Abbott’s rush to Free Trade deals will leave workers short-changed

AMWU Oct 08, 2013

Tony Abbott’s push to sign a Free Trade Agreement with China within a year and to speed up negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) involving the USA is a foolish policy that will hurt workers, the AMWU said today.

AMWU National President Andrew Dettmer said that rushing trade negotiations to fit an arbitrary deadline was a potentially disastrous strategy that could cost jobs in Australia.

“Australia should only sign a free trade deal after a comprehensive analysis that shows it benefits Australia and Australian workers.

“This applies to a deal with China or any other country. Trying to set deadlines for agreements just weakens our negotiating position.

“Free trade agreements generally promise much and deliver little. They usually come at the price of lost jobs and threatened industries.

 “Australia, unlike most of our trading partners, has an open economy and few barriers to imported goods. This makes it difficult for Australian manufacturers who often face unfair barriers when they try to export.

“We need to make sure that these deals do not give away the few protections Australian workers have.

“We also need to make sure it does not reduce the powers of the Foreign Investment Review Board to examine overseas investment and evaluate if it is in the national interest.

 Mr Dettmer said any agreement with China needed to address labour standards, in particular the issues of forced labour and child labour, and require signatories to uphold ILO conventions on these issues.

 He said that the TPPA should not include investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions.

“These provisions would undermine our democratic sovereignty by letting foreign corporations sue over changes to legislation that they believe damage their investments.

“Major multinationals would have the right to challenge and overrule our Parliament – and that is unacceptable.

“A US mining company is using the ISDS provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement to sue the Québec provincial government of Canada for $250 million because it dared to have an environmental review of shale oil mining – we cannot allow this type of thing to happen in Australia.

“Previous governments have rejected giving corporations the right to sue governments for losses brought about by law changes, and Mr Abbott must not budge on this issue.

“Trade deals must be about the interests of Australia and Australian workers, not big multinationals,” said Mr Dettmer.