UPDATE – OCTOBER
HAS BI-PARTISAN POLITICAL ARRANGEMENTS LED TO THE WHITE-ANTING OF
The failure of our elected
Federal Members of Parliament to debate all the concessions conceded to the
The back flips by both the
Howard Coalition and Opposition parties can be discovered in the following two
articles.
The Melbourne Age, January
24, 2004 - Sugar doubts could Kill Trade Talks, by Mark Forbes Foreign Affair
Correspondent –
Trade Minister Mark Vaile,
departing for Washington yesterday to oversee next week’s make or break
negotiations, said sugar must be part of the deal.
Agriculture – including
beef, dairy and sugar was key to a potential 4 billion dollars boost to the
Australian economy from the agreement, Mr. Vaile said.
U.S. Trade Officials have
reportedly asked Australian negotiators to settle for a Free Trade Agreement
that does not open the
The hard-line
Political support for an
agreement is ebbing in the lead-up to presidential elections this year.
Yesterday’s Age revealed
that a third of the U.S. Senate had written to Mr. Bush expressing “deep
concern” over the deal’s potential impact on American farmers. Negotiations have effectively stalled before
Mr. Vaile’s talks with the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, which
begin on Monday. The deal is expected to
be made, or fall over, by the end of the week.
Mr. Zoellick has told one of the
Acting Prime Minister John
Anderson has said it would be UN-Australian to accept any Free Trade deal
without sugar being included. “I cannot
see how
Mr. Vaile said he could
not give a watertight guarantee that negotiations would not end in stalemate, but there was a better than even
chance the Agreement would be struck.
“We’ve sought to do a comprehensive deal across all sectors – including
agriculture, including sugar and we’ve said that sugar
must be part of the deal
and we’re not conceding that,” he said.
“If this deal is not good
enough for the Australian economy, that is if we’re being asked to pay too much
for what we’re getting in return, then we’ve always reserved the right to walk
away from this and not to do the deal.”
THE AUSTRALIAN – THURSDAY, MARCH 11 2004
U.S. TRADE SUPREMO BOASTS OF ‘CON JOB
By Roy Eccleston
George W Bush proclaimed
himself a “Free Trader” yesterday, while his chief negotiator boasted to
congress that he had protected U.S. beef, dairy and sugar farmers from their
Australian competition.
As Mr. Bush, facing an
election in November accused Democrats of pushing “economic isolationism,” U.S.
Trade Representative Robert Zoellick bragged to the Senate Finance Committee
how little the U.S. had opened its key markets to Australian farmers under the
new Free Trade Agreement.
Even so, Republican Senate
Trade Committee Chairman Charles Grassley warned that would take “political
courage” to pass FTAs, including the Australian deal, which still needed
congressional approval.
‘And we have an
18 year phase – out
Mr. Howard was
Pushing to lower’
Robert Zoellick
U.S. Trade Representative.
“Unfortunately, we don’t
have as much of that courage as we used to have, in the sense that trade is
much more controversial than it has been for a long time,” Senator Grassley
said.
Claims that Free Trade has
cost U.S. jobs have made the issue a political hot potato in the U.S, and was
presumably the reason for Mr. Zoellick’s triumphalist language in talking about
the U.S. – Australia FTA. He told
Florida Senator Bob Graham how he had worn heavy criticism for excluding the
heavily protected U.S. sugar industry from the deal “so there’s one for your
constituency.”
While claiming the U.S.
stood to gain about 2 billion dollars U.S. (2.64 billion) in increased exports
of manufactured goods to Australia Mr. Zoellick said Mr. Bush had not been
moved by Prime Minister John Howard’s appeals on agriculture. “And then in beef, as you probably know, we
didn’t increase the quota until like year three at the earliest,” he said,
explaining that because of the “mad cow” scare, no extra Australian sales could
occur until the third year of the 18 year deal.
“And we have an 18 year phase
out that Prime Minister Howard personally was pushing to get lowered, which we
didn’t lower. And it actually should
work well with our industry, Senator, because we only increased the quota for
manufactured beef.”
On dairy products, Mr.
Zoellick sounded especially pleased, using irony to call the Australian
increase “huge” and trumpeting the fact that Canberra had been unable to end
the tariff protection for U.S. farmers.
