1. Negotiations
2. AANZFTA

Not much free about this “free” trade agreement

Rethinking Globalisation | 5 March 2009

Not much free about this “free” trade agreement

Michael Cebon

I guess I should write a bit about the Australia-ASEAN-NZ Free Trade Agreement (FTA) which was signed over the weekend in Thailand — it’s Australia’s biggest regional FTA to date.

The mining industry loves it since it will let them export more Australian minerals to Asia. And the Textile Clothing & Footwear Union hates it, since

Accelerating tariff reductions hurt Australian manufacturers and their workers, this FTA further reduces the scheduled reductions which were announced close to a decade ago.

But a much more significant question is: what do the 560 million citizens of ASEAN — those who will be most affected by this agreement — think of it?

The answer is that it’s extremely difficult to tell, because (and this is something no-one in the media has mentioned, as far as I can find) only 3 of ASEAN’s 10 member nations have any sort of democratic processes to speak of. (I’m counting Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand as democracies here, which leaves Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Burma/Myanmar, and Vietnam, which are all — more or less — dictatorships).

I’ve made the point before that negotiating a “free” trade agreement with a dictatorship is worse than unfair — it’s anti-democratic.

In Australia, while trade negotiators are not elected, they are constrained by an elected government and parliament who must justify their actions to Australian citizens. In Australia, an attentive and critical press and opposition political parties help to make sure any deal is really in the interests of Australian citizens. While these protections are not always successful — witness the passing of the US-Australia FTA which was clearly a damaging deal for Australia — the fact that checks and balances exist at least gives trade negotiations some legitimacy.

In dictatorships like China [and 7 of the ASEAN nations], unelected and unaccountable governments face no such “inconvenient” constraints. There is no system of checks and balances by which citizens might feel that their interests are properly protected from a government known for its high level of corruption. There is no free media and no opposition to scrutinise the deal which is negotiated. Indeed, there is no requirement that the dictators even consider the interests of the people over whom they rule.

What right does the Australian government have to impose a free trade agreement on the peoples of ASEAN, without any sort of systems in place to represent their views or interests (rather than the views or interests of their rulers) in negotiations?

And how many Australians want a free trade agreement with vicious, murderous regimes like Burma’s military junta anyway?