“Trade Minister Ciobo should not be leading the charge to revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership, when there is strong community opposition and the Australian Parliament has not endorsed it,” AFTINET Convenor Dr Patricia Ranald said today.
August 14, 2017: Media Release: “Trade Minister Ciobo is wrong to suggest that the Queensland government procurement policy to give preference to small local suppliers contradicts Australia’s current trade agreements. All of these agreements have exceptions which allow some preference to small and medium-sized enterprises. South Australia and Victoria have similar policies, as do Australia’s trading partners like the US and South Korea,” AFTINET Convenor Dr Patricia Ranald said today.
August 9, 2017: Media Release: “The report of the government-dominated Joined Standing Committee on Treaties released yesterday on amendments to the Singapore FTA supports changes that are bad precedents for other trade agreements," Dr Patricia Ranald Convener of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network said today.
August 7, 2017. Media Release: “The Australian Fair Trade network of community groups condemns the attempt by the Coalition government to rush through implementing legislation for the WTO Government Procurement Agreement before the negotiations are even finished. This is like signing a blank cheque before the parliament knows the outcome of the negotiations and makes a mockery of the parliamentary process. The Parliament has never before passed implementing legislation for an unseen agreement,” AFTINET Convenor Dr Patricia Ranald said today.
July 10, 2017: Media Release: “We welcome the international tribunal decision that Philip Morris tobacco company should pay the costs of its failed case against Australia’s 2011 plain packaging law. But it is absurd and unacceptable that the tribunal has not released the amount of the costs, which have been blacked out of the published decision,” Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network Convener Dr Patricia Ranald said today.
June 14, 2017 Media Release: Over 30 groups and 449 individuals from the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand have called for a halt to the signing of the regional trade deal, known as PACER-Plus, until there has been proper time to assess its impacts and time to properly consult Pacific peoples. The petition is attached.
June 13, 2017, Media Release: “Vanuatu’s decision to join Fiji and Papua New Guinea to boycott the signing tomorrow of the PACER-Plus trade deal between Australia, New Zealand and now only 11 Pacific island countries shows there are serious weaknesses in the agreement because the three largest Pacific island economies are saying there are no benefits for them,” Dr Patricia Ranald, Convener of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, said today.
MEDIA RELEASE, 22 May 2017: The revival of the TPP without the US proposed by trade ministers meeting in Hanoi would not be in Australia’s national interest, AFTINET Convener Patricia Ranald said today. Read the media release.
Media release May 19, 2017: Prominent public health organisations, including the World Public Health Association and the Australian Public Health Association have called on trade ministers from eleven remaining Trans-Pacific Partnership countries not to attempt to resurrect the deal at their meeting in Hanoi tomorrow. Read full release here.
MEDIA RELEASE, 4 May 2017: A TPP without the US would lock in all the deal’s most damaging and politically controversial clauses on stronger medicine and copyright monopolies and investor rights to sue governments while delivering almost no additional market access, AFTINET Convener Patricia Ranald said today. Read more.