Australia in a new free trade frenzy....pro and cons please!

So,
are we really benefiting, or only our Prime Ministers pals?

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-free-trade.htm

http://www.kafu-academic-journal.info/journal/2/40/

http://usliberals.about.com/od/theeconomyjobs/i/FreeTradeAgmts.htm

http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/aus_us_fta_mon/prelims.pdf

I could have linked another 100 links, but I am actually more interested in your thoughts....

Cheerio

 

I think it's a great idea that foreign businesses will be allowed to sue future Australian governments if said future governments enact laws that hurt the profit margins of those businesses.

 

That's right, isn't that what our government is meant to be doing? Looking after forein investors? Or is it the tax payers, I'm getting confussed.

 

Australia's free trade deal with South Korea killed the country's automotive industry and both Ford and Toyota decided to cease all of their manufacturing operations in Australia within few years. It's expected that cheap auto imports from Korea will flood the Australian market, while Australia's farming sectors will have greater access to the Korean market after tariffs on Australia's beef and other agricultural products are scrapped. But bilateral trade between Australia and South Korea has been limited to just $30 billion per year and Australian farmers' expected gains would be marginal and job losses in the manufacturing sector caused by the free trade deal would be more problematic for the country in the long run.

 

That is exactly my worry, in a couple of years we have no manufacturing industry left and are living on the benevolence of others.
Some might see this as a trade off, but I am not so sure about it. Turn the clock back only 20 or 30 years, and a lot of stuff was fabricated in downunder.
Now we have cheap (*)(*)(*)(*) from China, sorry if some get disgruntled, but do we live a better life now?
Regards

 

It looks good but the practice may not meet expectations.For example the US - Australia free treade has not benefited Austalia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia–United_States_Free_Trade_Agreement

Some of that may be a bit doubvious but this souce https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/as.html says Austalia imports heaps from the US but does not export much to the US.

 

The Australian car market had been subsisting on government handouts since the 1970's

 

Found another document that raises doubts about the benefit of the US - Australia free trade agreement. If that one is bad then we must take a close look at this new one.

 

In that relation we are always playing the second fiddle....

I really struggling to see how we can grow our own industry by building/creating/manufacturing things under a free trade agreement....

 

Its impossible for Australia to grow its industry and manufacturing under "any" FTA, when Australia is always the one losing out on the deals. Just have a look at all the FTA deals thats been done, and see WHO the loser has been I think there is a term for that - traitor to your own country.

 

Under the FTA deal with the USA, Australia could not sell pork to the USA, but the USA could sell pork to Australia, and nothing else was added in the agreement to make Australia and the USA equal on the FTA deal. So Australia took one up the arse on the FTA deal with the USA; so you can imagine how much of a common whore Australia has become with the other so-called FTA's. Talk about a banana republic

 

The US will always put up a stink if they think Australia is breaking the terms of the FTA. However, if Australia complains that the US is breaking the terms the US will just go, "(*)(*)(*)(*) off," and that's that.

 

In theory free trade agreements are a good idea. But then in theory a bumblebee can't fly. I'm not able to discuss the detailed economic aspects of the idea, but I do understand that tariffs and restrictions on imports can be a hindrance to global business. I suppose it's like many things, devil's in the detail. When a small economy like ours goes into FTA negotiations with the US. China or Japan or any other far bigger economy, it's clear that we are going to get worked over. I have no idea how to combat that. There is the old idea of "competitive advantage" of course but that's also going the way of the dinosaur these days. Anyway I am suspicious that the last couple of FTAs that Abbott signed may benefit some sectors of the national economy and stuff up completely some others. But then that's how capitalism works I suppose.

 

If Australia, with a population of 23 million, is considered to small to have its own car manufacturing company; then can someone please explain to me how the hell South Korea can magage to have three car manufacturing companies with a population of 50 million? This is taking into consideration that OECD statistics of 2012 demonstrate that the Australian average wage is 33319 ASD and the South korean average wage is 29038 ASD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage


Why the hell have foreign own vehicles made in foreign countries been allowed to be imported into Australia without any tarrifs and taxes put on them, that have directly competed for sales against Australian made vehicles made by Australians - that just makes no bloody business sense? You're basically giving strangers a free-hand to kill off the manufacturing and jobs thats being created in your own country.

Don't these facts speak for themselves - South koreans are just more intelligent than Australians, whereby they can manage to productively keep three vehicle manufacturing companies active with a population of 50 million, but Australians are so stupid, they can not even keep one going with a population of 23 million.

If we don't wake up and stop politicians selling us down the river at every opportunity, then we are heading towards being a 3rd world country within 10 years. Even now, our money is NOT buying the same standard of quality and quantity it use to 5 years ago - the quality of our so-called fresh produce and quality of products has been degrading quickly for years. FFS, these scum-bag politicians are now forcing people to work until they are 70 years of age - bloody 70 years of age.

In France they were going to raise the pension age fron 60 to 65 until over 3 million French people protested against it. Here in Australia they let politicians take away their freedom and rights like gutless bloody sheep. Actually that's wrong, I have seen sheep with more backbone than most Australians - Australians are just yellow.

 

There is no such thing as free trade. Stop kidding yourselves.

I am yet to ever go into a trade negotiation without stipulations. You could call it stipulated negotiated trade, but certainly not FREE. Yes we do get worked over, this is because we have very little to offer in the global scheme of things. Earthly commodities and space to grow food. As far as further expansion of trade in other areas moving into the future......don't hang by your short and curly's.

