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The Forum > Article Comments > How do we make free trade fair? > Comments

How do we make free trade fair? : Comments

By Peter Whish-Wilson, published 13/2/2014

It is time for a national conversation about trade and free trade agreements and about the importance of re-focusing the debate in this country around what is fair trade and the importance of incorporating fair trade in future free trade agreements.

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The way the wind is blowing in our brave new world is nicely encapsulated in the last paragraph. And especially in the last line which reads. "We should not put the power of corporations and profits ahead of the people."
By signing these free trade agreements, especially the big Trans-Pacific, are we ceding primary power to corporations? Our governments seem to be giving the game away. I suppose we will still have them posing and spruiking and generally big-noting themselves, but in economic matters, that is, in the engine room, national governments will no longer be in control of what remains of sovereignty.
I don't pretend to know if this well be good or bad in the overall picture, only that it is the way things seem to be heading. National flags will continue to fly at the Olympics and on days of remembrance, but perhaps not in the boardrooms.
Posted by halduell, Thursday, 13 February 2014 8:04:18 AM
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A “national conversation about trade and free trade agreements.” Not much chance of that. Politicians do not discuss very much at all with the people they are supposed to serve, and they plunged right into free trade agreements without no discussion or “conversation” at all; just as they did with multiculturalism and removal of much of our freedom of speech.

Not that there is anything wrong with free trade. The problem is that our stupid politicians thought that other countries would play by the rules, which they have not done. And anytime this fact is mentioned, politicians go deaf. They are too arrogant on the one hand to admit they are clueless on free trade, and too frightened on the other hand to take other countries to task.

The imbalance we now have is just one more example of Australians being betrayed by their politicians.
Posted by NeverTrustPoliticians, Thursday, 13 February 2014 9:19:13 AM
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To free trade or not to free trade, that is the question. Actually, it ain't. Re automotive - Asian nations can make cars cheaper than we can. Muscle jobs go where muscle labour is cheapest (Primary Colors).

2017 will certainly be a shocker for unemployment. Are we creating enough new jobs? Nope. Do we have any plans in place for the 10-20,000 automotive workers and their supply chain workers when they hit the streets? Nope.

One small but not unimportant aspect of the Federation is how long will the other states have to carry SA and Tasmania? That's a more realistic question.
Posted by Malcolm 'Paddy' King, Thursday, 13 February 2014 10:25:55 AM
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When ever you see the word "fair" interspersed into a discussion about free trade you know that rent-seekers have entered the conversation.

How anyone can doubt the value of Australia's adoption of free trade principles and economic reform starting with the Hawke Government in 1983 defies belief.

When Rudd/Gillard wound back the industrial relations system 30 years to pre-1983 rules it was easy to see that unions would take their new found power and lift wage costs to unsustainable levels. It is come to pass and it will be even worse until the position is rectified.

It is sites where the unions are in control that will continue to close. It has nothing to do with Free Trade Agreements.
Posted by EQ, Thursday, 13 February 2014 10:46:52 AM
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Peter WW is supposedly an economist who should understand the very basics of economics is that free trade always benefits both parties, and that messing with market via protectionism always comes back to bite everyone in the backside.

Protecting the car industry, has for decades provided jobs for thousands of workers, but increased the cost of transport for hundreds of thousand of businesses and many millions of consumers, increasing the cost of living, and of manufacturing pretty much every thing else.

The point of subsidies is to get a new industry with potential off the ground or protect an industry through a temporary glitch. When the industry needs tariffs and subsidies to survive day to day, it has become a parasite, and needs to be cut off.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Thursday, 13 February 2014 11:43:39 AM
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In the Green Lexicography good old fashioned ‘protectionism’ is renamed as ‘fair trade’. Fair trade is translated as any commercial transaction that meets the current fashionable cause of the Green Party.
Posted by anti-green, Thursday, 13 February 2014 12:29:59 PM
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Genuine free trade of the type promoted by the WTO can create jobs and prosperity, but the bilateral and plurilateral trade deals that have come to dominate in recent years are of much more questionable benefit. They tend to exclude politically sensitive areas like agriculture and to favour the dominant partner’s interests, such as the intellectual property provisions common in deals the USA negotiates.

