Details demanded on Japan trade deal
Labor is demanding the Federal Government reveal the detail of its free trade deal with Japan before the agreement is inked.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Prime Minister Tony Abbott will sign the economic partnership agreement in Canberra on Tuesday.
Abbott says the deal, finalised during his visit to Tokyo in April, is good news for Australian consumers and industry.
“Freer trade means more jobs and lower prices,” he told the Seven Network.
But Opposition trade spokeswoman Penny Wong urged the government to release the full text of the agreement before the “photo opportunity with the pens and flags”.
“What’s the secret?” she told reporters. “The only information Australians have is a five-page glossy pamphlet.”
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Trade Minister Andrew Robb said the full text would be released later this month.
He lauded the deal as the most ambitious trade deal Japan had ever done, pointing out Australia had gotten in first before competitors like the United States.
He conceded Australia could have been waiting for years to secure 100 per cent of its wishlist – but insisted it was still an “outstanding” deal.
Robb played down concerns from China about Australia cosying up to Japan, saying it was important to have strong security and trade ties with both Asian powers and South Korea.
Independent South Australian senator Nick Xenophon described the deal as a “costly and secretive folly”.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed past deals signed with Singapore, the United States, Thailand and Chile had led to worsening trade deficits, he said.
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“We are taken for mugs by partner countries,” he said.
“We are known overseas as the Free Trade Taliban because of successive Australian governments and bureaucrats having a fundamentalist, literalist approach to free trade.”
But Nationals senator Matthew Canavan says the agreement would mean more exports and income for Australian farmers.
He pointed to the end of car manufacturing in Australia.
“The way we’re going to make a car in the future is we’re going to grow wheat, we’re going to grow cotton, we’re going to grow beef, we’re going to put it on a boat and wave goodbye to it,” he told reporters in Canberra.
“Then magically another boat will come in the other direction with a car on it, probably from Japan.”
The Greens’ Peter Whish-Wilson called on Abbott to pressure Japan not to restart scientific whaling.
Abe has confirmed Japan is looking into the possibility of resuming scientific whaling in the Southern Ocean, despite an International Court of Justice ruling against it earlier this year.
“Today is a chance for Tony Abbott to show some spine and make whaling a priority,” Whish-Wilson told reporters in Canberra.
“Mr Abbott needs to ratchet up the pressure on the Japanese prime minister today and let him know that lethal whaling, commercial whaling is not acceptable to the Australian community.”
