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representatives vote 2019-10-21#2
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2020-07-31 10:02:52
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Title
Bills — Customs Amendment (Growing Australian Export Opportunities Across the Asia-Pacific) Bill 2019, Customs Tariff Amendment (Growing Australian Export Opportunities Across the Asia-Pacific) Bill 2019; Consideration in Detail- Customs Amendment (Growing Australian Export Opportunities Across the Asia-Pacific) Bill 2019, Customs Tariff Amendment (Growing Australian Export Opportunities Across the Asia-Pacific) Bill 2019 - Consideration in Detail - ISDS clauses
Description
<p class="speaker">Adam Bandt</p><p>by leave—I move amendment (1) as circulated in my name:</p><p class="italic">(1) Clause 2, pages 2 and 3, table items 2 to 4, omit the table items, substitute:</p>- The majority voted against an [amendment](https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:legislation/billhome/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Famend%2Fr6426_amend_8a5dca3f-a788-4828-b29e-76637a75038e%22;rec=0) introduced by Melbourne MP [Adam Bandt](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/representatives/melbourne/adam_bandt) (Greens), which means it failed. The amendment related to the [ISDS clauses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investor-state_dispute_settlement) in the [Customs Amendment (Growing Australian Export Opportunities Across the Asia-Pacific) Bill 2019](https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:legislation/billhome/r6426).
- Adam Bandt [explained that](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/debates/?id=2019-10-21.109.1):
- > *This amendment deals with the very pernicious clauses that are in these agreements that give corporations the right to sue governments. People may not be aware of what is in these clauses. They sometimes go by the technical name of 'ISDS clauses' but they have very, very real impacts. Because these so-called free trade agreements have effectively been written by big corporations with their representatives in the Liberal Party and endorsed by the Labor Party, these agreements give corporations the right to prosecute and sue governments when governments have the temerity to pass laws that are in the interests of the wellbeing of their own citizens.*
<p class="italic">(2) Clause 2, pages 2 and 3, table items 2 to 4, omit the table items, substitute:</p><p class="italic">(3) Clause 2, pages 2 and 3, table item 4, omit the table item, substitute:</p><p>This amendment deals with the very pernicious clauses that are in these agreements that give corporations the right to sue governments. People may not be aware of what is in these clauses. They sometimes go by the technical name of 'ISDS clauses' but they have very, very real impacts. Because these so-called free trade agreements have effectively been written by big corporations with their representatives in the Liberal Party and endorsed by the Labor Party, these agreements give corporations the right to prosecute and sue governments when governments have the temerity to pass laws that are in the interests of the wellbeing of their own citizens.</p><p>To give you an idea of how these clauses have operated in the past—this is not a fanciful issue; this is a very, very real issue—they have been used to sue governments who try to take action with respect to plain packaging for tobacco. Peru, who is one of the signatories to one of the agreements we're talking about, was on the receiving end of an action when it passed laws that protected the rights of its indigenous people. Egypt, as I understand it, got sued by a French company because they had the temerity to pass legislation that lifted or addressed the minimum wage. So these clauses can have very real impact. And you don't go to a court to have these things heard. You don't go to some big court where the rules of procedural fairness apply. You have two or three people behind closed doors, using secret rules—they don't even need to be judges—and interpreting the agreements, and then they come up with decisions that say, 'Yes, you're right, Big Corporation, that country is trying to do things that benefit the environment,' or its workers or its first inhabitants. 'That country now has to change its laws.' We're not even talking about compensation here; you can be forced to change your laws as a result of this, because all of a sudden you're found to be noncompliant.</p><p>That is why so many people have objected to these agreements. If they were just free trade agreements between two countries, that would be one thing. But, when big corporations from another country are able to tell our government what to do, that is a problem. It's why the former Chief Justice of Australia rang the alarm bells and said just in the last couple of years, 'We are at risk of trading away Australia's judicial sovereignty,' and he is right. He is right. If you don't want to believe the Greens, if you don't want to believe the unions who have pored over every detail of these agreements, if you don't want to believe people in civil society, if you don't want to believe the Labor Party members who voted against it at their own conference—but are now going back on that—then listen to the former Chief Justice.</p><p>But there's something we can do about it. We don't have to accept the hand-wringing of unenforceable side letters from the trade minister, from the very same government we've been told for the last couple of weeks by the Labor opposition that we shouldn't trust because they're loose with the truth. Well, if they're loose with the truth, which I agree with, you shouldn't believe something they've written in a side letter! We can actually do something here. We don't need to wait for a change of government—and I for one hope a change of government comes very soon, and it can if we start standing up to them instead of agreeing and rolling over and letting them tickle our tummies all the time, which is what's happening at the moment. We could pass this amendment and do something substantial.</p><p>This amendment is saying to the government, 'We've just had the second reading vote. We didn't get our way. I opposed it. A number of others did as well. Fine, you're going to go ahead with it—but, if you're going to go ahead with it, then park it until you've gone back and taken these terrible clauses out of the agreement.' A lot of people in this place think these clauses are wrong, so we're saying to you: if you want to have your agreements, then, fine, have your agreements, but go back and renegotiate to strip out these terrible clauses out. If you want them that much, go back and take these clauses out, because we know that these clauses do harm. These clauses prevent governments from doing things that their people have elected them to do. There is no reason not to support this amendment, because if everyone, whether part of a party or an independent, sitting here says, 'We don't like these,' then we can take them out— <i>(Time expired)</i></p> <p class="speaker">Bob Katter</p><p>On the issue of sovereignty, I remember raising it when I was in the party room on the conservative side of the parliament, and the then leader, from the electorate of Mayo, said, 'There is an issue of sovereignty,' and the member for Melbourne is quite right in raising that issue. Time has moved on very dramatically from then. There might have been two blackfellas here in Canberra, 250 years ago, saying, 'These whitefellas are real good. I get blankets off them and I get trinkets off them and I get mirrors off them. They're really good blokes. I'm right in with these whitefellas.' Well, that may not have been a really good idea for the Australians who were here then. Is there any difference to the people here in Canberra today saying, 'Oh, yes; this is great for us. This foreign investment is just marvellous. We're getting so much out of it.' I don't know what we're getting out of it. In Queensland, we provided the money to build the railway lines into the mines. We provided the money to build the ports, and the people of Queensland owned the railway lines and the ports and benefited from it. With the federal government under Doug Anthony during that period, we maintained ownership of all of our airports. We don't now. It's very hard to find what exactly we as Australians do own.