Division Description Changes — Bills — Customs Amendment (Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement Amendment Implementation) Bill 2017, Customs Tariff Amendment (Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement Amendment Implementation) Bill 2017; Second Reading — 19th Oct 2017

Change	Division
senate vote 2017-10-19#4 Edited by mackay staff on 2017-11-05 19:03:43	Title Bills — Customs Amendment (Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement Amendment Implementation) Bill 2017, Customs Tariff Amendment (Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement Amendment Implementation) Bill 2017; Second Reading Customs Amendment (Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement Amendment Implementation) Bill 2017 and another - Second Reading - Agree with bills' main idea Description ~~<p class="speaker">Kim Carr</p>~~ <p>The Customs Amendment (Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement Amendment Implementation) Bill 2017 and the Customs Tariff Amendment (Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement Amendment Implementation) Bill 2017 update the Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement. Labor supports the bills because they support the agreement. The updates will actually improve the operations of that agreement.</p> <p>Together, the bills will introduce new rules of origin for goods imported from Singapore; they will introduce a new procedure to claim preferential tariff treatment for goods that originate in Singapore; they will extend record-keeping obligations; and they will provide for excise equivalent rates of duty on some alcohol, tobacco, fuel and petroleum products.</p> The majority voted in favour of the bills' main idea. In parliamentary jargon, they voted to read the bills for a [second time](https://www.peo.gov.au/learning/fact-sheets/making-a-law.html). ### What is the main idea of the bills? *The bills make the changes "necessary as a result of recently agreed changes to the rules of origin in** the [Singapore‑Australia Free Trade Agreement](http://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/safta/Pages/singapore-australia-fta.aspx) (SAFTA)". Read more in the [bills digest](https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd1718a/18bd041).* <p>The updated agreement also restricts the applications of the investor-state dispute settlement and litigation. The ISDS provisions will no longer apply to regulations protecting public welfare—including health and the environment; Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme; the Medicare Benefits Schedule; the Therapeutic Goods Administration; and the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator—or to measures affecting creative arts and cultural heritage, including Indigenous cultural expression. It also includes Australian foreign investment policy, including decisions of the Foreign Investment Review Board.</p> <p>All of these are changes that are definite improvements. However, I want to make it clear that Labor remains fundamentally opposed to ISDS provisions in trade agreements. We support the bill now before the Senate because the ISDS provisions were already part of the free trade agreement with Singapore, and the legislation winds back those provisions. Labor would have preferred that these provisions be removed in their entirety. They should not be included in any trade agreements that Australia negotiates in the future. Investor-state dispute settlement is an infringement of our national sovereignty. Sovereign governments should be able to legislate in the national interest; their ability to do so should not be constrained by litigious companies or groups.</p> <p>There are well-known examples of how ISDS provisions are being used for pernicious reasons by commercial interests. We could take the examples of Philip Morris, the global tobacco company, taking action against Australia over the plain-packaging laws; the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis suing the Colombian government because it plans to reduce the price of leukaemia treatment; Lone Pine, the US mining company, suing the Canadian government over the environmental regulation of gas mining; or Veolia, the French utilities company, suing the Egyptian government over a contract that grants workers a pay rise. All of these are examples of what has, I think legitimately, been described as globalisation gone mad.</p> <p>The aim of ISDS litigation is to make public policy makers defer to the interests of corporations that seek profit over public interest. That is why, at the last election, Labor declared that, in government, we would not sign agreements that included ISDS provisions and we would seek to remove those provisions from existing trade agreements.</p> <p>There is another part of the updating of the agreement that Labor also opposes which is not in the bill before us. This government has removed the labour market testing for suppliers for contractual services. It has also removed the requirement from the free trade agreements in regard to China, South Korea and Japan. My colleague the member for Blaxland said during the debate on these bills in the other place:</p> ~~<p class="italic">This is the sort of stuff that makes Australians angry—</p>~~ <p>and legitimately so. Why should a company that wants to bring an electrician or a mechanic from overseas not have to check whether or not there is an Australian who can actually do that job? What's wrong with having to undertake that test? It is a simple proposition.</p> ~~<p>The Prime Minister has failed to live up to his rhetoric on this issue, and earlier this year he said:</p>~~ ~~<p class="italic">… if a job is able to be done by an Australian it should be done by an Australian.</p>~~ ~~<p>The Prime Minister also said:</p>~~ ~~<p class="italic">… every nation is entitled to take that point of view and we certainly do.</p>~~ <p>Now, at a time when unemployment is higher than 10 per cent in some parts of the country and when youth unemployment is twice that, we have to make sure that local workers get the first chance to obtain a job. The government indicated that it would do this when it stated that labour market testing would be mandatory for all temporary skill shortage visa applications. But apparently it doesn't apply this principle when we're dealing with free trade agreements. We regard that as a sellout of Australian workers' interests.</p> <p>Finally, Labor also notes with concern that there has been no independent economic modelling of this updated agreement. Australia's trade agreements should be transparent in their operations. The benefits claimed for them should be testable, and, again, that doesn't seem to have worried the government in its presentation of this update. And that's certainly not the way in which a Shorten Labor government would handle these matters. Subject to these reservations about aspects of this agreement, Labor will support these bills.