Page 3429 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 23 September 2015
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The proposed China-Australia free trade agreement could have negative impacts in Canberra and in Australia. We know that governments have historically overstated the benefits of free trade agreements as they demonstrate their keenness to enter into these relationships, yet the federal government is prepared to sign up to something that may not be in our best interests by justifying that it is good for the economy. As I said when we recently discussed this, I do not think the glib line that it is good for the economy is necessarily a great measure; we need to look at more substantive elements.
I would like to reflect on a number of areas of concern that I do not believe have been adequately resolved by the way the agreement is currently drafted. Firstly, there is a lack of commitments to environmental protections and standards. There is no environment chapter in this agreement, which means that neither the Australian government nor the Chinese government has committed to not reducing environmental standards as a result of the agreement. I do not believe that that is an acceptable outcome. Both governments should be mindful of these considerations as they move towards some sort of trade liberalisation agreement.
The agreement includes investor state dispute settlement, ISDS as it is perhaps more commonly known—the inclusion of investor rights to sue governments over changes in domestic law or policy that “harm an investment”. The Greens do not support agreements that make future governments liable to be sued by foreign corporations simply for making laws that protect the public interest. The investor state dispute resolution processes in the China-Australia free trade agreement is actually unfinished, and leaves open the criteria by which the government could be sued. These will not be completed for another three years, yet the federal government is seeking licence to pass the enabling legislation without even the Australian parliament knowing what these provisions look like. I would hope that the federal ALP, who have traditionally been opposed to ISDS mechanisms, would consider not supporting the enabling legislation until at least this is resolved.
It has already been mentioned by Mr Barr in his amendment, and I welcome his comments, but the removal of local labour market testing and skills assessment for temporary workers in skilled occupations, both through the agreement text and in side letters, is another area of concern. This is something that the unions and some of the ALP are concerned about, and is what Mr Barr’s amendment touches on. It is important that while there is always a place for skilled migration and working visas, there need to be appropriate protections to ensure that neither locals nor overseas workers are exploited.
The Australian fair trade network says in its submission to the Senate treaties committee:
The ChAFTA provisions on Temporary Movement of People are unprecedented in scale and scope compared with any previous Australian trade agreements. Chapter 10 of the text of the agreement removes the requirement for local labour market testing for temporary skilled workers, to check if local workers are available. A side letter removes skills assessment for 10 skilled trades occupations without a clear means of assessing whether Australian occupational licensing and skills standards will be met.
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