Response to the Courier Mail's article "Conspiracy Theories" - 21st March 1998
In the article ‘Conspiracy Theories’ (Courier 21/03) national affairs editor Peter Charlton ridicules valid concerns about the multilateral agreement on investment (MAI). He takes the liberty of using the majority of his resource material from links found on the Internet web pages of my company, Global Web Builders. However, in a classic case of selective censorship he does this without providing the Web address to allow your readers to gain a balanced perspective.
As I have been researching the MAI, the FSIA and other international treaties for over a year now I would like the opportunity to reply to Charlton’s biased, poorly researched and one-sided diatribe.
Charlton reveals his own political bias by referring to the former High Court chief justice, Sir Anthony Mason’s, concerns about MAI without any negative slant to his good name or character, but then in a classic case of ‘perpetuating the myth’ calls the same concerns raised by Pauline Hanson as those of an ‘ignorant, ill-educated person with a political barrow to push’.
Hanson’s objections to MAI, which are shared by Democrat leader Meg Lees, are referred to elsewhere in the article as ‘ill-informed, illogical, not based on fact and hysterically outlandish’. Yet Meg Lees escapes personal mention and any form of vilification.
The quickest method to expose the inadequate research behind Charlton’s article is to compare the MAI with the FSIA. Both are acronyms for recent international treaties involving Australia. The FSIA stands for the ‘Financial Services Industry Agreement’ unlike the MAI it is a ‘done deal’.
Over the past few years hundreds of international treaties have been simply ratified by Australia’s Governor General and have hardly ever been presented to the public or parliament for debate. This despite the impact that treaties like the FSIA have on our country and our children’s future.
Unlike the MAI with its initial 20 year term the FSIA is a treaty without an expiry date. It is a treaty which has been used as the tool by foreign investors to ‘legitimately acquire’ Australia’s banking industry. It was first signed by Australia in 1995 and follows the deregulation of the banking industry by Paul Keating in 1985. It should be of no surprise that very few of your readers will have ever heard of the FSIA because it was never debated. Despite extensive research I have been unable to find a copy of the FSIA anywhere, including the Internet - the only reference (on the World Trade Organisation Web site) being to clauses which have an impact on our Australian banking industry.
In 1995 the ALP’s Minister for Trade, Bob McMullins, described the FSIA thus, ‘The financial services agreement will directly benefit Australian banks, insurance companies and securities traders.’
In December 1997 a revised FSIA was signed under our current Coalition which includes the following new clause as outlined on the WTO’s web site:
‘Eliminates a prohibition on the acquisition of control of any of Australia's four main banks. Also eliminates a measure which prohibits banks (resident or non-resident) from holding shares in the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and other entities from holding more than five percent of its issued share capital;’
The Coalition are currently pushing for the sale of Telstra with a ‘commitment’ that foreign ownership will be restricted to just 35%. Consider what the ALP said about this issue when they decided to sell off the CBA. Yet here, under an international treaty no-one has heard of, the FSIA, the rules have changed for the CBA without anyone taking the time to inform the Australian public.
Just this week Communications Minister Senator Alston ducked the question of foreign ownership of Telstra by asking which government would want to change the guidelines currently being proposed by the Coalition.
The ripple effect of the FSIA has already been felt by some 40,000 ex-bank employees around Australia and rural shires like Kilkivan who no longer have a bank. (What effect would the MAI have on Telstra’s services in the bush?)
No politician from the major parties has dared to mention the role of the FSIA - or maybe they are the ‘ignorant, ill-informed ones’. One would hope so because today, Austrade tells us, 86% of our banking industry is foreign owned and looking up ANZ’s top 20 shareholders will reveal that US based Chase Manhattan Nominees is its biggest shareholder with 11.6% of the company. ANZ is laying off 1,700 Australian staff this year and closing rural branches.
Yet the FSIA was never debated by the Australian Parliament, it was never put under the spotlight by a Joint Standing Committee on Treaties. Quite simply it was Pauline Hanson whose media clout was responsible for drawing the attention of Australia to the MAI - resulting in this development being forced on an unwilling Parliament.
The travesty of international treaties is the simple cause and effect. Historically the cause is never debated openly but the adverse effect is felt by Australians who have seen their standard of living dramatically deteriorate under consecutive Coalition and Labor governments who have been party to these secret treaties.
Charlton’s report is centered on the mistaken belief that the MAI has always been open to public scrutiny. Let me assure you the MAI document only appeared on the OECD web site for the first time this year - this after enormous political pressure from Canada and the leaking of the 1997 draft versions onto the Internet, in a text format, by concerned bureaucrats to others like Canadian Maud Barlow.
It is blatant re-writing of history for Don Johnson, the Secretary General of the OECD, to now claim that the negotiations have always been open. The February 1998 draft MAI was only put up on the Australian treasury department’s web site days before Pauline Hanson had a meeting with senior bureaucrats on this specific issue.
The MAI drafts on the OECD and Australian treasury Web sites are presented in a application-dependent graphic Adobe Acrobat format. Unlike a simple readable text file (normally found on Web pages), this makes it impossible to view the information from a floppy disk without first having the Adobe software on your PC. (The 2.3 megabyte executable file is too large for a floppy disk). This point is overlooked by Charlton when he refers to this point in Ms Hanson recent speech to parliament on the MAI.
The veil of secrecy that has been wrapped around this agreement should be of concern to all Australians as exclusions, referred to by Charlton, will be wound back or cancelled under the current MAI draft agreement while no new exclusions requested by a signatory country will be entertained. With the incredible changes taking place in technology today how could we be so stupid to agree to this?
Telstra will be in the midst of these technology changes and, like the CBA, will be a prime target for foreign takeover as the MAI, once signed, will sooner rather than later invalidate any government restrictions on foreign ownership in our valuable communication giant.
Furthermore, how can an Australian government sign a treaty which will allow multinationals, like McDonalds (the fastfood chain), to take any level of government in this country to an international court if they believe that they are being discriminated against? In a recent pre-MAI example McDonalds took the Port Douglas shire, with just 3,000 ratepayers, to an Australian court because the council would not allow Big Mac to breach its council regulation by erecting a large golden arches sign. How could the shire afford to defend itself in an international forum against this financial giant?
Renato Ruggerio, Director General of the World Trade Organisation has this to say about the MAI ‘We are writing the constitution of a single global economy.’
I have only touched on the implications of the MAI and discussed two of hundreds of international treaties that Australian bureaucrats have negotiated on Australia’s behalf without any public debate. The cause and effect of these treaties is only known by few - and we aren’t supposed to be included in that number. This self-interest behind closed doors has resulted in legitimised plundering of what is of value in Australia.
Your readers need to consider the impact of secret international treaties on our living standards which have been undermined in the last twenty years with some 5,000,000 Australians now reportedly living below the poverty line.
Finally I would like to correct Charlton with respect to his comment about ‘Hanson’s taxpayer provided computer (for surfing the Internet)’. For a reporter so keen to call Ms Hanson ill-informed let me reveal his blatant hypocrisy. I personally sourced, purchased and installed Ms Hanson’s second hand 486 PC that she uses to ‘surf the Internet’. She paid $700 for it with a personal cheque issued earlier this year.
I am honoured to be associated with Pauline Hanson and One Nation - a party that is tackling issues affecting all Australians that the major parties and career politicians have continually failed to address. Pauline’s views on foreign investment are quite simple and practical - foreign investment does not have to mean foreign ownership.
Scott Balson is the web master for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and carries extensive on-line research on international treaties like the MAI and FSIA.