Extract from the CURRENT HOUSE HANSARD
Database
(Main Committee)
Date: 20 November 1997 (11:50)
Page: 10838
MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
White Paper on Foreign and Trade Policy
Ms HANSON (Oxley) (11.51 a.m.) I refer to the government's foreign and trade policy paper In the national interest. This paper states that advancing the national interest of Australia and the Australian people is the primary goal. It states that the security of the Australian nation, jobs and standard of living of the Australian people are the paramount consideration in the formulation of policy. It also states that the only way to achieve these objectives is through more globalisation, more free trade and more foreign ownership.
The report does not, however, define in explicit terms what national interest means, nor does it state in clear terms the impact that ever increasing globalisation will have on the average Australian. I suspect that the government has confused national interest with international interest. I will demonstrate that the government's policy to internationalise us is flawed and will destroy Australia and the lifestyle of the Australian people.
Australia has endured 25 years of deregulation, economic rationalism and globalism. We have witnessed the disappearance of most of our Australian icons, we are seeing ever increasing foreign ownership of business and assets, and yet unemployment, debt, standard of living, happiness and peace of mind continue to deteriorate. We have been internationalised to a very large degree already, yet the problems are increasing, not diminishing. Does the government really expect Australians to believe more deregulation and selling more of our country will fix our problems?
More and more people are waking up and realising that the policies of free trade are helping other countries, not Australia. More and more Australians are seeing that the people they elected are working for the internationalists, not the Australian people. Successive Liberal and Labor governments, including this current group of treacherous self seekers, have worked for the interests of just about everyone except the Australian people who elected them and pay them.
The United Nations, in particular, have been outrageously successful in having our government dance to their tune, which in turn is a death march for our own people and our Australian way of life. Certainly, around election time we see each of the parties selling their wares and sucking in voters with the lie of crumbs of short term relief, or making what is our right appear as if it is some magical policy they will bestow upon us like a gift, for which we should grovel and be thankful. But all of these things are just the deception of smoke and mirrors meant to hide the movement of the internationalists.
Those who believe globalisation will save us should just look at where it has taken us so far. We have 700,000 children living in families where neither parent has a job; 2 1/2 million people are either unemployed or underemployed, representing 27 per cent of the work force; 3.3 million full time jobs have disappeared, or more than one in two full time workers have been retrenched, in the last 12 years. Telstra plans to sack another 22,000 workers; the Commonwealth Public Service will sack 27,000 people next year; 60,000 jobs will be shed by the big four banks alone by 2005. The net growth of full time jobs in the 1990s has been zero.
The only employment growth has been in part time and casual jobs, and those Australians lucky enough to have a full time job have to work longer and longer to keep their families' heads above water. The eight hour day is a thing of the past. Growth in low skilled and low paid part time and casual jobs is a worrying trend. It is not possible to raise a family or pay off a home on such an insecure and paltry income, and irregular and inconsistent work hours make family life very difficult. You can bet that sort of work would not be good enough for the sons and daughters of our politicians and bureaucrats who are responsible for our national decline, but it is forced on the millions of ordinary Australians who elected these charlatans.
By every measure which the average Australian can use to judge success, globalisation is a total disaster. These are the fruits of globalisation, and unless we rid ourselves of this cult like obsession with free trade, Australia will cease to exist as an independent sovereign nation. The greatest advocates of free trade in the world, besides the Australian government, are multinational companies. These companies can shift production from one country to another, exploiting the cheapest labour and paying the least tax possible, while charging as much as possible. For example, Nike makes shoes in overseas sweatshops, but Nike shoes are very expensive. This company exploits cheap overseas labour but does not pass the savings on to customers.
Slashing the sugar tariff this year took millions of dollars out of canefarmers' pockets, and out of country Australia, and gave it to the beverage and confectionery industry, which is almost completely foreign owned. Have soft drink, chocolates or sweets come down in price? When Arnotts biscuits was bought out, US owned Campbells said they would employ thousands more people if they were allowed to take it over. The truth is they sacked thousands. Multinational Dupont was paid $60 million by the previous Labor government to remain in Australia, but they recently closed their factory, sacked 180 workers and kept the money.
It is true that globalisation has increased Australian exports. But how much of these exports is produced by foreign owned companies and what benefit does Australia get from such foreign ownership? In the publication, Trade liberalisation: opportunities for Australia, published by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, companies promoted as Australian food producers are, in fact, foreign owned. Australian Meat Holdings is owned by the US giant, ConAgra. Kraft is not Australian owned, and Lactos is French. Other exporters called Australian, but which are in fact foreign owned or partly foreign owned, include Fasco Australia and Olex Cables.
