Free Trade exposed

Finally, this week Julia Gillard mentioned the failure of international Free Trade.

One of the things that slipped through to the keeper back in the dark days of the Howard Government was the free trade agreement with America. There was little information issued from the government, some modest coverage of it in the media, but little to no details of the agreement. All we kept hearing was that "this is a good thing for Australia". A quick Google Search would take you to the US State department web site where a summary of the agreement could be seen.

In short, it was the product of a close personal alliance between then-PM John Howard and George W. Bush. It reads as though America is protecting their interests and their export dollars while Australia, as usual, lays down on its back while the yanks walk all over the top of us. Just like our airwaves being saturated with American content, the free trade agreement meant that we had to open our borders significantly to allow more US-produced materials while they would increase their imports from Australia by less than 1% of their total import quota.

It turns out that within 12 months of this agreement starting in 2005, the total imports from the US rose to $3.7 billion every 3 months. This makes for a great win for America, but bad for Australia, considering our exchange rate against the greenback at the time was so weak.

In the initial negotiations, the US wanted us to significantly relax our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), which makes our prescriptions so affordable, and also to relax our Australian Content quotas on Radio and TV. This has also happened, as it turns out (more on that later, as this is a major gripe with me).

The upshot of all this means that we were sold on the idea that we would be able to have our exports compete on a more level playing field in the US marketplace, but considering their primary industries are already heavily government subsidised, Australian product would look exhorbitantly expensive in comparison to locally made US products in the same instance. Take this quote from Inside.org.au:

"...the United States maintained substantial barriers to Australian imports while gaining not only the removal of nearly all traditional trade barriers, but also influence over a wide range of Australian domestic policy institutions."

The benefits of the agreement for Australia? In short, none. It doesn't, it didn't, and it won't benefit us in the future. The US can just come in and ride roughshod over us, and we can't do anything in return.

The discussion on the repealing of such an agreement by Julia Gillard is one of the smartest things she's said in recent times. Let's hope it goes ahead.

Living beyond 150?

Would you want to live beyond 100?

New technology may soon allow us to live life up to 150 years of age. Would you really want to?

Let's think about some of the wider ramifications of this.

If we retire at 65, you leave yourself a long, long time to decline. Will this push the retirement age up substantially?

If we look at the social justice perspective of this, breaking things down to the haves vs have-nots, how is it fair to raise the retirement age beyond what it is now, especially if you are unable to work due to the inability to afford the use of the drugs?

What about the aged care system, potentially having to support aged people for longer? Ditto the health system, although one could see them making a lot more money out of this idea...

There's no guarantee that everyone will live to the full 150 years. Suppose you do and all your mates only live until, say, 120? It'll potentially make for a lonely existence in the last years...

Discuss.

Tyranny has come to Australia?

What garbage!!!

A Power Play for the Future


Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece re: Carbon Tax vote

In the last week there's been a lot of rhetoric, heresay and conjecture in relation to the Carbon tax vote in parliament last week. A lot of the critics have had some quite colourful things to say in terms of accusing the government of "tyranny" and all kinds of things.

The funniest one is that "democracy has died; tyranny has come to Australia". This is a general view held mostly by listeners to 2GB in Sydney, as evidenced by the comments on the topic from the listeners to the Alan Jones program. However, the view was first provided by certain members of the Federal opposition, most notably from the leader of the National Party, Warren Truss.

The dictionary definition of "tyranny" is:
1. Arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority.
2. The government or rule of a tyrant or absolute ruler.
Pasted from

Forgive me for assuming that our elected representatives in the opposition are highly educated (something that cannot be assumed of the 2GB listenership), but you would think that they would be able to use the term "tyranny" in the correct context and with the correct meaning. Irrespective of what one's opinions of the Carbon tax are, tyranny did NOT happen last week. Democracy is typified by the ability of a person to vote on one topic one way or another, depending on that person's view. The carbon tax reforms, all 19 of them, were VOTED on by a full sitting lower house. This is NOT tyranny, this is democracy.

The vote on the last bill went 74-72 in favour. This is democracy. If it WAS tyranny, the PM would have stood up and said "This is how it's gonna be and there's nothing you can do about it". No vote, no discussion, end of story.

So the coalition lost - suck it up. You still have your chance to defeat it in the Liberal controlled Senate. But you could do us all a favour and stop with the histrionic bleating about tyranny just because your side lost. You're confusing the unthinking viewers of Today Tonight and the mindless sheep that Alan Jones likes to call "listeners". And God knows they don't need to be any more confused than they already are.