For a bilateral trade pact with tangible benefits that are still a long way off delivery, the Australia-China preferential trade agreement has generated lots of chatter this week. Objectivity, impartiality and detachment are in noticeably short supply among many of the participants, however. Indeed, proponents of the deal have labelled anyone opposing or questioning it as anti-job, xenophobic and racist – and characterised attempts to subject the deal to Parliamentary scrutiny as verging on the treasonous. Hectoring and name-calling is an all-too-frequent aspect of Australian political discourse, but that a debate about an important aspect of Australia's economic future (and national interest) should be shorn of all nuance and reduced to caricature is concerning.
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The sticking point for sceptics of the deal signed in Canberra on June 17 is a separate memorandum of understanding which allows substantially Chinese-owned companies engaged in infrastructure projects of $150 million or more to import foreign workers without the requirement for labour market testing – that is, proving no Australian workers are capable of, or willing to, work on the project. Naturally enough, unions are worried that the MOU will deny Australians work on construction projects handled by Chinese SOEs, and that this will enable such firms to bypass Australian employment standards and conditions. As well as having prevailed on the Labor party to insist the PTA be examined by Parliament, the union movement has also commissioned television advertisements highlighting "what's at stake with this dodgy deal". In one commercial, a father tells his son that "Tony Abbott's stuffed it up [by] letting Chinese companies bring in their own workers", and concluding by telling him "sorry, but you won't even get a look-in, son. Tony Abbott made a choice, he just didn't choose you."
That an emotive attack on the PTA might trigger an equally impassioned response is not surprising. But the reactions have been excitable to the point of hysteria, with one commentator suggesting it is a "xenophobic fear campaign based on a multiplicity of positive falsehoods" and others suggesting Australia is flirting with significant sovereign risk. Former Labor luminaries Bob Hawke, Bob Carr and Martin Ferguson have echoed such sentiments, urging the federal Opposition to ignore the unions and get behind efforts to have Parliament enact the deal so that jobs may be created and trade opportunities enhanced. As a result, the Prime Minister's refusal to entertain changes to the MOU has hardened, though it is worth recalling that the trio – like many other PTA defenders – have direct or indirect associations with businesses trading in China.
Whatever Mr Abbott's antipathy to the CFMEU, he can't dismiss their concerns out of hand – not when an ABC Fact Check has determined that the MOU specifies labour market testing may be waived in some circumstances.
This agreement will deliver substantial trade opportunities, but it is not flawless or beyond reproach. Aside from its labor provisions, for example, the agreement does not compel China to lift existing regulatory restrictions on foreign service providers. A mature and responsible administration would address those shortcomings and explain the benefits more explicitly, not resort to diatribes and glib denunciations.