The car industry has been a long time dying. To blame its demise on the South Korean or trans-pacific agreements is absurd.

I completely agree that “We should not put the power of corporations and profits ahead of the people.” That is exactly what protectionism does. The “special interests” lobbying for economic privileges at the expense of the rest of us are much more likely to argue for protectionism than against it. The car industry is an excellent example. The taxpayers and motorists of Australia have been subsidising US and Japanese multinationals for far too long.
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 13 February 2014 1:11:51 PM
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"How do we make free trade fair"

Make it free. Two guys and a pen, crossing out all the bullsh!t in current "free trade agreements" (definitely oxymoronic). Work out a penalty for any subsidy on ether side (to make a more level playing field) and the make sure they are reviewed if an industry body on either side says someone is trying to pull a "swifty"

Then add a carbon consumption tax to help mitigate CO2e and helping get rid of the free rider problem of an emissions tax.

Definitely don't return to protectionism
Posted by Valley Guy, Thursday, 13 February 2014 1:54:52 PM
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Peter, this should have been filed under "anti-economics".

It's easy to demolish your entire confused anti-social parasitic belief system in one sentence:

Show by what rational criterion you distinguish between free trade and the alleged fair price in any given case.

End of argument. You lose. You're talking nonsense.

What happened is that the ALP raped SPC and Toyota to death with the full support of the Greens. During the last Labor government, Bill Shorten was openly boasting about how he had managed to get (extort) above-market wages and conditions for SPC workers.

Clever hey?

And just before Toyota folded, they applied to the Labor judge for - cop this - permission to talk to their own employees, to let them know the company is going to go broke, and would they prefer to not have some of their extorted above-market conditions like two-and-a-half time "penalty" rates for Sundays, or lose their jobs?

Result: permission denied. So now the whole car manufacturing industry is gone.

Happy now, you socialist morons?
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Thursday, 13 February 2014 6:50:22 PM
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Definitely don't return to protectionism
Valley Guy,
How would you suggest we address the protectionism that is the public service i.e. incompetent bureaucrats being totally unaccountable ?
Posted by individual, Thursday, 13 February 2014 6:51:10 PM
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I'd love to see the public debate, but beside you calling for the debate, (for which I'm very grateful), I'm not sure what your are offering here Peter. Exactly what does a global fair trade system look like? There is plenty of room for the Greens to come up with something very interesting in this area, but nothing forthcoming as yet.

Elements of both the right and left are traditionally supporters of protected markets, with legitimate reasons. Don't just bring back the policy debate, bring back the political struggle. Take it to them!

I am a supporter of protectionism. How does that taste on your lips? Protect the nation, protect the regions, protect the villages and neighbourhoods, but don't go to far or your costs will outweigh your benefits. Yes to economic diversity, greater local and regional interdependence and autonomy. yes to moderate protectionism, applied to the neighbourhood scale. Yes to a relocalisation of the economy. Now please get on with an actual policy Peter and the Greens. Not just "we want fair". Show us the detail!
Posted by GilbertHolmes, Thursday, 13 February 2014 9:04:51 PM
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EQ: 'How anyone can doubt the value of Australia's adoption of free trade principles and economic reform starting with the Hawke Government in 1983 defies belief.'

Well, here is one defiant disbeliever proudly putting up their hand.

The free trade process had nothing whatever to do with economic value or common sense. It was all about international peer group pressure. Countries simply had to join the globalization/free trade club or be ostracized from international trade and financial markets, and in some extreme cases - sanctioned, bombed and/or invaded.

All that global free trade accomplished was to strip countries of their ability to produce or do anything that was 'uncompetitive' on a global market (which is just code for global corporate profit). Countries were stripped of their right to self-sufficiency, to regulate their financial and banking systems, and to benefit from their own local markets and talent. They merely became whistle stops for corporations zooming around the globe chasing cheap labour.

