The FTA was sold to australia (in as much as it was sold to anyone except big business) as that it would increase Australian sales to the US market. Well, it hasn't. There is not really much to say that it will, that evidence has been released to mere mortals like myself, anyway. It explicitely left out the sugar industry entirely. And now that J.Ho has Godlike Powers in parliament, he wants to eliminate the protections which allow Australians affordable medications, at the demand of the US pharma industry, which if you don't see will lead directly to the US situation where people have to cross a border to buy the medication they need to stay alive, you're not looking hard. (Even if the PBS subsidises the artificially high prices, it can't do so for very long, and Liberal dogma is that the government shouldn't be doing so anyway, so the PBS will be folded, and if you don't have expensive and very carefully worded health insurance, you're screwed.)
And the arguments from the pharma industry that evergreening and the outlawing of generics is necessary for continued research are blowing smoke, because the profit margins are obscenely high as it is, and the R&D is payed for long before the patent runs out. The rest is gravy. (see, for example, here.)
The FTA is not just a Free Trade Agreement. If it were, it wouldn't have so many arbitrary restrictions on free trade. It is a trojan to get US and Multinational hobbyhorses to override Australian legislation and interests, like, for instance, Copyright law. How's that for a restriction on trade? Or the aformentioned push by Pharma? Or how Australian markets were opened to the US almost immediately, but we don't get our (limited) access to theirs for years yet?
Trade is good. And even if you accept as a matter of faith that Free Trade is good more-or-less by definition (what about weapons?), even then you should be against the Orwellian-named FTA. Because Free Trade is the last thing it is about.
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Re: Trade
Date: 2006-01-05 03:09 pm (UTC)And the arguments from the pharma industry that evergreening and the outlawing of generics is necessary for continued research are blowing smoke, because the profit margins are obscenely high as it is, and the R&D is payed for long before the patent runs out. The rest is gravy. (see, for example, here.)
The FTA is not just a Free Trade Agreement. If it were, it wouldn't have so many arbitrary restrictions on free trade. It is a trojan to get US and Multinational hobbyhorses to override Australian legislation and interests, like, for instance, Copyright law. How's that for a restriction on trade? Or the aformentioned push by Pharma? Or how Australian markets were opened to the US almost immediately, but we don't get our (limited) access to theirs for years yet?
Trade is good. And even if you accept as a matter of faith that Free Trade is good more-or-less by definition (what about weapons?), even then you should be against the Orwellian-named FTA. Because Free Trade is the last thing it is about.