“And frankly, in terms of dairy, I think we’ve increased our quota
didn’t touch the tariffs one bit, the huge amount of about maybe 30 or 40
million dollars a year.”
But the reluctance to open
U.S. markets stands at odds with the claims Mr. Bush is now making in election
campaign about his Free Trade credentials.
As our economy moves
forward and new jobs are added, some are questioning whether American companies
and American workers are up to the challenge of foreign competition, “Mr. Bush
said.” There are economic isolationists
in our country who believe we should separate ourselves from the rest of the
world by raising up barriers and closing off markets. They’re wrong.
“If we are to continue
growing this economy and creating new jobs, America must remain confident and
strong about our ability to trade in the world.
Given a level playing field, America will outperform the competition.
COMMENT: The print-media Political Commentators and
Editors named in our Update – September and Update September Part Two have
failed to inform their readers about the concessions conceded to the U.S. for
the FTA, as reported in the two aforementioned articles. Concerned Australians demand answers to the
following questions:
1.
Why have the
aforementioned Political Commentators withheld the true facts re: the FTA?
2.
Could they
have a political agenda?
3.
When you
consider that one of the few financial winners from the FTA will be Australia’s
Media-Barons. Is it possible the named
Political Commentators and Editors in our September Update were ordered to
cover-up the dire ramifications the FTA would have on Australia by their
employer?
4.
For a week
prior to the Upper House (Senate) passing the FTA, all our colleagues and
families and friends rang Opposition Leader Mark Latham’s Canberra Office to
make him aware that they were au fait with the concessions conceded and
directed his office representative to go to our website Link >>>>
Update June so that she could alert Mark Latham, that the two page article was
from the Executive Office of the United States President – Office of the United
States Trade Representative Washington, DC.
The Bush Administration
was so delighted with the lopsided FTA in the United States favour that they
made this document available for perusal to the American People. In fact this information re: concessions
conceded to the U.S. for the FTA was passed on to all four Federal Political
Parties and with the exception of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and
Television content. Not one elected
member enlightened the Australian public about the concessions conceded re: the
FTA. Why?
We believe the Bi-partisan
support for the National Competition Policy, which created farming deregulation
was the forerunner in weakening our industries so that they would be unable to
compete financially once the FTA is introduced between Australia and the
U.S. I.e. The dairy industry
deregulation was legislated by the Labor State Governments who worked in tandem
with the Federal Howard-Anderson, Liberal-National Coalition who provided the
dairy industry with a remuneration package raised by imposing an 11 cents a
litre levy on consumers.
This was implemented to
the detriment of dairy farmers and consumers and the lack of support, by the
NSW Farmers Association and the National Farmers Federation. For the full story, return to our main page
Link >>>> Dairy Deregulation.
Following are three Alan
Jones Today Show Editorials which illustrates the white-anting of Rural and
Regional Australia by the Howard-Anderson Liberal-National Coalition and the
Labor State Premiers.
BEEF INDUSTRY
November 18, 2002
Well, plenty of talk last
week about trade. Many people wonder
though about where this push for so called Free Trade is going to end.
It seems to many that Free
Trade means open slather on Australian interests while the rest of the world looks
after its own.
For example, according to
the September 2002 edition of Feedback, the Meat and Livestock Australia
journal, 41.8 per cent of the beef processing industry in this country belongs
to foreign interests. 50 per cent of beef
exported is controlled by foreign interests.
The top two red meat
processors, Australian Meat Holdings and Nippon Meat Packers, are controlled by
foreign interests.
You’d never know, because
Nippon Meat Packers trade under the deceptive names of Wingham Abbatoirs and
Hastings Foods, very Australian names.
The Nippon Meat Packers have been slowly taking over the red meat
industry centred on the Darling Downs.
Nippon’s Whyalla feed lot at Texas supplies the Oakley Abbatoirs in
Queensland.
Nippon has just completed
the purchase of the Dixon hide factory in Toowoomba. The hide factory is now placing extreme
pressure on Australian owned hide producers to remove them as competition from
the market place.
Nippon have become the
biggest pig producer on the Darling Downs.
They now have control of much of the smallgoods industries through Dandy
Bacon. In other words, keep the
Australian name, but that’s a far cry from who controls the interest.
