Global Trade Watch – FTA Article

Rush to free-for-all

By PAUL GRAY, December 1, 2003, The Herald Sun,

OH for the days of being a deputy sheriff. According to the Howard Government, it is now a matter of crucial importance to our nation that we bend over backwards and let ourselves be penetrated, even more deeply, by the forces of global capitalism.

And if any Australian objects -- tough. In the world of global politics, we're less important than Mexicans, after all.

This is the hidden message behind the Government's push to wrap up a free trade deal with the US -- without public debate.

It's a scandal even worse than the war we didn't have to have with Iraq, and the Australian prisoners our Government won't defend at Guantanamo Bay.

Once again, the Howard Government is merrily leading us towards lackey-like status. If a free trade deal is signed by Christmas, as the Government unctuously hopes, we'll be officially lower than the butler, in the relationship with our great and powerful mate.

The objection here is not to a free trade agreement as such. The problem is the haste with which this agreement is being concluded.

Important details must be brought before the public, discussed and -- if the Labor Party can tear itself away from internal brawling for a moment -- debated vigorously in Parliament.

That's not the Government's way, though.

Trade Minister Mark Vaile lists a US Free Trade Agreement as a top priority before the end of the year.

In fact, the only reason being given for pushing through this free trade deal by Christmas is the busy US Congressional timetable.

Next year is a presidential election year, which means the US Congress has a loaded schedule.

So if our Government's ink isn't dry on the signature for a deal quickly, it won't make it to Capitol Hill, Washington, before 2005. Reasonable Australians will ask -- so what?

There are strong reasons for waiting -- and you can find many of them in The Big Chill, a new report co-authored by Liberty Victoria and the Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace.

The key issue is sovereignty.

State and federal governments -- the elected representatives of the people -- could be intimidated and sued for billions of dollars by foreign investors objecting to our laws because they interfere with "their" profits.

It's not the US Government that's the big risk here.

It's private companies which owe no allegiance to any nation or state, using the legal loopholes in formal free trade treaties to challenge a government's right to make laws as it sees fit.

Governments as diverse as Canada's (a national government) and California's (a US state government) have suffered from this, after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

TOXIC chemicals and environmental pollution are involved.

In several cases, big chemical companies have challenged government bans on carcinogens and toxic wastes, exploiting the terms of the free trade agreement.

Who decides on these challenges launched against governments by private interests? The blunt answer is: tribunals.

Tribunals every bit as unbiased as that notorious Libyan-chaired UN Human Rights Committee.
Often they're made up of people with vested interests in the corporate sector.

How unbiased is that?

"Decisions by courts (in a democratic nation) should not be reviewable by essentially secretive and unaccountable tribunals," The Big Chill warns.

The huge wave of litigation brought by companies against Canada ($11,566 billion), Mexico ($501.1 million) and the US ($16,198 billion) is worth noting. The report calls this litigation an "offensive weapon" used by companies against sovereign states.

And sovereign states, remember, are us -- the people. Not just employees of a company or cardholders in a club.

The Howard Government has made this kind of move before.

Remember the so-called MAI -- the international trade treaty that the Government wanted us to sign in 1998 to "benefit" Australian trade interests?

I said that was a sell-out of sovereignty too and then-assistant treasurer Rod Kemp and several pro-treaty critics took me to task.

Then months later, the MAI itself was dropped -- after protests about its negative impact on sovereignty, in nations around the world.

How odd.

We may well need a US-Australia free trade agreement. But if so, I'd like to see it debated first, by the public at large.

paulgray@skynet.net.au