Media Release, 11 May 2017: The Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network has welcomed Bill Shorten’s confirmation last night in his budget reply speech that Labor won’t back Coalition Government efforts to revive the TPP without the United States. Read the media release here.
Our annual Trade Justice dinner is just around the corner and will be held at 6pm, Tuesday 16 May at Erciyes Turkish Restaurant, 409 Cleveland St, Surry Hills! See full event details here and read on for our great auction prizes.
9 May 2017: Officials from all TPP countries minus the US met in Canada last week to discuss a possible TPP minus one or TPP-11. The meeting was held in secret and according to media reports the Canadian media weren’t even able to find out where exactly the venue was, let alone what was discussed.
4 May 2017: A broad coalition of civil society organisations from the Asia Pacific region are mobilising in Manila and calling on their governments to say 'No to the RCEP’ as negotiators meet there this week.
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.
3 May 2017: Amendments to the 2003 Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement were tabled in Parliament on March 20 and are being reviewed by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties. The problem with the amendments is that they largely reflect the text of the TPP,Including increases in temporary workers, removal of labour market testing for temporary workers and expansion of state government procurement commitments.
3 May 2017: The next round of RCEP negotiations are being held in Manila, the Philippines, on May 2-12. There is still a push from some countries, including Australia, to use TPP language in the RCEP.
3 May 2017: The PACER-plus agreement between Australia, New Zealand and 12 Pacific Island countries was finalised in Brisbane in April 2017, but without Papua New Guinea and Fiji, the Pacific’s two largest island economies. Both governments have said the agreement threatens their infant industries and would not benefit their economies.
30 April 2017: The Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) has published a People’s Guide to PACER-Plus, aiming to explain the agreement and its impacts on the Pacific in accessible language.
PANG Coordinator, Ms Maureen Penjueli said it was crucial that every Pacific Islander has the opportunity to know how it will affect them, not just today but into the future.
26 April 2017: Trump ditched the TPP but that doesn’t mean he wants fair trade. In fact, his trade agency is attacking other countries’ public health initiatives - such as efforts to promote breastfeeding - calling them “barriers to trade” which should be eliminated. Read more from Public Citizen