Independent senator for South Australia, Nick Xenophon, has attempted to throw a wet blanket over the fanfare surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, labeling the agreement a “dud” and calling on its text to be made public:
Independent Senator for South Australia, Nick Xenophon, said serious concerns remained over medicine prices, an Investor-State Dispute Resolution (ISDS) clause and blanket secrecy over the text of the Trans Pacific Partnership, despite the Government furiously selling the agreement today.
Senator Xenophon said that Government’s self-congratulations over the end of secret, protracted negotiations for the deal were misplaced given Australians won’t see the agreement for about a month.
“If this is such a good agreement for Australia then why all the secrecy? Despite the Government’s denials and furious sales job this morning, serious issues remain to be resolved for most Australians,” said Nick. These include:
* The inclusion of an Investor-State Dispute Resolution (ISDS) clause would damage Australia’s sovereignty, allowing foreign firms to sue Australian governments if policy decisions harm their bottom line. So-called ‘safeguards’ have not prevented US firms bringing cases against partner countries in the past, including Canada and Costa Rica.
* US pharmaceutical companies appear to have won an ‘option’ to impose the US’s preferred eight-year protection period for biologics medicines, instead of Australia’s preferred five-year protection period. This opens the way to more expensive medicines in Australia as cheaper generic drugs remain locked out for longer.
* The secrecy of the drawn-out negotiations, the failure to produce a text of the agreement today, despite the huge sales effort from the Government, and the lack of a real oversight role by the Australian Parliament, means the agreement lacks transparency and accountability.
Senator Xenophon said the Government had failed to show how the TPP was in the Australian national interest, coming after more than a decade of bilateral free trade deals that have led to much worse trade imbalances with partner countries…
Senator Xenophon also pointed to criticisms by the Productivity Commission that FTAs were largely ineffective and not beneficial to Australia as a whole.
Matthew Rimmer, professor of intellectual property and innovation law at the Queensland University of Technology, raised similar concerns last night on ABC Lateline:
…it’s very controversial that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is being sold to the public at a time we don’t have access to the text. It has been striking that industry stakeholders were tic-tacking with the United States trade representative about the final text of the deal.
But we don’t necessarily have the detail yet in relation to the agreements and we’re still very much dependent upon leaks from WikiLeaks to get an idea of the shape and content of the agreement.
…the intellectual property chapter does provide for longer, stronger protection of copyright and patents and trademarks. The investment chapter has an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, so companies will be able to invoke investor rights and foreign tribunals to challenge government decisions…
Australia will be open to a wide range of challenges from US companies. There has been a great deal of concern about the way in which investor clauses have been deployed previously.
Show us the full TPP text, Andrew Robb, and refer it to the Productivity Commission for a full cost-benefit analysis. Only then can Australians determine whether the TPP is truly in Australia’s national interest.
