UPDATE FEBRUARY 2006

SENATOR BARNABY JOYCE, RURAL AUSTRALIA’S

CLAYTON REPRESENTATIVE

Senator Barnaby Joyce and his Nationals Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile have betrayed the Australian Rural Electorates. The Nationals have become the “Junior Liberals” of the coalition in that they support all the policies of their big City Liberal Colleagues even when it’s against the interests of Rural Australia. Following are some of the examples of Rural Australia betrayal by the aforementioned and their National Colleagues.

Justice Wilcox of the Federal Court ruled that the import risk assessment for United States pork imports into Australia was unreasonable, and left the Country exposed to foreign diseases. Dissatisfied with this decision, the Howard Government successfully appealed Justice Wilcox’s decision, which means pigmeat can now be imported into Australia from diseased Countries. It is interesting to note that a Trade Facts press release by the Executive Office of the United States President on February 8, 2004, a week after signing off on the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement stated that part of the concessions conceded by Trade Minister Mark Vaile was that food inspection procedures that have posed barriers in the past will be addressed, benefiting sectors such as pork, citrus, apples and stone fruit. Mark Vaile denies that he compromised our world’s highest standard of Quarantine, and yet in June 2005, ‘Inside US Trade’ report quotes U.S. Senate Finance chairman, Charles Grassley, as saying the Australian Government’s decision to open the pork market had been a key factor in getting the Australian Free Trade Agreement through the Senate last year. It also stated Mr. Grassley wants the Australian Government to appeal the Federal Court’s ruling; otherwise the U.S. may take the Quarantine dispute to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). A brief summary of the concessions conceded by the Howard Government can be found on Link >>>> UPDATE – August 2004.

We also note that, on Thursday, December 2, 2005, the Federal Government has recommended lifting an 84 year-old ban on the import of New Zealand apples. Australia banned import of apples from New Zealand in 1921 due to fears they could bring with them fireblight – a bacteria prevalent in N.Z., but not found in Australia. This is another City Liberal decision that could have dire consequences for our apple orchards, and yet once again the “Junior Liberals”, the Nationals, by their silence have betrayed their Rural Constituents.

Trade Minister Mark Vaile betrayed Rural Australia, especially our farmers in the sugar industry. An article by Mark Forbes, Foreign Affairs Correspondent – Canberra, for the “Melbourne Age” wrote in his article, “Sugar doubts could kill trade talks”, on January 24, 2004. 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 Australia can agree to a Free Trade Agreement that did not include a fair and reasonable approach to sugar,” Mr. Anderson said. 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 not conceded 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 it, and not to do the deal.”

Guess what! The following week, they signed the Free Trade Agreement leaving Australian Sugar Farmers for dead, and agreed that the United States can import at least twice as many products than we can export to the U.S.

Here is an article from the “Australian” – Thursday, March 11, 2004:

US Trade Supremo boasts of ‘con job’.

Roy Eccleston, Washington correspondent.

George W. Bush proclaimed himself a “free trader” yesterday, while his chief trade 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 it would take “political courage” to pass FTA’s including the Australian deal, which still needed congressional approval.

“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 US$2 billion (A$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 should actually 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. dairy farmers. “And frankly, in terms of Dairy, I think we’ve increased our quota – didn’t touch the tariffs one bit – the huge amount maybe $30 or $40 million a year.” But the reluctance to open U.S. markets stands at odds with the claims Mr. Bush is now making in his 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 jobs, America must remain confident and strong in our ability to trade in the world. Given a level playing field, America will outperform the competition.”

Not only has Australia been made the laughing stock of the Western World, but we are known as “the Country which is George W. Bush’s boot-licker.” We must offer our sincere apologies for allowing the Howard Government and their spin doctors to lead us up the garden path. We’ve been tackling the Federal Government’s post-election policies regarding the U.S.–Australia Free Trade Agreement – Gats – Industrial Relations Reforms and the Anti-Terrorism Legislation, which includes the Sedition Act, as single issues when in fact we believe they inter-act, for the following reasons: Some of the concessions the Howard–Vaile-Liberal-Nationals Coalition conceded to the United States with regard to the Free Trade Agreement includes Australia’s food inspection procedures (Quarantine) that have posed barriers to the U.S. in the past will be addressed, benefiting sectors such as Pork, Citrus, Apples and Stone Fruit. Another concession to the U.S. is the access to Services and Investments. Australia will accord substantial market across its sectors such as Telecommunication, Energy, Electricity, Gas, Water, and Mining as well as Education and Training, just to name a few. This would mean added investments by American Multinationals, which would further reduce our Government’s earnings under the Menzies Dual Reciprocation Tax Act 1953, in which foreign Multinationals have paid taxes to their Country of Origin.

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GATS – (A General Agreement on Trade in Services) which, in November 2004, Prime Minister Howard, Trade Minister Mark Vaile, his American Counterpart Robert Zoellick and President Bush attended the WTO in Santiago, Chile, where they signed off on GATS. This Agreement will allow Multinational Companies to tender for $1 an hour Third World Nation workers to replace what they consider over-paid Australian workers. But for this to become legal, the Howard Government will have to introduce Industrial Reforms which will accommodate GATS by replacing the present minimum award wage with a minimal rate of pay.

Should all the aforementioned become a reality, then the most important and most dangerous piece of legislation will be the Sedition Act which the Howard Coalition wants to implement within their Anti Terrorism legislation. This would take away our Democratic rights to practice freedom of speech in that, if we publicly decry the ineptitude of our Federal Government, we can be charged with Sedition. Those tens of thousands of young Australians who gave their blood so that we could live in a Democracy, where Freedom of Speech is an accepted practice, must be turning in their graves.

In addition it must be remembered that the Nationals, headed by their leader Mark Vaile and Senator Barnaby Joyce, voted for the Full Sale of Telstra, ignoring the possibilities that Telecommunication Services in Rural Australia could completely collapse, lock stock and barrel. One can’t help but wholeheartedly agree with the farmer who said, “Senator Barnaby Joyce, Mark Vaile and their National Party Colleagues are to Rural Australia what Pedophiles are to children.”

The following two emails were sent to Senator Barnaby Joyce, prior to the Senate vote on the changes to the Industrial Relations Laws, by one of our colleagues Phil Tzavellas who also brought to Senator Joyce’s attention the danger of supporting the full sale of Telstra, in which the Telco may be bought by foreign Multinationals who could appeal any decision the Howard Government makes to restrict their trade, and the Multinationals would win the case hands down.