Shadow, is bollocks you word of the week. or something? You use it often enough. Surprising what words they are teaching children at kindy these days.

"10-year reviews are there to adapt to changes in the world economy" And in Australia's case they will be conducted in a friendly, bipartisan manor, between the two parties. One some political stooge such as Money Bags Malcolm and two his Big Business Bosses. Very simple, BB will give the orders and Money Bags will carry them out, quicker than you can say bollocks!
BTW, the lackey leader from the Labor Party will be serving the 'Dom Perignon White Gold' of course, nothing but the best will do when the taxpayer is footing the bill. Ah!

ttbn, when did you become a lefty and start fear mongering on FTA's?

Paul1405 - My bad, What I mean is people and business worldwide should be in a democratic free world be able to trade with whoever they want to.

This would be good for consumers,except in the case of BIG business when monopolies are involved as happens nowadays in too many cases.

The problems with this are Governments which impose restrictions,sanctions, tariffs, embargoes etc to control and punish people, businesses, and countries.

FTA's are made to protect BIG business and usually written by big business or representatives of them.

In a perfect world Government should just stay out of it in most instances, except to protect there citizens from unscrupulous businesses, unsafe and dangerous goods.

Trade is essential but business cannot be allowed to do as it pleases; there has to be govenment regulation to see to that business does not get free rein. Regulation is the key word where governments are concerned; they have no business involving themselves in any other way. Governments are no good at business.

We have to start asking what it is about 'free trade' that is free. It seems to me that, in many cases, it has cost Australia dearly - loss of industry, loss of jobs and, inferior products (China) that Australians, not so long ago, would not have tolerated. We are a long way away from the time innocent Malaccans of good will traded with Top End aborigines in trepang and other items.

ttbn, I have to agree with you; " loss of industry, loss of jobs and, inferior products" . Governments of both persuasions have been lazy and neglectful when it comes to economic future building. With a small population and a large amount of natural resources the easy opinion has been to rely on a few people to exploit those resources, mainly for export. At the same time allow the vast majority to be employed in non wealth producing service industries, both private and government. Then through taxation distribute the real wealth produced to all the non wealth producers. They haven't been able to do that very well, allowing Big Business to undersell our resources on the world market, and not taking a reasonable cut for the real owners, us the people! But with a huge amount of resources, and only 24 million prople its been okay.
To give you an example; people working at 'Centrelink' are unemployable people, employed, to look after the unemployed. If they were not working at 'Centrelink' what gainful employment would they have, nothing. The same goes for the private sector, banking, insurance etc. Obvious in a complex society such as ours, you have to have service industries like 'Centrelink' and banks etc, but not to the extent Australia has.
A smart government would be doing all it can to secure the nations economic future, through education and training, real job creation, in real wealth producing industries. I'm not suggesting that we can go it alone, we can't be self sufficient, we have to rely on trade as an essential part of the economy, but it has to be fair trade for all.

Paul,

The cost of the Australian Public Service has reached $52 billion annually. Our annual deficit is around $40 billion annually. While trying to cut the welfare budget to reduce debt, the government should be doing the same to cut the PS budget, which, in many cases, is a form of welfare for people who can't get 'proper' jobs. (I am allowed to say that because I used to be a public servant.)

Then there are the public servants, particularly in the Dept.of Defence, who farm out work to industry and keep some industries afloat, thus ensuring the ordinary jobs within those industries.