The coming Oz election thread ...

" ..And anyway, what is wrong with a Labor supporter creating a website which highlights the inconsistencies of Howard's policies. Are the Liberals disputing any of the "lies" or "facts" presented on the site? All the "lies" seem to be quotes directly attributed to Howard or his ministers."

Yes, the Libs can hardly complain. It's just a record of what they said, what they did & didn't do & their tendency to change their minds about undertakings ... often!

... But wouldn't it be great to have a site that exposes all the Liberals' behind the scenes dirty doings?

BTW I'm getting impatient for some real policy & debate .... from both sides. Where is it?

msolga,

Don't expect meaningful debate in an election climate. Now is time to woo the the vote of the ignorant and least informed. It is time for meaningless gesture, feel good speeches, exploitation of latent fear and kissing babies. Sadly, it is these people who will decide who will govern us for the next three years.

Yes, sadly you're right, gozmo.
It's just that if things don't change this time around I feel like packing up & leaving ... or something!
If Labor wants to appear to be a serious alternative government they'd better start spelling out their policies SOON. All this nit-picking about the miniscule differences of the two parties in relation to the US! What about education, health, employment initiatives, etc, etc... I think it's a bad strategy to leave policy details till the last minute to avoid scrutiny. People need to know that things will be different under Labor, that change is possible ... That's just not coming through clearly at all at the moment.

I suspect. Msolga, that they are holding their policy fire until an election is actually announced.

Remember, this is phony election fever....none has been announced.

The Libs are busy running a campaign, of sorts - mainly disguised as government info campaigns - like the medicare and DV campaigns (which Howard tried to stop, by the way) - and vilification of Latham.

I assume they are waiting until Latham's honeymoon is over - which it appears to be already.

If Labor announces its policies now, they lose thunder for the campaign.

Howard didn't try to stop the DV campaign. The campaign was changed at the last minute and some parts were left out but that had VERY little to do with Howard. Certain other members of the government felt that some of the material was "anti-men".

I'm looking at you Abbot....

Interestring - some of the DV policy folk told me Howard had tried to intervene personally in that campaign

Where you getting your info from?

I mean - I accept mine is gossip - but I get it from very good sources - I will check again.

But ok - I will use the land care adverts as another example of inappropriate Liberal electioneering, paid for from the public purse.

There was a big thing about it the other week on tripleJ.

They spoke to a woman who was involved in planning the whole thing. She said that some parts of the campaign were changed or left out at the last minute. The government won't say who made the decision but the lady (sorry don't remember the name) said she didn't think that top brass had seen much of it, so whoever it was was further down the chain.

Might have been someone from Howards office.

I'm just looking at Abbot because it would SO suit his style.

Tis' of course all gossip.

Political gossip is fun!

Yes, I understand that theory, Deb, but the problem is (I think) that in the meantime the Libs appear to be defining what gets media attention & what doesn't. And the result is that the steam has all but gone out of the "phoney campaign". Latham's "honeymoon" period has lost it's novelty, too, with the result that his appeal appears to have suffered in the polls. As Shaun Carney wrote, in today's AGE, it has become so boring that it's put the electorate to sleep, almost. Numbness has set in before the real campaign has even started. (A favourite Howard tactic. Maybe he's waiting till we're all comatose before he announces election day?) So when Labor finally delivers its policies who'll still be listening?

Speaking of honest John, I find his response to the Flood inquiry quite amazing:
The intelligence was faulty but it wasn't the fault of the intelligence agencies.
If anyone should take the blame for getting us involved in Iraq, he (Howard) should.
But, as usual he isn't saying "sorry". Nor acknowledging that our involvement in Iraq was a mistake.
Futhermore, he would do exactly the same again, in similar circumstances!!!

Huh?
How can the press let him get away with this? I'm gob-smacked.

OH no!!! First the sell out on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme & now this!! Has Labor lost it's nerve? This is so distressing. <sigh>

Labor ready to back free trade deal
By Tim Colebatch
Economics Editor
July 24, 2004
the AGE

Opposition Leader Mark Latham has given his strongest indication yet that Labor will back the free trade agreement with the United States, despite an overwhelming view in the party that it is a bad deal.

Labor frontbenchers are divided over whether the party should pass the agreement in the Senate or send it back for further negotiations after elections later this year in both countries.

But Labor sources say the leadership, including trade spokesman and deputy Senate leader Stephen Conroy, has decided that the party cannot risk being painted as anti-American by opposing the deal.

Mr Latham told a radio interviewer this week that Labor was waiting for the Government to announce the process for reviewing decisions on pharmaceutical benefits before deciding its position.

"It's the last bit of information that we're waiting for, to see that the guarantees are there," he said.

There are also widespread concerns in Labor ranks over the free trade agreement's impact on Australia's IT industry, the viability of film and television production and the potential for large job losses in manufacturing.

In Geelong, Ford workers yesterday demonstrated against the agreement, which analysis for the Victorian Government warns could lead to the closure of Ford's transmission plant in Geelong.