The SPHC Group, which operates Parkroyal, Centra and Travelodge hotels, is foreign owned, as is Dreamworld. The company Bradmill is owned by Sara Lee. Yakka is partly owned by King Gee, which is foreign owned, and Gloweave has been forced overseas. The automotive industry is dominated by four multinationals, and Bosch and VDO are German owned. In fact, of the 40 or so companies cited by the government as successful exporters, around half are foreign owned.
Australia has one of the highest levels of foreign ownership in the world. Estimates range from an ABS figure of 42 per cent of private corporate trading enterprises, to over 65 per cent of big business, which is an AusBuy estimate, and up to 90 per cent of Australian industry, which is the Austand estimate.
We have no easy way of knowing how much of Australia has been sold, nor of determining if individual companies are foreign owned, as the government does not release that information to the public. In 1986 it was possible to get the information from the ABS publication No. 5322, which provided a complete breakdown of foreign ownership and control of Australia's manufacturing industry. Why has it been discontinued?
If foreign ownership is so good why keep the Australian people in the dark about it? This extreme level of foreign ownership should be of great concern to all Australians. The end results are higher unemployment, profit shifting offshore and tax minimisation.
Mr Michael Crouch, a government business representative on the APEC Business Advisory Council, said in a recent article:
I don't think people realise that the overseas tourist can fly here on an overseas owned airline, stay at an overseas owned hotel, go and eat overseas owned food, go and see an overseas made film, and go home again. They can look at the sights, but that doesn't cost anything.
David James in the article, `The good, the bad and the multinational', in the Business Review Weekly of 17 March 1997, made the following statement:
The most important national contribution multinationals make is paying tax. If they do not pay tax, they are, in effect, receiving free benefits from infrastructure and institutional protections . . .
In the Financial Review of 25 October 1995 it was published that Mitsubishi had revenue of $5.1 billion but only made $5 million of net profit. Toyota had revenue of $2 billion but declared a net loss after tax of $26.7 million.
Mr Jim Killaly, an Assistant Commissioner in the Taxation Office, said in the Sydney Morning Herald on 28 October 1996 that in 1993 94, 60 per cent of multinationals claimed to be in loss and paid no tax, while the great bulk of the remaining 40 per cent claimed to be marginally profitable and paid only a small amount of tax. As the Assistant Commissioner has not retracted his findings in light of the changes made by the federal government to attempt to stem this loss, I can only assume that this pathetic situation is still occurring.
Again, the Australian people should not be kept in the dark. We need to know how much of Australia has been sold already and what we are getting out of it before we give the government the go ahead to sell the rest.
In this report the government enthusiastically advocates a reduced role for itself in the governing of Australia as we become internationalised. It suggests that as Australia merges into the world economy domestic and foreign policy will merge and democratically elected government will have less control of Australian affairs. This also means that the Australian people will have less say in how this country is run.
Is the role of government, as expressed in this white paper, to be no more than as manager or caretaker in residence working for foreign interests? The Australian people would be horrified at this prospect. The government barely succeeds in hiding its disdain for Australian nationalism, describing it as inward looking regionalism. I will always stand up for the Australian people first and foremost and put their jobs, needs and wishes before anything else.
I have clearly demonstrated that to swallow the nonsense contained in this white paper is sheer and dangerous folly. On page 33 the report says:
Australia cannot depend on others to promote the interests of Australia.
The Australian people cannot even depend on their own government to promote the interests of Australia. At the next election the Australian people will have their first chance to elect representatives who have their best interests at heart and to arrest the decline of this great country.
I would like to conclude with a couple of quotes from Trade liberalisation: opportunities for Australia, published by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It says:
Trade liberalisation will not solve Australia's economic problems or magically deliver a prosperous future. Trade liberalisation is not the answer for Australia's future . . .
This paper itself recognises the failures but despite this confession still pushes our country to the brink of destruction. If you continue to disbelieve me, just ask anyone in the chicken, timber, pork, sugar or citrus industries or, for that matter, any farmer or BHP worker. Just ask them how they see the future.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hollis) Order! I did not want to interrupt the honourable member for Oxley in her speech because I did not want to interrupt her train of thought, but she used a term which I personally found offensive when she referred collectively to the members of parliament as `treacherous self seekers', and I would ask her to withdraw that term.
Ms Hanson Yes, I will withdraw that.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER Thank you.