The West Australian, Thursday 23 Dec, 1999
Might not right in trade wars
Drawing by Don Lindsay
Australian trade negotiators
should bear in mind the principles of fair trade,
environmental sustainability and justice, writes JOHN
McCARTHY*.
I am happy to see The West Australian
is now discussing the free trade issue.
However, this discussion would be furthered if your writer
was better informed (editorial 'Farmers shouldn't abandon
hope', 7/12).
It is simply untrue that agricultural trade reform can amount
to removing protection and subsidies from agriculture.
Moving in this direction begs a number of questions that need
to be considered:
We need to first examine what replacing family-farms with
profit-efficient transnational corporations will mean for
families, for rural communities, and for our environment --
before moving in this direction;
We need to bear in mind age-old agricultural values that have
sustained communities over centuries. We also need to include
ecological sustainability - particularly finding a balanced
way of using our natural heritage. The costs of
unsustainable use for the future are not taken into account
in the current framework.
Australia also provides forms of protection to farmers and
graziers, including 'relief' for predictable climatic
disasters, subsidies and selective tax dodges and, now
freedom from the goods and services tax for export-related
activities. (1)
Your writer also fails to consider that the World Trade
Organisation has been criticised as undemocratic for some
years.
Developing countries also need to protect their interests and
the interests of poor populations primarily dependent on
agriculture. This need should be taken seriously but,
unfortunately, much of the debate fails to do so.
Australian negotiators need to bear in mind the principles of
fair trade, environmental sustainability and justice.
This will be guaranteed when all nations have a genuinely
equal say in the multilateral trading system.
Despite what the politicians (2) and their media boosters
proclaim, might is not right. The developed countries have no
right to bend the arms of the less powerful.
How can your writer make this sweeping generalisation:
"Eased trade restrictions will not result in
environmental disasters or domination by multinationals. They
will result in a fairer international market which will
benefit Australia"? (3) Has free trade and globalisation
so far made Australia a fairer place?
Or has it contributed to creating greater divisions and the
problems experienced in regional Australia?
Many analysts have explored these questions, and many people
believe that greed-driven corporate expansion has led to
environmental degradation. These now pose significant threats
to society and to the survival of other species.
Australia is witnessing increased polarization between urban
elites and marginalised regional communities.
Moreover,
we have seen what careless agricultural policies can lead to.
Just look at the salt problem created by earlier government
land-clearing policies in the Wheatbelt.
Clearly, there are more important things in life besides
trade. We do not live by bread alone.
It is time to apply what we have learnt to this problem. I
hope in future your editorial writers can take a more
responsible role in helping us move in a better direction.
There is absolutely no possibility that WTO director-general
Mike Moore can make the necessary "internal
reforms" in the weeks before the next discussions at
Geneva. That suggestion by your writer displays a laughable
ignorance of the way in which the WTO works.
The behaviour of President Bill Clinton in giving priority to
US national interests (and the electoral interests of his
colleague Al Gore) is in no way different from your
newspaper's agitation for Australian sectional advantage at
the expense not only of less fortunate countries but also of
Australians whose life-vision is not based on greed and
exploitation.
I note that the The West Australian has not
commented, for instance, on the attempt by Tasmania to
protect its salmon-farming interests by legislating to flout
the WTO decision that Australia's quarantine ban on salmon
imports was illegitimate. (I support Tasmania's action.)
*Mr McCarthy is a PhD
student in environmental science at Murdoch University.