Will those Latham amendments to the FTA be wiped out?:
Free trade free-for-all
By SHAUN CARNEY
January 7, 2006/the AGE
A year on, the United States trade agreement is proving to be neither free nor fair.
............. the Government, now that it has control of the Senate, (is)considering ditching the anti-evergreening element from the FTA. It has asked a working group to assess the possible impact of wiping out the amendment.
The drug companies want it wiped out. They say there is no evergreening in Australia, so the law is unnecessary. But they also argue, through their lobbying body Medicines Australia, that the very existence of the law is discouraging investment in Australia by pharmaceutical companies.
There is an inconsistency in that position, which seems to be that companies don't want to increase their activities in Australia because we have a law that prohibits them from doing something they say they don't do and don't want to do. If ever there was a "it's the vibe of the thing" argument, that's it.
The United States Government is also pushing for the amendment to be dropped. Of course, it would. The major pharmaceutical companies ?- collectively known as big pharma ?- are massive industrial concerns. For most of the past 20 years, their industry has been America's most profitable. ............
.................A good deal of Washington politics is about influence-peddling and special interests looking for advantages through legislation ?- which comes at a price. The emerging scandal involving Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff is merely the grimier end of a set of practices that form politics-as-usual in the American capital.
It thus comes as no surprise that the US trade ambassador Rob Portman has mentioned pharmaceuticals in his discussions with Mark Vaile. What is perhaps a little surprising is that Vaile, who is no fool, has referred the evergreening issue to the working party. ........
..............The early signs ?- and they are only early signs ?- are that the FTA is proving to be something well short of the great bonanza promised by the Prime Minister before the 2004 election. The agreement came into force a year ago and figures released this week showed that for the first 10 months of its operation, Australia's trade deficit with the US blew out by a further billion dollars.
In that period, Australia's exports to the US fell by 4.7 per cent, while US imports rose by 5.7 per cent. The Government says this is because of the strong Australian dollar, but that's a lame argument; one of the ideas behind freeing up trade is to overcome currency fluctuations. We didn't get the bad end of the deal, did we?
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http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/free-trade-freeforall/2006/01/06/1136387624651.html
And it's never too cold to refuse a beer :wink:
Different events but the same script. Very disappointing, that man. <sigh>
) But seriously, any theories on where it's coming from & why? I always look to whose got something to gain in these situations. In this case there are many, many possibilities!:
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