According to someone called Oscar Ameringer, politics is the gentle art
of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by
promising to protect each from the other. However, when Tony Abbott
spoke at the Business Council's 30th anniversary dinner last week, he
was very much in protecting-big-business mode.
"On election night, not
quite three months ago, I declared that Australia is under new
management and once more open for business," he told the captains of
industry. "My business - the business of government - should be making
it easier for you to do your business because government doesn't create
prosperity, business does.
"Governments' job is to make it easier
for good businesses to do their best ... that's why almost everything
we've done over the past three months has been to make it easier for
Australians to do business."
It's possible, of course, that Abbott
didn't really mean all that. Perhaps he was just greasing up business
people because they were who he happened to be speaking to. Maybe next
week he'll tell a bunch of consumers he's doing it all for them.
It's too early to tell just whose interests the Abbott government is seeking to advance. Maybe it doesn't yet know itself.
But I get a bit twitchy when I hear politicians running the line that what's good for General Motors is good for America.
I
worry when I hear allegations that Australia bugged the cabinet room of
a friendly nation not in the national interest but in the interest of a
particular Australian company. Then that one of the politicians at the
time has since become an adviser to the company.
I confess to
being concerned about what deal Trade Minister Andrew Robb is doing in
our name at the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations in Singapore this
week.
The partnership is a trade treaty the US wants with 11
other Pacific rim countries: Canada and Mexico, Chile and Peru,
Australia and New Zealand, Japan and Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and
Vietnam.
The US has been negotiating the treaty since 2006 in what
it has insisted be complete secrecy. Although it has no doubt been
consulting with its own big companies, and it's a safe bet our business
lobby groups have been briefed about the contents of the treaty and have
advised our government on their views and goals, the rest of us aren't
meant to know what's going on.
Parliament will have to be told the
content of the done deal before it votes to ratify any treaty the
government has agreed to, but that's all. It's "need to know" and you,
dear voter, don't need to know. Leave it to the adults.
Well, not quite. Last month one of the draft treaty's 29 chapters, on intellectual property, was published by WikiLeaks.
This
week one country's detailed description of the state of negotiations
was leaked. So we know a fair bit about what we're not supposed to know.
And what we know isn't terribly reassuring.
What I know about the
US government's approach to trade agreements - which doesn't seem to
have changed since the deceptively named free-trade agreement we made
with it in 2004 - is that its primary objective is to make the world a
kinder, safer place for America's chief export, intellectual property:
patents, copyright and trademarks - in the form of pharmaceuticals,
films, books, software, music and much else.
To this end, the
length of copyright would be extended beyond the 70 years to which it
has already been extended, and copyright infringement would be made a
criminal offence. It would be made easier for pharmaceutical companies
to artificially extend the life of their patents and frustrate the
activities of others wishing to produce generic versions.
It is clear this would greatly benefit America's big entertainment, software and drug companies.
What's
equally clear is that it has no economic justification, being simple
"rent-seeking"; government intervention in markets to enhance the
profits of particular companies.Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox would be a prime beneficiary.
Since
Australia is a net importer of intellectual property, our government
ought to be in no doubt the Americans' demands are contrary to our
economic interests.
The leaks reveal many dubious demands by the
US, but none more so than its promotion of "investor-state dispute
settlement" provisions, which would allow foreign companies to pursue
legal actions against our government in foreign tribunals if, for
example, it were to introduce policies they considered contrary to their
interests.
This would give foreign companies an advantage local
companies didn't have. The Productivity Commission found such provisions
offered few benefits, but considerable policy and financials risks. The
former Labor government had a blanket ban on agreeing to such clauses,
but Robb's approach is more flexible.
Why would any country agree
to such unreasonable demands? Because, in exchange, the Americans are
holding out the promise of greatly enhanced access to their markets - in
our case, for sugar and beef.
So what we're not supposed to know
is that, if the rest of us get sold out, it will all be in aid of
Australian farmers. The trouble with running the economy to benefit
business is you end up harming some to help others.
But not to worry. The leaks suggest agreement on the treaty is a long way off.
