The government has refused the Senate access to the secret text of the trade deal it is negotiating in Singapore, saying it will only be made public after it has been signed.
As the final round of ministerial talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership resumed on Sunday, Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote to each of the 12 participating nations warning that the deal and the secrecy surrounding it presented ''grave risks''.
Australia's delegate, Trade Minister Andrew Robb, has told Fairfax Media he is prepared to agree to so-called ''investor-state dispute settlement provisions'' in return for access to markets including those of the US, Japan and Canada.
The provisions, rejected by the previous Labor government, allow foreign corporations to sue sovereign governments.Tobacco company Philip Morris is suing the Australian government over its plain-packaging legislation using the ISDS provisions of an obscure Hong Kong investment treaty. The company is pursuing the suit even though it lost in the Australian High Court.
Mr Robb agreed to ISDS provisions in order to clinch the South Korea-Australia free trade agreement announced last week but with what he said were ''carve-outs'' in ''areas such as public welfare, health and the environment''.
An observer at the talks, Patricia Ranald, of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, said the US was resorting to setting up so-called ''green rooms'' in which small groups of ministers tried to reach agreements that they then presented to the larger group.
''In some cases, it is who the US feels will agree with them,'' she said.
A leaked draft of the intellectual property chapter published by WikiLeaks and Fairfax Media shows the US attempting to extend patent terms, weaken the negotiating power of member countries dealing with pharmaceutical companies and to outlaw presently legal behaviour on the internet.
Australia's Finance Minister, Mathias Cormann, has written to the president of the Senate refusing a request to table the agreement before it is signed.
''Pre-emptive and unilateral release of such confidential information would damage Australia's standing,'' he writes.
Greens senator Peter Whish Wilson said although it wasn't normal to demand to see a text before it was signed, this deal is so far reaching we fear that once it has been signed it will immediately become political."
"The media machine will crank up and we'll be told it's the best thing that's ever crossed our borders'' he said.
The text of any agreement Australia signs will be tabled for 20 sitting days, during which time the Parliament can vote not ratify it.
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