</p> ~~<p class="speaker">Sarah Hanson-Young</p>~~ <p>I rise to speak to this piece of legislation as well. To be very clear and on the record: the Greens do not support this trade amendment legislation. We are concerned that the inclusion of things like ISDS clauses only serve to weaken Australia's ability to ensure that we—our nation; our parliament—can set rules for ourselves and for the people that we represent. We need to be able to do that without fear of being sued by foreign companies. These clauses, of course, have been effectively copied, slab by slab, from the clauses in the TPP, and, even though that trade arrangement has been put in the dustbin after the election of Donald Trump in the US, the fact that many of those clauses have simply been carbon-copied into other trade arrangements is very, very concerning. It sets a dangerous precedent for how we negotiate trade agreements going forward and what type of bar Australia is willing to set when we negotiate what we should be trading off in these negotiations.</p> <p>Of course, Australia is a trading country. We always have been and always will be. The debate needs to be about whether it's good trade or not. We always hear that it's about free trade. Well, it's not that free when you start signing your government up to clauses which stop us from being able to implement laws and make changes because we're worried that a foreign company might have the right to sue. Countries right around the world are becoming more and more suss in relation to the ISDS clauses that are creeping into trade arrangements, and Australia should be learning from those concerns and from those mistakes. We should stop signing up to agreements that effectively gag democracy in this country and that stop the Australian people from being able to demand action from government and changes to laws which foreign companies can then argue are retrospective changes that might impact on their profit margins. If Australia is going to enter into negotiations, we also need to be able to have the right to implement our own laws and changes as called upon by the Australian community, the people that in this place we are meant to be representing and acting in the best interests of.</p> <p>Of course, again we have seen a trade arrangement with these amendments negotiated in secret away from elements of transparency. As Senator Carr has pointed out, there hasn't been any independent economic modelling, so we are asked to simply trust that the government has got this right. I for one have very little faith that this government has considered the economic impact on everyday Australians, and future Australians, from these deals. If there isn't anything to hide, why not do it in the open, with full transparency, and allow the Australian people and businesses to see exactly what has been negotiated and what has been traded off? The lack of transparency in these trade negotiations continues to be a huge concern for the Australian Greens and many, many other Australians. We are asked just to give blind trust. Under this government—indeed, under any government, but under this government in particular—blind trust is not a smart or a wise thing to give.</p> <p>We know, of course, that in this arrangement and the amendments put into the Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement is a trading off of the rights of local workers. The weakening of protection for local market testing is a huge concern, and we've heard from Senator Carr in relation to this already this morning. I am disappointed that Labor are prepared to stand here and list all these things that they're not happy about in relation to this trade agreement but then they're going to sit here and flick it through. They pay lip service to this issue time and time again.</p> <p>Australia has to be engaged with the rest of the world. We, of course, are going to continue to be a trading nation. Let's do it properly. Let's do it right. Let's make sure it's good trade, not bad trade. Let's make sure we have full transparency and the faith of the Australian community and the international community as we go forward with this. Giving more power to corporations through ISDS clauses that allow them to sue Australia and other countries because they don't like decisions that democratic governments make is a bad idea. That isn't free trade; that's bad trade. We're simply signing ourselves up to a list of obligations and clauses that gag democracy into the future. It's a silly and tricky way of arguing that you've done something right for the economic prosperity of the nation, when actually you've just signed a blank cheque. We will always stand in opposition to trade agreements that include these insidious, undemocratic and dangerous ISDS clauses. We believe that, at a time when we know there is a problem of exploitation of vulnerable foreign workers in Australia—we've seen it in the mining industry; we've seen it in other industries—we shouldn't be weakening the protection for foreign workers in Australia, and we shouldn't be weakening the elements of local labour testing either.</p> <p>These are regressive amendments in this bill. They're not going to help Australia strengthen our position. Of course trade agreements are going to have to be updated and amended from time to time. The Singapore-Australia agreement entered into force in 2003—of course it's time to update it, but let's make sure it gets better, not worse. This amendment weakens Australia's position. It lowers the bar which we are prepared to accept in future negotiations with other countries and other trading partners and sets a very dangerous precedent for insidious, undemocratic clauses, like ISDSs, that will be used as the way forward for future arrangements.</p> <p>The Greens will be voting against this. We're very disappointed that the Labor Party have again fallen foul and are simply rolling over with the government on this. They say they've got concerns, but, when it comes to crunch time, they fail to stand up.</p> ~~<p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>~~

~~Kim Carr~~
The Customs Amendment (Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement Amendment Implementation) Bill 2017 and the Customs Tariff Amendment (Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement Amendment Implementation) Bill 2017 update the Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement. Labor supports the bills because they support the agreement. The updates will actually improve the operations of that agreement.
