All fair points well made Sebastian.

The problem is that the average Australian couldn't give a toss about issues like human rights - unless it directly affects them. So they'll jump up and down if the speed limit is to be reduced, but their eyes glaze over if you start talking about detention without trial. As Hugh Mackay wrote in the media yesterday, as long as the economy appears to be strong, Howard can lie and cheat as much as he likes, and he'll keep getting voted in. He can just dismiss the other issues as being only of interest to the 'elite'.

The Terrorism scare will eventually go the way of Reds under the Beds and the Yellow Peril, but in the meantime, Howard will milk it for all its worth.

Here Here

I agree on all points Sebastian.

The Australian cabinet's support and encouragement for the Republicans neocon agenda is wrong and repugnant.

Sighting all the headlines without providing any of the backup documentation explaining why a position was taken is nothing more than a bunch of cheap shots.

This is not much more than an emotional appeal to the unthinking rable.

I agree with you Bruce.

This handsome chap Sebastian is pushing all the wet buttons. Saying all the correct things.

But at to exactly when Australia was "renowned" as a leading nation on human rights he'd be left grasping for evidence.

From the early 1970s (before Sebastian was born) Australia has been internationally criticised as a nation oppressing aborigines.

The aboriginal tent embassy was established in 1972 as a symbol of the fight against racism.

Up until 1941 Australia was seen as a pro White pro British part of the Empire.

1941 onwards Australia was strongly pro American in foreign policy, Korea 1949-early 50s, Vietnam early 60s to 70s, Iraq 2003 onwards. Few opprtunities for human rights credits there.

Until the 1970s immigration under Labor and non-Labor governments was strongly weighted in favour of whites.

A rosy view of past is no basis for Sebastien (with his multi-employee consultancy?) to whack the current government.

A number of people here in Canada are experiencing the same issues, and have been working to get support for free trade within the Commonwealth.

Already, there is interest among business and parliamentary leaders in Canada, Australia, India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean. Some UK politicians see it as an alternative to further EU integration.

I have already published on the subject, and would greatly like to expand the circle of support for this concept.

http://www.trafford.com/4dcgi/robots/04-2084.html

AMSADL,
Very difficult to add to that, it is a truism.
Regards,Shaun

Sebastian,

There seems to be some misunderanding about WTO, FTA and BTA. As far as us mugs can see, they are all tarred with the same brush, mostly controlled from Pax Americana, with full backing from that meanskinned EU, with subsidies and all. We can well ask what is causing our milk farmers in Western Australia to sell out while their properties are holding their value only because they are close to Perth, the middle-men or Big Biz reaping the cream as they did back in the 1920s. We also have our former little cooperative Wesfarmers among the rip-off merchants, both our local Labour government and Federal Conservative Government backing Wesfarmers to the full because economic rationalism - originally meant to mean to share and share alike - now represents excessive economic greed and extreme global capitalism with billions being made by the new top brass, but with the people of the backblocks not the miners, going broke.

Also we see our orchardists ripping out their citrus trees, opening up the paddocks once again to cattle or fat lambs, certainly not to dairy farming. Also we have our WA wheat cockies regarded as growing the best wheat with good yields on the most unfertile farming land in the world. But we are being sold out and undercut by our dear friends the Americans, now also helped by Canada, in grabbing our Middle East markets.

Nearly forgot again what bilaterism nearly did to our Bio-Protection laws, when a shipment of foot and mouth suspected carcase meat was landed in NSW and hastily buried on a dump, but not a word about it from our media. Just wondering who controls who in our ersatz democracy right now?

One thing I think we are all forgetting is the part where foreign investment is not subject to review by the foreign investment review board up to $800m, up from $50m. This explains why the Americans are so eager to get a free trade agreement up. Why would they want to pay import duty on raw materials and products made by their own companies just because the factory, farm or mine that produced them was in Australia?

Perhaps the worst, mostly unforseen, affect will be on Australian monetary policy. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy ) Currently the federal government through the reserve bank can regulate the supply of new money into the economy, as well as the cost (interest rate) of that money. With large amounts of foreign investment flowing in this regulation may become meaningless and the economy will be awash with inflation producing cash at the same time as the US based multinationals are slashing jobs in their new aquisitions, causing the same sort of stagflation we saw under Ronny Raygun in the early 1980s