Pearls and Irritations has carried many articles about the exaggerated claims for free trade agreements. That exaggeration continued during the election campaign. One of the five pillars of Malcolm Turnbull’s ‘plan for jobs and growth’ was the alleged benefits of recently negotiated FTAs.
An increasing feature of the most recently negotiated FTAs is that Australia’s hard-won labour standards are being negotiated away through 457 visas in return for access to overseas markets and particularly China.
Peter Martin in the SMH of July 7 highlights how little has been delivered through FTAs. See link below.
John Menadue is the Founder of Pearls and Irritations and a board member. He was formerly the Editor-in-Chief. John was the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.
Comments
One response to “The election campaign’s other big lie: the Coalition hasn’t delivered ‘export agreements’.”
They are not free trade agreements they are investor rights agreements. They were never intended for anything else!