One of the negative side effects of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), which took effect in 2005, was that it increased patent and copyright terms, raising the price of drugs and copyrighted products.
Thomas Faunce of ANU assessed that AUSFTA “undermined Australia’s PBS” by “allowing the US to alter the basic processes of Australia’s PBS”, which “represented an inexcusable surrender of Australia’s democratic sovereignty”.
Peter Martin echoed similar concerns, arguing that AUSFTA “cost the government $200 million per year by slowing the entry of cheap generic drugs into the pharmaceutical benefits scheme”.