I can hear Cats screaming right now...." What about green energy, we could be the leaders". Yes cats we could, for all of five minutes until the Asians clone it and mass produce for a tenth of the price.

It is very possible that within 100 years this prosperous little nation could be part of the new third world if we do not wake up to ourselves. Selling state owned assets and freehold land parcels to overseas buyers is most certainly a step in the wrong direction.

First we must concentrate on our strengths, reducing our cost of living, and rebuilding our manufacturing core. How do we do this i hear you ask ?

Total economic failure, and responsible re building. Sounds a bit harsh doesn't it, but we have obviously learnt nothing from the GFC and this is because it is in human nature to only look for ones reflection when there is no reflection to be seen.

 

Uniformed as always - Imported cars attract 5% Tariff. If the vehicle is worth over $75,000 a further 10% duty tax is applied and then a 10% GST is also levied.

 

Hey hey hey,
I am convinced we aren't able to produce those panels at a competitive price, but we do have land, plenty of it, and sun, even more so.
And we are politically integer. If we are interested in the far future, not only 5 or 10 years ahead, and honest, we will find investors from many Asian countries, and the future will begin.
I call it a complete new era for Australasia.
Regards

 

Here's what I'd like: no import tax, no tarrifs of any sort. No customs. Anyone can land a plane or boat and take their property into the country without the government even knowing about it. Zero regulation, zero taxation.

 

Imported vehicles from South Korea into Australia might attract a 5% tarrif, but have a look at the tarrifs imported vehicles made in Australia and imported into South Korea attract - it just might surprise you the amount of tarrifs the South koreans have on impoted Australian manufactured vehicles.

 

You still have not answered my question how the South Koreans with a population of 50 million can successfully sustain 3 car manufacturing companies, but Australia with a population of 23 million cannot sustain 1?

What are you suggesting about the South Koreans, and what are you suggesting about Australians?

Have not these wind-bag politicians been telling us for decades that Australia is to small in population to maintain its own car manufacturing company, but then wouldn't that contradict those wind-bag politicians by what South Korea is doing with the same population? Politicians are selling us down the river, because when the ship sinks, they will have the money to be the first ones to leave for greener pastures on their life-boats paid with by tax payers money, while the rest of us swim for our lives. We all know just how corrupt these mongrels are, and that corruption has bleed our country dry.

 

Vehicle manufacturing is probably a very useful example with which to work on trying to find out what the hell happened and what to do about it. At least some of us are thinking about it, unlike our federal government which seems to think that "market forces" will sort it all out.

 

The only reason why Australian car manufacturing has gone to hell in a hand-basket, is because Australian traitorous politicians have allowed imported foreign made Asian vehicles into our country with small tariffs, while these Asian countries have placed massive tariffs on Australian manufactured vehicles being imported into their countries. No wonder Australian manufacturing can never bloody compete, we are always behind the eight-ball, and then been conned into believing our human labour is to expensive. These mongrel politicians are selling us and our country down the drain, because they are really just a bunch of corrupt low-lives, who wouldn't be able to manage a lemonaid stand in a front yard - and its time people woke up that politicians DON'T know how to manage Australia.

 

To a degree I can understand the dilemma faced by Australia's politicians/governments in the years since the end of the big post-Second World war boom. In the early 1970s, about 1972 I think, everything changed. The big thing was OPEC and its raising of oil prices, then it was stagflation across the world. In Australia we didn't realise it at the time but we were about to be affected by it all. The cosy protected society and economy we had was about to get a working over. I don't think either the Whitlam or Fraser governments really understood what was happening and if they did then I'm not sure that they did anything about it. It wasn't until Hawke and then Keating that Australia finally got to grips with the effects of globalisation and the emergency of the Asian economies. Since then we've pretty much seen successive governments effing about and doing not much at all to help us face the challenge. It won't go away, things will never be the same again, we can rail against the changes but there's SFA we can do about it accept to adapt. And I don't mean adapt by laying around and blabbing about "market forces", I mean by grabbing hold of our country, our society, giving it a good talking to and then setting about restructuring everything so we don't go from being a second world economy to a third world economy or worse.

 

Politicians have never faced ANY dilemma, it has always been about them f.u.c.k.i.n.g over the people and the country to keep themsleves and their political parties in power, and for them to set themseves up to be able to get high paying jobs in international corporations after they retire from Australian politics. These mongrels always end up as foreign dipolmats in other countries or on the boards of foreign banks after they retire, because they have screwed over Australia and its people in favour of these foreign countries while they were in power, and that's why they were offered these high profile jobs as a repayments for their services rendered.

 

Tis true. But how to get change? Perhaps the first thing is to get others to accept and understand that point of view. The major political parties - Labor, Liberal and National, are exactly the same when it comes to the big trough. That's why I'm okay with good independents (Tony Windsor is a politician I admire) and smaller parties (yes, the Greens and others) who can step in and upset the comfy apple cart. While I'm no fan of Clive I think it's not a bad thing for a maverick to get in there to stir the pot and, more importantly, start pulling back the apathy that is present in our electorate.

Time to use that cliche of "paradigm shift". I think I've been pretty up front in my support for the ALP, but I'm re-thinking it now. The ALP doesn't have problems which need reform, it is now part of the problem with Australian politics, as much as the conservative parties. The system is stale, reeks of corruption, is hopelessly in the control of big business - regardless of which major party is in government - and is becoming profoundly un-democratic. From now on the major parties will not get my vote. Yes, just one voice but that's a start.