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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Thursday, 5 August 2004) . . Page.. 3589 ..

agreement. I, like the overwhelming majority of Australians, was disappointed when federal parliamentary members decided to support the agreement.

That agreement will be disastrous for Australia. I quote Professor Ross Buckley from the Tim Fischer Centre for Global Trade and Finance at Bond University, who said, “We give up far too much for what we get.” What are we giving up? Under the original deal that the sycophantic federal government dished up for Australia, the agreement is likely to result in higher copyright costs for schools, libraries and small software companies, reductions in quarantine protections, prohibitions on the use of government procurement for industry and development, and manufacturing job losses.

As members are probably aware, it could lead to less Australian content in the media and, most significantly, it threatens to lumber Australians with higher prices for medicine through the widening of the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. That is hardly a treaty of which we should be proud. We will get nothing or very little in return. Under the terms of the deal sugar is out and, over a period of 18 years, Australian beef producers will receive only limited access to United States markets.

Overall reports on the economic benefits of the agreement are marginal at best. Even assuming totally free trade in agriculture, before we discovered the bad news about sugar, the Centre for International Economics predicted only a 0.3 per cent gain for the Australian economy after 10 years. Studies by ACIL Consulting and the Productivity Commission predicted losses from the agreement. Even the chair of the Senate committee, who examined the matter and who supports the signing of the agreement, was hardly gushing about it. He said that, on balance, the free trade agreement was not that bad. In effect, he was damning it with faint praise.

In simple terms, this agreement shows that the federal coalition government is prepared to trade away Australia’s social fabric for what amounts to a pat on the head from its big American brother, George W. Bush. It is clear that our Prime Minister has become joined at the hip with the United States President—a most unhealthy relationship that puts conditions for ordinary Australians in a poor second place.

Federal Labor sought to take some steps to address two major concerns that it has with the agreement—to guarantee Australian cultural content in our media and to protect the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. It has pledged to take further steps, if elected, to address other concerns. In my view, that is far from perfect. Small protections will seem less and less important over time as the agreement inexorably transforms Australian society. As Doug Cameron, national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, points out:

This is like playing a poker machine, you might get some gains early in the piece but inevitably you will lose.

However, at least some parts of this appalling deal may be ameliorated. I take this opportunity to urge my federal colleagues to stand firm on the amendments that have been proposed thus far.

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