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Article Excerpt
At the end of 2002, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade called for submissions on the proposed Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA). The call was put out on 11 December 2002 with a deadline of 15 January 2003. As this is the period when most working people take annual summer holidays, the timing suggests that the government negotiators were not much interested in receiving substantive responses.
The skewing of public debate about AUSFTA is motivated, in part, by the fact that it is unlikely to bring prosperity to Australia. The AUSFTA threatens to open Australia's market to US companies ahead of other country markets and in ways that expose Australia to a complete overhaul of public and private services to fit the US model. Such an overhaul will be detrimental across a plethora of sectors, but it is in the services sector where its effects will be greatest.
Wherever free-trade agreements are concluded, the impact upon those living in poverty, as well as refugees, the elderly, the chronically ill and disabled, indigenous peoples, the marginalised and the dispossessed is significant. Since women make up most of those living poverty and make up the majority of refugees, and are the main carets for the elderly and disabled, the impacts of free trade upon women will be amplified.
AUSTFA needs to be understood in the context of the General Agreement in Trade in Services (GATS). GATS...
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