Together, the bills will introduce new rules of origin for goods imported from Singapore; they will introduce a new procedure to claim preferential tariff treatment for goods that originate in Singapore; they will extend record-keeping obligations; and they will provide for excise equivalent rates of duty on some alcohol, tobacco, fuel and petroleum products.
The majority voted in favour of the bills' main idea. In parliamentary jargon, they voted to read the bills for a [second time](https://www.peo.gov.au/learning/fact-sheets/making-a-law.html).
### What is the main idea of the bills?
The bills make the changes *"necessary as a result of recently agreed changes to the rules of origin in the [Singapore‑Australia Free Trade Agreement](http://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/safta/Pages/singapore-australia-fta.aspx) (SAFTA)"*.
Read more in the [bills digest](https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd1718a/18bd041).
The updated agreement also restricts the applications of the investor-state dispute settlement and litigation. The ISDS provisions will no longer apply to regulations protecting public welfare—including health and the environment; Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme; the Medicare Benefits Schedule; the Therapeutic Goods Administration; and the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator—or to measures affecting creative arts and cultural heritage, including Indigenous cultural expression. It also includes Australian foreign investment policy, including decisions of the Foreign Investment Review Board.
All of these are changes that are definite improvements. However, I want to make it clear that Labor remains fundamentally opposed to ISDS provisions in trade agreements. We support the bill now before the Senate because the ISDS provisions were already part of the free trade agreement with Singapore, and the legislation winds back those provisions. Labor would have preferred that these provisions be removed in their entirety. They should not be included in any trade agreements that Australia negotiates in the future. Investor-state dispute settlement is an infringement of our national sovereignty. Sovereign governments should be able to legislate in the national interest; their ability to do so should not be constrained by litigious companies or groups.
There are well-known examples of how ISDS provisions are being used for pernicious reasons by commercial interests. We could take the examples of Philip Morris, the global tobacco company, taking action against Australia over the plain-packaging laws; the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis suing the Colombian government because it plans to reduce the price of leukaemia treatment; Lone Pine, the US mining company, suing the Canadian government over the environmental regulation of gas mining; or Veolia, the French utilities company, suing the Egyptian government over a contract that grants workers a pay rise. All of these are examples of what has, I think legitimately, been described as globalisation gone mad.
The aim of ISDS litigation is to make public policy makers defer to the interests of corporations that seek profit over public interest. That is why, at the last election, Labor declared that, in government, we would not sign agreements that included ISDS provisions and we would seek to remove those provisions from existing trade agreements.
There is another part of the updating of the agreement that Labor also opposes which is not in the bill before us. This government has removed the labour market testing for suppliers for contractual services. It has also removed the requirement from the free trade agreements in regard to China, South Korea and Japan. My colleague the member for Blaxland said during the debate on these bills in the other place:
~~This is the sort of stuff that makes Australians angry—~~
and legitimately so. Why should a company that wants to bring an electrician or a mechanic from overseas not have to check whether or not there is an Australian who can actually do that job? What's wrong with having to undertake that test? It is a simple proposition.
~~The Prime Minister has failed to live up to his rhetoric on this issue, and earlier this year he said:~~
~~… if a job is able to be done by an Australian it should be done by an Australian.~~
~~The Prime Minister also said:~~
~~… every nation is entitled to take that point of view and we certainly do.~~
Now, at a time when unemployment is higher than 10 per cent in some parts of the country and when youth unemployment is twice that, we have to make sure that local workers get the first chance to obtain a job. The government indicated that it would do this when it stated that labour market testing would be mandatory for all temporary skill shortage visa applications. But apparently it doesn't apply this principle when we're dealing with free trade agreements. We regard that as a sellout of Australian workers' interests.