Free trade did not save Australia or any other country from recessions - they're still coming thick and fast and with increasing ruthlessness. Rather, it's placed our economy at the mercy of an inherently corrupt international banking and corporate system. So far, we've escaped the economic meltdowns experienced in the US, EU and other countries - not because of the so-called mining boom, but because we still held onto some good old-fashioned regulation of our banking sector, thus saving us 100s of billions in bailout spending.
Posted by Killarney, Thursday, 13 February 2014 9:36:14 PM
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FIRST AND FOREMOST -

to make global trade "Free" and "Fair", the wealthy (mostly western) economies and companies have to stop supporting unfair, unreasonable and inhuman worker treatment as though slavery was globally legal and accepted.

Apart from being utterly wrong to all, the existence of some sections of the global economy that have workers who are willing to work for near nothing means that workers and manufacturing has become almost non-existent in the west. This means that every worker in the west has work in service and/or specialty sectors (hence the massive unemployment since low-skilled work is ALL gone to Asia).

Besides, what will happen if and when all the poorest Chinese and Indians become more powerful and educated (like happened in Japan and S. Korea in last 60 years) and refuses to be worker slaves? Will we simply shift manufacture-slave-land over to Africa next? What about after that?
Posted by Matthew S, Saturday, 15 February 2014 7:11:56 PM
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To ADD -

Free Trade seems to imply an "open" environment in which almost everything can possible occur.

However, the economists who espouse the notion should remember their history, such that in the west (UK specifically with Industrial revolution etc.) the idea of a Liberalist economy and society and culture implies and requires that the culture in general adhere to a respect of all individual people, their rights and their well-being. This further implies that the liberalist Millean "non-Harm principle" espoused by all liberalists of the day like Locke and Hume and smAITH AND Mill, be a wide-spread reality governing the bounds of this "freedom".

This basis respect for others and belief in universal equality is what allows such a society to function, as without this principle the society would fall into chaos, the war of ALL AGAINST ALL (state of war or NATURE).

NOW, in economic terms a FREE MARKET is not possible without some type of all-pervading "non-HAMR principle" holding people globally to adhere to human rights etc..

But because most of the world has not yet developed to a cultural stage which includes equality and universal freedom and respect for life, a "non-Harm" mechanism IS NOT present in a global market. Predominantly this is due to a general and widespread lack of comprehension of the notion that ALL people are EQUAL and respect should be afforded to ALL unconditionally, this makes it impossible for any true free market globally
Posted by Matthew S, Saturday, 15 February 2014 7:23:13 PM
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Matthew S
The problem is precisely that you have not defined, and cannot define, this non-harm principle to consist of anything other than not aggressing against person or property.

You cannot define the difference between the market rate, for example for wages, and the fair rate in any given case, by any rational criterion. So you're talking nonsense that does not make sense in theory, and therefore cannot make sense in practice.

Do you treat other people equally?
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Monday, 17 February 2014 12:12:13 PM
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Jardine K. Jardine,

Clearly something is up.

Have I touched a nerve?

For you to even ask and mention that the "non-harm principle" has not and likely cannot be defined is just silly, and irresponsible to pretend in this lie whilst real people remain in this world right now under these slavery condition.

Common sense can define it for us, and the west has managed to construct pretty good legal systems which make serious attempts to uphold these principles of equality for all (in fair treatment) and respect and freedom of voice for all, etc.

Surely you and anyone knows that all is meant by espousing human rights and fundamental equalities to the global community is just what I said.

Western society still has a long way to go to overcome the inherent gaps from inheritance and class distinctions which themselves create enormous unfair gaps of equality.

BUT, in places like Asia and other third-world cultures, forget the concerns we have in our country, the gravity of the sheer inequity and indecency and denial of human respect/life is so enormous that it must take precedence over our own inequities.

Or at least, we can work on both in tandem.

WHY WOULD YOU BE ANGRY WITH MY ARGUMENTS? WHAT POSSIBLE REASON?
Posted by Matthew S, Wednesday, 19 February 2014 4:18:00 PM
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