US ambassador Tom Schieffer ruffled Australian car parts manufacturers on Thursday night, pointing out at their annual dinner that the free trade agreement would slash the price of American parts here by 15 per cent, creating new opportunities for Australian manufacturers to source their components from the US.

"That will make the cars that you make here cheaper and more competitive in markets around the world, not just in the United States," he said.

Labor sources say the leadership has decided that the party cannot risk being painted as anti-American.Meanwhile, Trade Minister Mark Vaile will fly to Geneva this weekend in a last-ditch attempt to secure agreement for new rules to open up world trade.

Senior trade officials yesterday warned that there was a real risk that the Swiss talks could, like last year's talks in Mexico, end in failure.

The World Bank has estimated that new rules to open up world trade, especially in agriculture, could lift global output by $US500 billion ($A699 billion) a year. But some Western countries that heavily protect their farmers are resisting reforms, while developing countries and the Australian-led Cairns Group have complained that the draft text of an agreement would allow loopholes to retain massive protection of rice, sugar and beef.
~

Why Latham should reject the FTA
July 20, 2004

This so-called free trade agreement is a humiliating sell-out, says Tim Colebatch.

When I was a kid, if you turned on the TV, the chances were you found yourself looking at another country. We saw a lot of westerns, a lot of Hollywood sitcoms, but next to nothing based on life in our own country.

Turn on the pay TV movie channels today and it seems nothing has changed. You get an endless stream of American films, at best based on the life US writers see around them, at worst just repeating Hollywood cliches of violence and suspense. Where the hell is Australia?

We might have to get used to not seeing it on TV. If Labor bows to conventional wisdom and approves the US free trade agreement, the film and television industry built up over 40 years by visionaries such as Hector Crawford and Sir John Gorton could gradually fade off our screens over the next 40 years.

Local content rules are a matter for national governments; they ought to have nothing to do with a free trade agreement. When the Bush Administration pushed for Australia's rules to be watered down, the Howard Government should have just said no - as the Canadians said no in their free trade agreement with the US, as the world said no in the Uruguay Round.

At first the Howard Government too said no. But then John Howard buckled and said yes. Now, as a result of US pressure, the Government will enforce a high level of local content only on the declining free-to-air channels.

For the rising pay TV network, this agreement would limit future Australian governments to require operators at best to spend 20 per cent of their drama budgets on Australian programs. On current patterns, that would limit Australian drama, forever, to just 6 per cent of actual program time.

It is one of several red lines Howard crossed so he could get an agreement signed before the coming election. And it is one of three reasons why Labor should say no to this deal, send it back to the negotiators to resume work after the elections in both countries, and show us that in government it really would be different from the team it endlessly criticises.

The key issue was never the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that Labor has focused on. Budgetary imperatives ensure that ministers and bureaucrats will limit any gains the US pharmaceutical industry appears to have made. Similarly, the influence of the farm lobby will limit any backdowns on quarantine, another of the four areas Labor says are its prime concerns.

But neither issue should ever have been part of a free trade agreement. Nor should Labor's two soundly based concerns: the watering down of local content rules, and the extraordinary decision to adopt large swathes of US law on intellectual property and copyright.

All four are non-trade areas in which the US, with Howard's acquiescence, has used this negotiation to influence or even decide Australian policies - for all time.

For me, the second red line that Howard crossed is one that Labor no longer mentions. In his desperation for a deal, the PM accepted an agreement that would mean free trade in one direction, but restricted trade the other way.
This is really half a free trade agreement. It will mean free trade for American exports to Australia. The day the agreement begins, 99 per cent of US exports will enter Australia duty-free, with complete free trade within 10 years. But it will not mean free trade for Australian exports to the US: not ever. The US will retain a ban on exports of Australia's world-leading fast ferries. It will limit Australia's sugar exports to token levels. It will exclude most Australian textile exports by tailor-made rules of origin.

The US will still severely limit Australian dairy exports. And it will maintain indefinitely quotas on Australian exports of beef and 30 or so other areas of farm produce - openly for 18 years, and then reappear like Cheshire cats whenever US prices fall significantly, which analysts say happens every couple of years.

How could any Australian government agree to such a lopsided deal? We are proud to be a nation that walks tall, treats others as equals, and demands the same of them. Could you imagine Sir John McEwen, Bob Hawke or Paul Keating accepting this cringing, second-rate outcome? It is a humiliating sell-out.

The lopsided outcome is why the US Government's study of the deal predicts it will benefit US exporters far more than Australia's. The US International Trade Commission estimates that annual US imports of Australian goods will rise by $US1.76 billion, mostly in beef and other food, while Australian imports from the US will rise by $US2.54 billion, mostly in manufactures.

The third red line Howard crossed to get this deal in time for the election was in agreeing to adopt US laws to protect copyright and other forms of intellectual property. This could mean absurdities such as accepting the patent a US firm has claimed on double-clicking your computer mouse, and endless litigation as US giants try to stamp out competition from Australia's open source software creators.

A knowledge economy needs to lean towards encouraging flexibility and innovation, not rewarding rent-seekers. We should be reducing the length of copyright and patent terms, not increasing them. And rather than signing away our right to use offset programs and government purchasing to develop new industries, we should have kept them out of this deal. Instead, we have ended up with a free trade agreement that does not deliver free trade, and instead invades a range of non-trade areas where our American friends frankly have no business to be.

