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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Tuesday, 24 August 2004) . . Page.. 4006 ..

I think that it would be fair to say that the inquiry was a very interesting one that covered very complex issues. We found that the people and organisations that expressed an interest in the issue had a very intense interest and very intense purposes in coming to the committee to raise their concerns with the process that was going on.

The committee has put together three recommendations, some of which certainly have been overtaken by time. The recommendations focus on important issues, namely, the dispute resolution process and appropriate research and early consultation. There is a reference to the Australian-United States agreement as well.

Coming out of the process for this inquiry is the difficulty that exists for committees to inquire into these sorts of treaties. For the interest of members, all treaties notified by the federal government come to the committee for consideration and they often come with a very short timeframe in which to make a decision. It is a difficulty that often the federal parliament has as well that these treaties come up at the end of negotiation processes and then committees are set up to inquire into them, but often there is not a great deal of time for them to make inquiries.

Recommendation 2 is that the ACT government speak to the Commonwealth about making sure that there is more comprehensive independent research into, particularly, the social and economic impacts of proposed trade agreements and that more thorough consultation be undertaken. We believe that that should start earlier in the process. The Commonwealth, in evidence to the committee, listed the amount of consultation it had done. The Commonwealth was of the belief that it was extensive, but other groups had a contrary view. As we all know, the difficulty with consultation is that what you get out of it is often in the eye of the beholder.

Firstly, we would like the ACT government to speak with the Commonwealth about process. The second part of recommendation 2 looks at the ACT government’s process for informing members of the Assembly as to where discussions are at, because, unless the committee asks for that detail, often it is not made public. It recommends that there be a process for informing the ACT public about treaties and how they affect them. It is a difficult issue. Often the timeframes do not allow for that. Perhaps there is an issue in that as well.

The third recommendation looks at the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement. Unfortunately, in this case, we have certainly been overtaken by the process. AFTINET raised a number of concerns. The committee acknowledged the view that it holds and suggested that the Commonwealth take the concerns raised into consideration. We did not offer an opinion as to whether we agreed with all of them, but they are concerns that need to be addressed. In that regard, recommendation 3 asks the ACT government to communicate the concerns raised about the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement to the Commonwealth urgently. Unfortunately, we have now run out of time.

The report calls on the ACT government to do a few things in regard to its relationship and negotiations with the Commonwealth and also to do a few things in regard to informing this place and the local population about what is happening with treaties that really do affect them. On behalf of the committee, I thank the people and organisations that made submissions, particularly those that appeared as witnesses and gave evidence.

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