The more we learn about the secretly negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty, the more concerned we should be about the agenda of the United States government to remove international barriers not to trade, but to the profits of US corporations. On intellectual property and copyright, pharmaceuticals, the right to litigate against policy changes and many other areas, the TPP represents the wishlist of some of the US’ most powerful industries, aimed at removing the ability of other governments to regulate industry, reduce spending and protect their own citizens.
Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb has confirmed Australians will not be permitted to see the TPP treaty until after the government has signed it, and also acknowledged it is likely to include ”investor-state dispute settlement provisions” — that is, the ability for multinational companies to litigate to prevent governments from making policy changes that disadvantage them.
Labor has criticised the secrecy surrounding the TPP but that is the height of hypocrisy — the Gillard and Rudd governments could have made the draft text available to Australians but refused to do so for fear of offending the US, which had demanded it be kept secret from the public while US companies were given repeated opportunities to examine the drafts and urge US negotiators to pursue tougher demands.
Based on the most recent draft made available by WikiLeaks, the TPP represents a clear threat to Australia’s national interest — and to those of virtually every signatory except the US. A full debate on the document should proceed well ahead of any signing by Australia.
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The government is creating enemies in its first weeks: the ABC, our regional neighbours and whistleblowers. Crikey editor Jason Whittaker talks to politics editor Bernard Keane on recasting the relationships – for the better and the worse. Stream it or download here.
Seriously why is it up to the much maligned Wikileaks to put its money where its mouth is and offer a crowdsourced reward for insiders to leak the document (as they did). Where are the rest of the media in asking the hard questions about it? Why are we only hearing about it through the actions of Advaaz, Change.org, sumofus etc etc? Even Crikey appears to be piggybacking the activism of social media. What happened to investigative journalism? Is it only pertaining to what happened in the past (aka ICAC or Child sex abuse in Catholic church)?
From Twitter just now: We will shortly release the negotiation positions for every country, on every issue of the 13 #TPP chapters coming out of the last round.
Bravo Wikileaks as usual!
Labor may be hypocrites but at least they did oppose ISDS clauses, which is where a lot of the devil in free trade agreements lies. Agreeing to ISDS processes is just inviting rent-seeking behaviour.
Many people say don’t worry Mr A Robb the hardnosed coalition negotiator will sell us down the gurgler, we can count on it.
Can’t wait to see Crikey’s analysis of the country position’s spreadsheet…………