The four largest members
of the Australian Lot Feeder’s Association are all foreign owned
corporations. Australian Meat Holdings,
with an excellent Australian name, but foreign owned: Nippon, Itoham and Mareubini. Yet these organisations speak under the
banner of the Australian Lot Feeder’s Association. Surely an insult to Australian owned
businesses.
If over 41 per cent of the
beef processing industry in Australia belongs to foreign interests, and if over
50 per cent of the beef exported is controlled by foreign interests, what does
the push into overseas markets mean for Australia? I would have thought not much.
SUGAR
MARCH 5, 2004
The Prime Minister this
weekend is going into sugar country in Queensland, at the same time 900 plus
pages of the Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the United States have
been released and not a word about sugar.
The sugar farmers in
Florida are jumping for joy because they have got from the Bush government all
they want. It was the State of Florida
that gave George Bush the Presidency.
It’s a pretty
straightforward story about Australia’s sugar farmers. All our farmers get is the market price,
about 200 dollars a tonne.
In the Philippines they
get that 200 bucks and a subsidy of 200 dollars a tonne as well.
In Europe the subsidy is
740 dollars a tonne. In America it’s 640
dollars a tonne. So much for Free
Trade.
So our farmers get 200
dollars a tonne and you and I are paying 2,100 dollars a tonne for sugar on the
supermarket shelf. Someone is kidding.
To put another way, in
1961, cane farmers on the Clarence river in Northern New South Wales were paid
18 dollars a tonne and a tractor cost 2,1000 dollars in today’s money.
Today, growers won’t get
the 18 dollars a tonne they will get 200 dollars a tonne for their sugar, but
the same tractor costs not 2,100 but 27,000 dollars.
In the 1960’s, Australia
had an export quota of 850,000 tonnes of raw sugar to America. Now it’s 50,000 tonnes.
When it comes to saying to
the sugar industry well, we will help you with new industries, like ethanol and
bio-plastics to remove the industries, dependence on raw sugar, then government
is invertebrate on that as well.
So what is the future of
the sugar industry?
Do we say to it what we
say to the dairy industry and the pork industry?
In 1960, Australia had
nearly 50,000 pork farmers. Now we have
barely 3,000, a drop of 94%. We had
nearly 75,000 dairy farmers, now we have 11,000 across Australia, a drop of 85%. We had 52,000 sheep farmers, now we have
14,000 a drop of 73%.
The number of sugar cane
farmers have already fallen by 40%, so what is next. What kind of society are we creating?
Margaret Menzel from
Queensland, the wife of a cane farmer, has fought strenuously for the
industry. Quite frankly, she should get
a war medal!
But writing recently, she
said of the Federal Government, “There are only so many diversionary tactics
that will work when people are losing their homes, their livelihoods, their
communities and in many ways, their families.
Cane farmers are being
driven off their land and have been driven to suicide. The Prime Minister is due to arrive in cane
farming country this weekend she said, immensely, “We are appealing to the
Prime Minister to give leadership on this issue. We need the Prime Minister to say National
Competition Policy isn’t working and deregulation is the object failure, it’s
been proven to be. Fix it now and stop
the destruction of our rural and manufacturing industries and take care of
Australia ahead of the Multi-national corporations who seem to be dictating the
policy of all the major parties in this country.”
A plaintive cry from the
wife of a sugar cane farmer. Is anyone
in government listening?
OUR COMMENT: Prime
Minister Howard said his government would set aside 400 million dollars to
compensate sugar cane farmers to diversify or leave their industry. John Howard omitted to mention the
remuneration package would be means tested which mean this election sweetener
will be minimal.
It’s also relevant to
mention that the NSW and Queensland Labor Governments have not lifted a finger
to assist these suffering sugar cane farmers although they have paid State
Taxes for decades. Premiers’ Carr and
Beattie should be ashamed of their inaction.
TELSTRA DON McGAUCHIE
July 22, 2004
Well, there have been
suggestions over the last 24 hours that the former National Farmer’s Federation
President, Donald McGauchie, as the new chairman of Telstra, is likely to help
secure backing for the sale of Telstra to its opponents in regional Australia
who worry, rightly, about telecommunications services.
