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AUSFTAUnions unconvinced by Trade AgreementCPSU-SPSF joins with other unions to condemn the agreement as not in Australia’s national interest.By David Carey Unions are not convinced that the Free Trade Agreement with the United States is in the country's best interest and remain concerned about job losses in our manufacturing industry as well as the loss of Australian intellectual property rights. At a meeting of the Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) in Sydney this week, unions resolved that the current Australia-US/FTA as negotiated by the Howard Government is in fact a preferential trade deal in the immediate interest of US companies and provides very limited and gradual access to US markets for Australia. As well as no clear-cut evidence of real economic benefit to Australia, there are many reasons to remain concerned about the likely downsides of the agreement: job losses in the manufacturing sector, restrictions on investment and local content requirements in Australian production in pay TV and new media; the potential to undermine the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and dramatically increase the cost of medicines, to name a few. David Carey, Federal Secretary of the State Public Services Federation said: Because this agreement is very clearly not in Australia's interest it is critical that the ALP take a stand on this and vote against the implementing legislation in the Senate as a matter of national importance. You just need to look at the number of submissions sent to the Senate Select Committee and the diversity of groups and interests represented to know that the wider community is very worried about what this agreement can mean for Australia. In the CPSU-SPSF group submission to the Senate Select Committee on the Australia-US FTA, David Carey wrote: The model which this Agreement introduces and the removal of restrictions to competition for the provision of these broad public sector services could mean that the current protections provided to users of public services will be significantly undermined. Our members, who provide these public services, have observed the effect in the last decade of the increasing imposition of private sector and competitive models of public service delivery. The experience has been almost universally that the quality of those services has declined, the levels of employment of people providing these services has diminished and in many cases the cost to the user has risen. Our recent experience includes but is not limited to the introduction of private competition to public sector services in rail, gas and electricity, corrective services, aged care and childcare. The CPSU-SPSF joined with the other unions in rejecting the Howard government's attempt to portray this trade agreement as essential to Australia's alliance with the US Alliance and in reiterating concerns about Australian jobs, intellectual property rights and government rights to maintain our social and cultural foundations. No trade deal should be accepted if these fundamentals are weakened. For copies of the CPSU-SPSF submission about the Australia-US FTA go to: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/freetrade_ctte/submissions/sub168.pdf Other submissions available at: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/freetrade_ctte/submissions/sublist.htm
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