</p><p>The member for Melbourne is quite right in his comments that you are giving away your sovereignty and making the same mistakes that we as Australians made 250 years ago. People will curse your name. The history books will curse your name. They'll say, 'Who gave this country away?' Already people cannot believe that the two sides of this parliament sold all of our gas reserves for six cents and we're now buying the gas back for $16. We can't afford to buy it, so industries are closing throughout Australia. Many of the great industries of my electorate are under very serious threat because of the price of gas. The state member, Shane Knuth, a member of our party, says it constantly. Mr Beattie got up and told us that, if we opened the door to competition in the electricity industry, prices would go down. Competition would drive the prices down. Well, we went from $670 to $2,400 a household on the free market. To me it is extraordinary. We had the free market agreement with the United States. They wanted quarantine laws emasculated, and they got exactly what they wanted. It's oversighted now by a body which is half American and half Australian. That's exactly what they wanted and they got it. They wanted pharmaceuticals—virtually an open-door policy—and they got it.</p><p>There are three things we wanted, according to the <i>Financial Review</i> and <i>The Australian</i>: dairy access, beef access and sugar access. As you're well aware, I represent a major part of the Australian beef industry. We always got a fair go from America. I really can't complain. As to why we needed some extra access, I don't really know, because I've never received a complaint about access into the United States. I've represented probably the biggest beef area in Australia for almost 50 years and I've never received a single complaint. So forget about beef. The benefit to the Australian dairy industry was one ice cream per week for every dairy farmer. That was the benefit they got out of it. Nothing! And the sugar industry was wiped completely. So we got nothing out of it; they got everything they wanted.</p><p>This is the manifestation of the sycophantic nature of this place. They we there grovelling to the white fellas 250 years ago. Now they're grovelling to the big corporates. You're watching the corporate colonisation of our country. I applaud the member. We may disagree violently on many things, but I applaud him and the member for Hobart for their strong stand and consistent stand. History will vindicate us and history will condemn the rest of you.</p> <p class="speaker">Adam Bandt</p><p>I don't know whether government or Labor are going to rise to speak on this, but I do have a question for the minister about ISDS clauses. I made a comment during my contribution in the substantive debate which goes to the ISDS clauses which wasn't rebutted by the minister, so I'm going to ask again if it's true. In our reading of these ISDS clauses that the Liberals and Labor are about to tick off on, the Peru one contains a specific mention of tobacco, the Hong Kong one contains a specific mention of tobacco, but there's nothing about tobacco in the Indonesia agreement. Is that right?</p> <p class="speaker">John McVeigh</p><p>The question is that the amendment be agreed to.</p> <p class="speaker">Adam Bandt</p><p>I don't know whether anyone wants to respond to that.</p> <p class="speaker">Jason Wood</p><p>Public health carve-outs actually do not include tobacco.</p> <p class="speaker">Adam Bandt</p><p>I think that has belled the cat, because in the Hong Kong agreement and in the Peru agreement there is mention of both health and tobacco but in the Indonesia agreement there is only mention of health, not of tobacco. If and when the first suit hits Australia—you have been put on notice, Labor and Liberal; you have been put on notice about the deficiency of these ISDS clauses.</p><p>We have the opportunity to do something about it right here—not just about tobacco but about the agreements in general. We can say, 'Go back and renegotiate.' I understand that people are hanging their hats a lot on the letter from the minister saying he is going to ask for the old Indonesian agreement to be terminated. But what if Indonesia say no? What if they never get around to it? What if the first action is taken before they get around to it? We have the capacity here to do something about it. We don't have to wait for a change of government or another election. We can do something here and now to say that big corporates should not be allowed to sue the Australian government about the things that matter to us.</p><p>So let's just pass this very simple amendment. It allows Labor and the Liberals to have their trade deals that they are both wedded to. They can still have them and still get their corporate donations from the same corporations that are going to benefit from them. They can still go and suck at their teat, if that's what they want to do. But at least pass an amendment here and now that says big corporations cannot sue the Australian government, like we've seen with governments around the world, because we take action around minimum wage, around tobacco, around protecting Indigenous Australians and around the environment.</p> <p class="speaker">Rebekha Sharkie</p><p>I'll only take a couple of minutes of the chamber's time. Centre Alliance, formerly the Nick Xenophon Team, has had a very longstanding concern with ISDS provisions. We should not give multinationals the green light to sue our nation over our laws that we make in the best interests of Australians.</p><p>I will briefly touch upon the Philip Morris v Australia case from 2011. That took four years to resolve. That cost taxpayers time and money. The reason for that is Philip Morris thought they could use ISDS provisions to sue Australia for its plain packaging of cigarettes. Many countries are now looking at ISDS provisions and realising that they are not in their nations' interests, and I would urge the government to very strongly consider removing any ISDS provisions from any free trade agreement that we are about to decide and sign as a nation. We should never allow multinationals to have rule and control over what happens in this parliament. This parliament should only be for the benefit of Australians, for laws for Australians, and we should not allow multinationals to get in between.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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