking after big business and government spin. When the Senator asked Senator Arthur Sinodinos, given widespread expert opinion that the new safeguards on the use of ISDS are ineffective, whether he could guarantee that Australian governments would not be sued for regulating coal-seam gas or protecting the environment, Senator Sinodinos claimed that the ISDS clause would not be a problem and that it would protect Australian investors (ignoring the other protections available to investors under the WTO system). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZtQeM5yCrA
In fact, the very presence of the ISDS clause in such a huge agreement will cause uncertainty and lead to regulatory chill. He raised the example of the wine industry. Australia currently protects
New Zealand wine producers along with Australian producers, even though New Zealand does not protect Australian wine producers. Should we try to change that, we might be at risk of litigation.
Senator Nick Xenophon
Senator Xenophon is particularly concerned about clean food in addition to other issues raised by other speakers. He mentioned the poor performance of previous agreements. To quote from a press release by the Senator, which covers these points: http://www.nickxenophon.com.au/media/releases/show/trans-pacific-dud/\
Senator Xenophon said the Government had failed to show how the TPP was in the Australian national interest, coming after more than a decade of bilateral free trade deals that have led to much worse trade imbalances with partner countries, including:
- Singapore (signed in 2003) $8.9 billion trade deficit growing at 15 per cent a year
- Thailand (signed in 2005) $7.8 billion trade deficit growing at 14 per cent a year
- Chile (signed in 2009) $954 million trade deficit growing at 15 per cent a year
- United States (signed in 2005) $22 billion trade deficit growing at 4 per cent a year
(for more details on these Australian Bureau of Statistics figures see – :http://www.nickxenophon.com.au/media/releases/show/china-syndrome-fta-a-raw-deal-for-our-sovereignty-/
Senator Xenophon also pointed to criticisms by the Productivity Commission that FTAs were largely ineffective and not beneficial to Australia as a whole.
“If the Trans Pacific Partnership is the ‘big kahuna’ of free trade deals, that just makes it a bigger mistake for Australia. We have become known internationally as the ‘free trade Taliban’ due to our blind devotion in the face of the damage done to Australian national trade figures,” said Nick.
The Senator questioned the haste to finalize the agreement, given that this is an election year in the US, it will not be finalized before the presidential election, and that the major candidates for office oppose the agreement, Hillary Clinton now claiming that having learned more about the TPP she is convinced that it will not raise living standards for Americans.
He said that Australia is known internationally as the “free trade Taliban” because of our propensity to give away too much in trade agreements, whereas other countries, notably the United States, fight much harder for their national economic interest. The agreement lacks transparency and does not protect labour rights. He hopes that Labor will help to oppose it.
Kelvin Thomson MP
Mr Thomson began his address with a joke about an ecologist and an economist both falling off a cliff. The ecologist was nervous, but the economist was quite calm, believing that a parachute would appear, as the market dictates that demand is always met by supply.
He said that for the past 30 years, Australia has been conducting an experiment in market liberalization, privatization and globalization. This experiment has manifestly failed.
We were told that all this opening up of markets etc. would make our economy stronger and more diverse. In fact the opposite has happened. Our sphere of economic activity has actually narrowed and our deficits have increased. Our society has become increasingly unequal, there is high unemployment, especially among young people, and social problems are on the rise. But unfortunately, those who dug this hole just want to keep on digging.
He mentioned the unsatisfactory labour protections, the weakening of labour market testing and said that it would leave the way open for 711 type rip-offs of foreign workers.
For more on Kelvin Thomson’s approach to the TPP, see his 2014 speech:
http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/editor/assets/141108%20Trans-Pacific%20Partnership%20Rally.pdf
Senator Bill Heffernan
Senator Heffernan said that we were all missing the point. There is a bout thirty trillion a year in tax avoidance.
We are now living through an era of the redefinition of sovereignty. Politicians are generally interested only in tomorrow’s headlines. They don’t focus on the bigger picture. For example, we have a free trade deal with China, but Chinese currency is not on the market. Also the United States is technically insolvent. They owe over eighteen trillion dollars, 5 trillion of which is to their pension fund. Seehttp://dailysignal.com/2016/02/02/the-us-debt-just-exceeded-19-trillion-heres-how-we-got-here/
60% of Chinese banking is done off the book. How can we compete against all this?
He said that he was opposed to the TPP and that the CIA had more influence on shaping the treaty than the Australian government. Bribery and corruption is rife.
Other countries want Australia to lower our standard of living to equal theirs. Tell them to go to buggery!
NEWS
TPP nations sign off on pact as community groups call for review
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-04/tpp-nations-sign-off-on-pacific-trade-pact/7140580
AFTINET MEDIA RELEASE February 4, 2016
Trade Minister Robb shoots the messenger, refuses independent TPP assessment
Trade Minister Robb today rejected calls from 59 community organisations representing over two million Australians for an independent assessment by the Productivity Commission on ABC national radio this morning. He claimed that the broad alliance of public health, church, environment, aid and development and union organisations were just ‘the usual suspects opposed to all trade agreements’
AFTINET Convener Dr Patricia Ranald said that Mr. Robb was shooting the messenger, and failing to address genuine community concerns, also expressed by bodies like the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Productivity Commission.
“The TPP locks in stronger monopoly rights for global corporations over medicines and copyright, and gives all foreign investors special additional rights to sue governments over domestic laws. This is the opposite of free trade,” said DrRanald.
“We are not opposed to trade. We are making the point that the TPP is not mainly about trade at all. Australia already has free trade agreements with nine of the 12 TPP countries, and a World Bank study shows there will be minuscule trade gains after 15 years.”
“Mr Robb’s claim that independent assessments are not needed because the government is tabling a National Interest Assessment in Parliament fails to mention that this document is produced by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which negotiated the agreement. This is not an independent assessment.”
DrRanald said that the TPP will be reviewed by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties over the next few months before Parliament votes on the implementing legislation. Community organisations will make submissions and appear at public hearings. But the government has a majority on this committee and it cannot change the agreement. That is why genuinely independent assessments are needed.”
“We repeat our call to parliamentarians to support independent economic, health and environmental assessments of the TPP before any vote on the implementing legislation. In the absence of such assessments, we are calling on the majority in the Senate to reject the implementing legislation,” said DrRanald.
Contact Dr Patricia Ranald
DFAT SOURCES
DFAT page on TPP
TPP implementation process