Now one thing ought to be
said. The Government have not made Mr.
McGauchie chairman to Telstra.
Indeed, it’s a very direct
assertion by the Telstra Board of its own independence. He was appointed by the board in a very clear
message to government that it was their choice, not the Government’s.
But if the argument is
that his links with the bush will be helpful, then perhaps Mr. McGauchie, as a
former boss of the National Farmer’s Federation, could advise the government on
a range of rural issues.
Put simply, who are the
beef, pork, dairy, apple, pear, fishing, sugar, tobacco and fruit farmers going
to vote for?
Only a month ago in Roma,
in western Queensland, 1,500 beef producers had plenty to say about a new
national Livestock identification system to be introduced next year which will
cost 37 dollars per beast to administer, conservatively.
Farmers bear the
cost. But in Central Victoria at
Shepparton 8,000 farmers and townsfolk recently protested against Bio Security
Australia.
They are that quarantine
outfit who seem to be saying it’s all right to have apples imported from New
Zealand where Fire Blight is endemic.
But then, there are dairy farmers leaving the industry every day. The apple, pork and banana farmers have the
same problems with Bio Security.
Can anyone explain why we
need to import any of this stuff anyway, when we grow beef, pork, dairy
products, apples, sugar, citrus fruits and vegetables better than anywhere else
in the world.
Who are the dairy farmers
going to vote for?
The Milk Producer’s
Association has had 34 rallies across the nation in the last year. Tobacco farmers in North Queensland have
reportedly had their licenses to grow tobacco cancelled by the tax office. Sugar cane farmers are being paid to leave
their farms, the only employment they have ever known.
It’s one thing to talk
about Don McGauchie and the likely sale of Telstra to settle down temperatures
in the bush. But when is someone in
government going to recognise that rural Australia believe it’s getting
hammered. They can’t find anyone in
government to listen.
Alan Jones editorials can
be heard on 2GB 873am or viewed on channel 9’s Today show after the 7am news
weekdays.
OUR COMMENT: When you
peruse our website in it’s entirety and include today’s information, rural and
regional Australia have no choice but to search their local electorate for a
community minded and caring person to represent their area as an Independent
Candidate. This appears to be the only
solution to reversing your dire situation in lieu of voting for a party
candidate who has to toe the party line, which is controlled by the Urban
Caucus.
We are totally against the
full sale of Telstra for the following reasons:
The introduction of national timed phone calls, reduction in services,
further redundancies, higher rentals and repairs to faulty equipment will be
the responsibility of the consumer as well as escalating fees for IT products.
Remember when Prime
Minister Howard vowed “there would never, never ever be a GST it’s off the
agenda forever.” Unfortunately his
Government managed to convince former Australian Democrats Leader Meg Lees to
support the GST legislation.
Treasurer Costello said a
10% GST would be a single tax system but omitted to tell us about the 600
hidden taxes and levies. For more
information on this subject return to our main page and Link >>>>
Picking Our Pockets.
In response to John from
Penrith Excise on petrol is 38.14 cents plus GST on the petrol’s total retail
price. If the retail price of petrol is
one dollar, GST is 10 cents for a total tax income of just over 48 cents per
litre. This also leads to higher prices
for consumer goods.
We would like to give you
an example of how our elected Federal Members from the 4 major political
parties supported an Amendment the Australian Customs Act put to the floor of
Parliament by the then Minister for Justice and Customs, Senator Amanda
Vanstone in 1999. This Amendment
stripped the powers of Customs Officers to force Unidentified Aircraft
Movements (U.A.M.) or as they are better known as Black flights to land and be
searched for illegally imported goods.
This Amendment was passed
unanimously by both Houses of Federal Parliament. This was approved 21 months prior to the
September 11, terror attack.
It is obvious the Party
Caucus gave the thumbs up to pass Bills and amendments without realising the
ramifications that Australia may have to endure. In other words the Black Flights could be
carrying smuggled vegetation that could introduce new exotic diseases, illegal
substances (heroin – cocaine) illegal weapons as well as illegal immigrants
without being forcefully challenged by Customs.
For this monumental error
by Minister Vanstone you would be entitled to believe that she would be
demoted, yes, no, she in fact was promoted.
