With no policy agenda for 2017, the Turnbull Government continues to flog the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) dead horse as if their political lives depend on it.
Today’s farce begins with the Prime Minister himself, Do-Nothing Malcolm, who is still trying to wedge Labor on the issue. From The AFR:
“Losing the United States from the TPP is a big loss, there is no question about that,” Mr Turnbull said. “But we are not about to walk away from our commitment to Australian jobs.
“We’re not like Bill Shorten who will throw in the towel and say he is not going to support trade any more and try to be some kind of Down Under protectionist because he thinks that would be popular.
“Believe me, protectionism is not a ladder to get you out of the low-growth trap. It is a shovel to dig it deeper”…
“It is extraordinary that a Labor leader has decided to get on this protectionist bandwagon,” Mr Turnbull said. “[It’s] totally at odds with Gillard, with Rudd, with Hawke, with Keating.
“This is a blast right back into the 1950s. He is not yesterday’s man. He is last century’s man.”
Zoe McKenzie, the chief of staff to former Trade Minister Andrew Robb, has also chimed in to attack Labor and spruik how great the TPP is for the Australian economy. From The AFR:
In the excitement of a Trump inauguration, it seems everyone is trying on the protectionist pant-suit for size…
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and trade spokesperson Jason Clare last week declared the Trans-Pacific Partnership, “dead in the water” and chided the Turnbull government for persisting with the ratification of the TPP through the Australian Parliament…
But an anti-trade agenda is inherently opposed to Australia’s best interest. There is no better proof point than the TPP.
The TPP would have been great for Australia’s exporters, eliminating 98 per cent of tariffs in our region…
More importantly, it secured access for Australia’s world class services…
Conveniently, Ms McKenzie did not mention any of the pitfalls that would have arisen from the TPP, such as unnecessarily strengthening intellectual property protections and enabling foreign corporations to sue national governments via Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions. These provisions are the antithesis of “free trade”.
It is fair to assume that the Turnbull Government knows this, which is why it refused point blank to allow the Productivity Commission (PC) to cast a critical eye over the TPP. Funny that!
Fairfax’s Peter Martin today makes similar observations:
If the Trans-Pacific Partnership was really as good for jobs and growth as Malcolm Turnbull says it was, he would be able to point to a study saying so.
He might have even commissioned one. Instead, despite the Productivity Commission practically begging for the role, his government has been resolute in its determination not to subject the 12-nation treaty that Donald Trump just dumped to independent analysis.
An earlier analysis of three landmark trade agreements that the government did commission found that, combined, the Japan, Korea and China agreements were set to create a total of 5434 extra jobs by 2035.
That’s 5434 extra jobs after 20 years. According to the Bureau of Statistics, employment is growing at a trend rate of 8200 per month, meaning the extra jobs will amount to less than a month’s worth, after 20 years.
The government-commissioned study found that, combined, the agreements would boost exports 0.5 to 1.5 per cent while boosting imports 2.5 per cent, which means they would send Australia’s trade balance backwards…
I will add that modelling by the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University actually found that the TPP “would lead to losses in employment and increases in inequality”, with employment in Australia estimated to contract by 39,000 jobs:
Meanwhile, modelling by the World Bank found that Australia’s GDP would increase by a pitiful 0.7% (cumulative) after 10 years from coming into force.
So according to the modelling, the TPP would provide only a minuscule boost to Australian output along with job losses. Hardly sounds like a groundbreaking deal that deserves so much focus from the Turnbull Government, does it?
In any event, the TPP is stone cold dead, so any talk about its “benefits” are academic. The US has already formally pulled-out of the pact. And Japan has said it will not seek to renegotiate the TPP without the US, as has Canada.
So why is the Turnbull Government persisting and wasting everybody’s time? The answer is that it has nothing else on the agenda. Hence, the Coalition must create diversions, gimmicks and smokescreens to give voters the impression they are doing stuff.
And to think, we’ll have to wait at least two more years until the next federal election!