Finally, Labor also notes with concern that there has been no independent economic modelling of this updated agreement. Australia's trade agreements should be transparent in their operations. The benefits claimed for them should be testable, and, again, that doesn't seem to have worried the government in its presentation of this update. And that's certainly not the way in which a Shorten Labor government would handle these matters. Subject to these reservations about aspects of this agreement, Labor will support these bills.
~~Sarah Hanson-Young~~
I rise to speak to this piece of legislation as well. To be very clear and on the record: the Greens do not support this trade amendment legislation. We are concerned that the inclusion of things like ISDS clauses only serve to weaken Australia's ability to ensure that we—our nation; our parliament—can set rules for ourselves and for the people that we represent. We need to be able to do that without fear of being sued by foreign companies. These clauses, of course, have been effectively copied, slab by slab, from the clauses in the TPP, and, even though that trade arrangement has been put in the dustbin after the election of Donald Trump in the US, the fact that many of those clauses have simply been carbon-copied into other trade arrangements is very, very concerning. It sets a dangerous precedent for how we negotiate trade agreements going forward and what type of bar Australia is willing to set when we negotiate what we should be trading off in these negotiations.
Of course, Australia is a trading country. We always have been and always will be. The debate needs to be about whether it's good trade or not. We always hear that it's about free trade. Well, it's not that free when you start signing your government up to clauses which stop us from being able to implement laws and make changes because we're worried that a foreign company might have the right to sue. Countries right around the world are becoming more and more suss in relation to the ISDS clauses that are creeping into trade arrangements, and Australia should be learning from those concerns and from those mistakes. We should stop signing up to agreements that effectively gag democracy in this country and that stop the Australian people from being able to demand action from government and changes to laws which foreign companies can then argue are retrospective changes that might impact on their profit margins. If Australia is going to enter into negotiations, we also need to be able to have the right to implement our own laws and changes as called upon by the Australian community, the people that in this place we are meant to be representing and acting in the best interests of.
Of course, again we have seen a trade arrangement with these amendments negotiated in secret away from elements of transparency. As Senator Carr has pointed out, there hasn't been any independent economic modelling, so we are asked to simply trust that the government has got this right. I for one have very little faith that this government has considered the economic impact on everyday Australians, and future Australians, from these deals. If there isn't anything to hide, why not do it in the open, with full transparency, and allow the Australian people and businesses to see exactly what has been negotiated and what has been traded off? The lack of transparency in these trade negotiations continues to be a huge concern for the Australian Greens and many, many other Australians. We are asked just to give blind trust. Under this government—indeed, under any government, but under this government in particular—blind trust is not a smart or a wise thing to give.
We know, of course, that in this arrangement and the amendments put into the Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement is a trading off of the rights of local workers. The weakening of protection for local market testing is a huge concern, and we've heard from Senator Carr in relation to this already this morning. I am disappointed that Labor are prepared to stand here and list all these things that they're not happy about in relation to this trade agreement but then they're going to sit here and flick it through. They pay lip service to this issue time and time again.
Australia has to be engaged with the rest of the world. We, of course, are going to continue to be a trading nation. Let's do it properly. Let's do it right. Let's make sure it's good trade, not bad trade. Let's make sure we have full transparency and the faith of the Australian community and the international community as we go forward with this. Giving more power to corporations through ISDS clauses that allow them to sue Australia and other countries because they don't like decisions that democratic governments make is a bad idea. That isn't free trade; that's bad trade. We're simply signing ourselves up to a list of obligations and clauses that gag democracy into the future. It's a silly and tricky way of arguing that you've done something right for the economic prosperity of the nation, when actually you've just signed a blank cheque. We will always stand in opposition to trade agreements that include these insidious, undemocratic and dangerous ISDS clauses. We believe that, at a time when we know there is a problem of exploitation of vulnerable foreign workers in Australia—we've seen it in the mining industry; we've seen it in other industries—we shouldn't be weakening the protection for foreign workers in Australia, and we shouldn't be weakening the elements of local labour testing either.
These are regressive amendments in this bill. They're not going to help Australia strengthen our position. Of course trade agreements are going to have to be updated and amended from time to time. The Singapore-Australia agreement entered into force in 2003—of course it's time to update it, but let's make sure it gets better, not worse. This amendment weakens Australia's position. It lowers the bar which we are prepared to accept in future negotiations with other countries and other trading partners and sets a very dangerous precedent for insidious, undemocratic clauses, like ISDSs, that will be used as the way forward for future arrangements.
The Greens will be voting against this. We're very disappointed that the Labor Party have again fallen foul and are simply rolling over with the government on this. They say they've got concerns, but, when it comes to crunch time, they fail to stand up.
~~Long debate text truncated.~~