If you doubt the validity of our concerns, switch on your Television or
Radio each morning and you will be greeted with the news that there has been
another violent crime committed by criminals armed with handguns.
This leads us to the gun
buy-back scheme under amnesty, with the use of taxpayers funds managed to
disarm honest citizens, i.e. farmers, whilst the criminal element retain their
Arsenal.
Mary From Manly says, she
has always been a swinging voter but has become dissatisfied with both major
parties, as they appear to be more concerned with the internal workings of the
party machine and generally ignore the welfare of the Australian Community. Mary has no confidence in the Democrats or
the Greens and has asked us for our opinion of the Reverend Fred Niles’
Christian Democrats. Mary, we believe
Religion and Politics are an unworkable mixture in so, far as it could lead to
conflicts.
I.e. In the NSW’s Upper
House there was a motion put to the floor, re: a call for an inquiry into the
then Carr Government, Police Minister Paul Whelan’s possible conflict in that
he had financial interests in 3 Sydney hotels.
The Reverend Nile and his wife Elaine opted to vote in support of the
Carr Labor Government and save Paul whelan from being investigated.
We have no doubt that the
Christian Democrats erred, in that whilst Paul Whelan was Minister and
therefore a senior voting member in the State Labor Caucus when they opted to
double the number of poker machines in the NSW hotels there was a possibility
there could have been a financial benefit to Minister Whelan. There should have been credibility and
accountability, but there wasn’t.
Mary, for a better future
for all Australians we believe there are many voters who’ve become
disenfranchised with all the political parties.
Therefore we suggest if you have an Independent Candidate standing in
your electorate, when the nominations close for the Federal Election you can
contact your local electoral office and get a contact number of the candidate
and quiz him or her re: their policies.
The most important reason
we are supporting Independent Candidates is basic, in that if they gain the
balance of power they would be in a position to reverse the Free Trade
Agreement Treaty by introducing a recession motion to the House of Parliament,
and strengthen their case by, debating all the concessions conceded to the
United States. With the exception of the
PBS and Television content no other concessions were introduced into
parliamentary debate re: the FTA.
This is the only way we
can save our manufacturing, farming and agricultural industries.
It would be remiss of us
if we didn’t heartily congratulate our Olympic team for their fantastic efforts
in their chosen sports. We, along with
all Australians salute you all.
We implore you to read the
following, Trade Facts very carefully.
This is the bush Administration’s perspective of the concessions
conceded by the Howard-Anderson coalition to America re: the FTA.
This was released by the
Executive council of the United States President for perusal by the People of
America.
Trade Facts
Office of the United States Trade Representative
Washington, DC February
8, 2004
U.S. Australia Free Trade Agreement
Brief Summary of the Agreement
An FTA
for America’s Manufacturing Sector: More
than 99 percent of U.S. manufactured exports to Australia will become duty-free
immediately upon entry into force of the Agreement. This is the most significant immediate
reduction of industrial tariffs ever achieved in a U.S. FTA, and will provide
benefits for America’s manufacturing workers and companies; U.S. manufacturers
estimate that the elimination of tariffs could result in $2 billion per year in
increased U.S. exports of manufactured goods.
There will be significant benefits for such key U.S. manufacturing sectors as autos and auto
parts; chemicals, plastics and soda ash; information technology products;
electrical equipment and appliances; non-electrical machinery; fabricated metal
products; construction equipment; paper and wood products; furniture and
fixtures; and medical and scientific equipment.
|
Two-way annual Goods and services Trade with Australia is about $28 billion, and the U.S. has a $9 billion trade surplus with Australia. Australia is America’s 9th largest goods export market. |
New
Opportunities for U.S. Farmers: All U.S. agricultural exports
to Australia, totaling more that $400 million, will receive immediate duty-free
access. Key agricultural products that
will benefit from immediate tariff elimination include processed foods, soups
and bakery products, fruit and vegetable
juices, dried plums, potatoes, almonds, tomatoes, cherries, raisins, olives,
fresh grapes, sweet corn, frozen strawberries, and walnuts. Food inspection procedures that have posed
barriers in the past will be addressed, benefiting sectors such as pork,
citrus, apples and stone fruit.