So what do we do? As one advocate of a Australia-US deal puts it privately, the problem is that negotiations ended at the half-way mark. In February the negotiators should have walked away, taken a long break for consultations and rethinking, and then resumed talks after both countries had got their elections out of the way.

That is still the way to do it. It is only possible if Labor has the guts to defy the Murdoch empire - half-owner of Australia's pay TV network, and hence a major beneficiary of the deal - vote this agreement down, and restart negotiations in 2005.

Tim Colebatch is economics editor of The Age.

`

Yeah - I have lots of doubts about that damned agreement - being an economics eejit means I have said little.

Thing is - how would anyone ever negotiate a true free trade agreement with Gargantua?

The US has been best, as far as I can see, at forcing others to the free trade table, while maintaining whatever it wants, pretty much, for itself.

It is a damned scandal if the USA's bully tactics re Iraq and the Libs' subsequent scare campaign have caused a reversal on this!!!!

Blimey.

Yep, very depressing indeed:

US = international bully

Oz under Howard (& Latham?) = willing victim

<sigh>

..... & of course:

The big losers in all this = us!

A few references to help you decide about the FTA.


http://www.tradewatchoz.org/AUSFTA/Index.html

Summary

The stories being told by the US and Australian governments about what has been agreed are quite different. What is apparent is that Australia did not get the big gains in access to US agriculture it was asking for, but still agreed to some serious changes to Australian social policies which the US was demanding. While the agreement - unlike the North American Free Trade Agreement - will not allow corporations to sue the government for breaches of the agreement, it will mean restrictions on the right of Australia to regulate local content in the media, changes to Australian quarantine laws, new avenues for US pharmaceutical companies to press for greater profits from the Pharmaceutical Benefits scheme, and greater restrictions on creative products under copyright.



http://www.linux.org.au/fta/

For several years, Open Source developers based in the United States have had to grapple with the draconian provisions of the DMCA.

The proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States threatens to "import" those same problems and troubles into Australia. If these provisions were enacted in Australia, innovation and interoperability would be severely curtailed, even outlawed in some situations.

http://www.bakercyberlawcentre.org/fta/

UNSW Law Faculty's Baker & McKenzie Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre hosted a symposium about the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement and Intellectual Property in Sydney on 28 April 2004. Below, after a summary of the speakers, we offer links to materials compiled for the event or that have emerged since, including the text of the Agreement, the enabling laws (which passed the House of Representatives on 24 June 2004 and are likely to go before the Senate in August) and various speeches, submissions to inquiries, commentary, media releases and reports. New items will be added as they come to hand.

Details about our symposium have been moved to a separate page.
There are MP3 sound files of the presentations, a draft transcript, and some of the presentation files.

Thanks Gozmo.

Oz election could turn on Iraq
Editorial: Test for Australia / Another election that could turn on Iraq
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Australia, another country with troops in Iraq at American behest, is in the process of going through an examination of its role there similar to what took place in Spain and is occurring in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The Australian government commissioned a report to examine its intelligence process in advance of the war, including the question of whether Prime Minister John Howard's government tilted the information available to support a decision on his part to respond to an American request to join the "coalition of the willing." Australia has 900 troops in Iraq.

The report came back that Australian intelligence had been weak and had no independent evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It added, however, that there was no indication in the information examined that Mr. Howard had cooked the intelligence to reach a preordained conclusion.

The Australian public is estimated as a whole to be opposed to the Iraq war and to Australia's involvement in it.

Australia is expected to hold elections sometime in the next two or three months. Mr. Howard's main election opponent, the Labor Party, has pledged to bring the troops home by Christmas if it wins the elections.

To demonstrate to Australian voters the advantages of a close relationship with the United States, in May the two countries signed a bilateral free trade agreement, reducing or removing tariffs on a range of products. Estimates are that trade between the two countries will increase substantially if the accord is approved by the two countries' legislatures. There is opposition to the accord in both.

All in all, it is difficult to say what effect the Australian public's opposition to the Iraq war and Australia's role in it and its relations with the United States in general will have on Mr. Howard and his party's prospects in the elections. The government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain was voted out of office in March on that basis. British Prime Minister Tony Blair's party was battered in two recent parliamentary by-elections and his continued leadership of the Labor Party seems to be in question over the Iraq issue.

Given this background, the outcome of the upcoming Australian elections will be of more than usual interest to Americans.

BBB

Sometimes it feels like the current (Liberal) federal government is campaigning for the US election! Their policies are virtually identical to Bush's on many issues. It feels disconcertingly like being in an echo chamber .... Bush says it first, John Howard repeats the words. This is driving many of us nuts!

msolga
msolga, the US has a history of pressuring other countries with what it calls diplomacy. In fact, it is nearly always checkbook diplomacy wherein the US buys its allies support. The same goes for US support of dictators around the world where we need their natural resource imports.

I've come to believe that there is no such thing as diplomacy. There is only "name your price."

BBB