Sensitive
to Agricultural Concerns: The FTA is
sensitive to concerns that have been expressed by Congress and U.S. beef and
dairy farmers, and the agreement uses tariff-rates quotas (TRQ) to respond to
these concerns while increasing trade.
Beef: U.S. above-quota duties will be phased out over an 18-year period,
and initial increased imports from Australia under the TRQ quota will amount to
about 0.17% of annual U.S. beef production, and 1.6% of annual U.S. beef
imports. The quota increases will take
effect when U.S. beef exports return to their 2003 (pre-BSE) levels, or three
years after effective date of the agreement, whichever comes first. Safeguards will be available, including a
price-based safe guard after the transition period. Dairy:
There will be no change in the U.S. MFN above-quota tariff on dairy
products subject to quotas, and initial increases in imports from Australia
under the TRQ quota will amount to about 0.17% of the value annual U.S. dairy
production, and about 2% of the value of total U.S. dairy imports.
Access
to Services and Investment: Australia
will accord substantial market access across its entire services regime,
offering access in sectors such as telecommunications, express delivery,
computer and related services, tourism, energy, construction and engineering,
financial services, insurance, audio/visual and entertainment, professional,
environmental, education and training, and other services sectors. In broadcasting and audiovisual services, the
FTA contains important and unprecedented provisions to improve market access
for U.S. films and television programs over a variety of media including cable,
satellite, and the Internet. Most U.S. investments
would be exempted from screening by the Australian Foreign Investment Review
Board.
Recognizing
the Importance of innovative Pharmaceuticals: The U.S.
and Australia note the importance of ongoing research and development; of recognizing
and appropriately valuing the therapeutic benefit of innovative drugs; and of
transparent, expeditious, and accountable procedures. In implementing these principles, Australia
will make a number of improvements in its Pharmaceuticals Benefits Scheme (PBS)
procedures that will enhance transparency and accountability in the operation
of the PBS, including establishment of an independent process to review
determinations of product listings. The
FTA establishes a Medicines Working Group to further promote the agreement’s
public health principles through an ongoing dialogue between the United States
and Australia. In addition, the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration and the Australia Therapeutic Goods Administration
will work together to make innovative medical products available more quickly.
Open and
Fair Government Procurement:
U.S. suppliers are granted non-discriminatory rights to bid on contracts
from 80 Australian central government entities, including key ministries and
government enterprises. These
commitments are particularly significant and commercially important, because
Australia is one of the only developed countries that is not a party to the WTO
Agreement on Government Procurement.
Both countries are also committed to extending coverage of the agreement
to sub-central entities, and will be working with their respective states to
refine the extent of the coverage in the next few weeks. Australia will eliminate its central
government industry development programs, under which suppliers have had to
provide various types of offsets as a condition of their contracts.
A Trade
Agreement for the Digital Age:
U.S. and Australian authors, performers, inventors, and other producers
of creative material will benefit from the higher and extended standards the
FTA requires for protecting intellectual property rights such as copyrights,
patents, trademarks, and trade secrets and enhanced means for enforcing those
rights. The agreement calls for each
government to adopt state-of-the-art protection for digital products such as
software, music, text, and videos, and encourages adoption of measures to
promote trade through electronic commerce.
Strong
Protections for Worker Rights and the Environment: Ensures effective enforcement of labor and
environment laws and establishes labor and environmental cooperative
mechanisms.
Increased
Transparency: The agreement’s
dispute settlement mechanisms call for open public hearings, public access to
documents, and the opportunity for third parties to submit views. Transparency in customs operations will aid
express delivery shipments and will require open and public processes for
customs rulings and administration.
LOVE HER OR HATE HER
Grant, the jailing of
Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge must be fully investigated through an
Independent Body. Any attempt to Cover
Up Evidence that led to their Incarceration must be Publicly Exposed.
The sacking of one
Bureaucrat should not prevent Australians from learning the Truth, and Nothing
but the Truth, Re; the following:
An Independent Enquiry is
the only way we’ll learn who was Responsible for Instigating these Frivolous
and Vexatious Actions.
A copy of the Transcript
of Phil Tzavellas on the Grant Goldman Breakfast 2SM and Relays 5:40am Monday,
November 10, 2003.
Kind regards
Phil Tzavellas