Any agreement between governments led by the UK\u2019s Boris Johnson and Australia\u2019s Scott Morrison must be treated with a healthy dose of suspicion.\u00a0 A few minutes with the UK prime minister would lead you to believe that \u201cGlobal Britain\u201d is a meaningful term that covers loss and prestige.\u00a0 A session with Morrison will lead you to a brochure type of politics, policy implemented by glossy pamphlet and slogan.<\/p>\n
The UK-Australia Free Trade signed last week has its predictable, chorusing champions.\u00a0 There are the free marketing dogmatists who assume that their dogma is based on fact and that such trade is a boon for all.\u00a0 \u201cThis is a historic agreement \u2013 it\u2019s a true free-trade agreement.\u00a0 Everyone wins,\u201d the admirably deluded Australian Trade Minister Dan Tehan stated<\/a>.<\/p>\n At least one party seemed to win more than the other.\u00a0 The BBC\u2019s global trade correspondent tartly remarked<\/a> that, \u201cThe UK has given Australia pretty much everything it wanted in terms of access to the UK agricultural market.\u201d<\/p>\n There are those who see this agreement merely as a front for other prejudices, among them showing that the UK can make independent agreements without the approval of doddery, fussy types in Europe overly keen on regulations.\u00a0 Financial journalist Matthew Lynn delighted<\/a> in an understanding reached between two countries \u201cstripped of all the supra-national baggage that the EU and its dwindling band of supporters insist are essential to \u2018free trade\u2019 \u2013 and for that every reason is vastly superior to Europe\u2019s creaking, overly-complex single market.\u201d\u00a0 The empire delusion, nostalgic and heavy, prevails in such thinking.<\/p>\n Then come the calculating types in Downing Street and beyond who hope that this deal with Australia becomes some sort of mighty springboard to greener pastures.\u00a0 When the deal was agreed upon in principle earlier this year, the UK government claimed<\/a> it would ease its move into the Asia-Pacific, with the eventual hope of joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).<\/p>\n Peter Jennings, a paid-up member of the Anglosphere and executive director of the partially US-funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute, sees the agreement<\/a> as \u201can example of what can be done when two countries decide to put some priority and effort into cooperation.\u201d\u00a0 Unblemished by the detail, he laments the fact those stubborn sorts in the European Union have made it just that much harder in free trade negotiations.<\/p>\n Those in 10 Downing Street suggest that the agreement would not only end tariffs on all UK exports to Australia but lead to \u00a310.4 billion in additional trade.\u00a0 The more sombre types in the UK Office of Budgetary Responsibility predict a meagre return<\/a> of 0.08% to the UK economy, but a loss of 4% in loss of free access to the EU.<\/p>\n All the swooning from the free trader advocates belies the critical faults in such arrangements.\u00a0 As a general rule, and one remarked upon<\/a> by the co-authors of a RAND report from last year, \u201ca free trade agreement (FTA), an instrument to eliminate tariffs, imposes costs and obstacles on two-way trade.\u201d<\/p>\n The Australian Productivity Commission\u2019s report<\/a> on bilateral and regional trade agreements in November 2010 was also of the opinion that such \u201cagreements can carry the risk of trade diversion.\u201d\u00a0 This was certainly the case with the deeply flawed Australian-US FTA (AUSFTA) which, between 2005 and 2012, diverted<\/a> US$53.1 billion of trade from other sources.<\/p>\n The authors of the APC report were also suspicious about evaluations arising from such trade deals: these tended to be based on political considerations rather than sound economic returns.<\/p>\n The potential costs to Britain have stirred representatives of 14 trade bodies and companies, who warned<\/a> the then UK Trade Secretary Liz Truss that \u201cthe pace of these negotiations, particularly the free trade agreement with Australia, is too quick and denying the opportunity for appropriate scrutiny and consultation.\u201d<\/p>\n British farmers remain justifiably worried.\u00a0 There are concerns<\/a> that certain agricultural sectors will immediately feel the effect of Australian exports.\u00a0 As part of the agreement, Australian sheep meat will receive an immediate tariff-rate quota (TRQ) of 25,000 tonnes, rising to 75,000 tonnes over a series of installments.\u00a0 The equivalent arrangement with beef covers an initial 35,000 tonnes, eventually rising to 110,000 tonnes.\u00a0 Both beef and sheep tariffs will be paired in a decade.<\/p>\n Earlier in the year, the NFU Livestock Chair Richard Findlay proved unequivocally hostile to the deal<\/a>.\u00a0 Australian agriculture risked being a sinister Trojan horse, undermining British standards.\u00a0 \u201cThere is no comparison whatsoever between the robust production methods in this country and in Australia \u2013 they simply do not compare due to sheer size and scale.\u201d<\/p>\n Australia, Findlay points out, was the world\u2019s biggest beef exporter in 2019 (in terms of value) and second largest (behind Brazil) in terms of volume.\u00a0 Such scale meant fewer regulations, a lower \u201cassurance burden\u201d and significantly lower production costs.<\/p>\n With little by way of fraternal feeling between Commonwealth nations, the NFU livestock chair also pointed his finger at differing standards of animal welfare between the countries.\u00a0 The UK government was contemplating an arrangement with a country that exported \u201chundreds of thousands of live cattle and over a million sheep on long sea journeys to Asia and the Middle East every year.\u201d The same UK government had also contemplated banning live exports for slaughter.<\/p>\n This point was picked up by Vicki Hird, the head of sustainable farming at Sustain, an agri-food group.\u00a0 Painting a picture of antipodean barbarity, Hird enumerated<\/a> the darker aspects of Australian agricultural practices.\u00a0 Australia, for instance, permitted \u201cthe use of hormones and antibiotics to speed up growth as well as the removal of skin from live sheep [\u2018mulesing\u2019, to prevent fly-strike], and they license almost double the number of highly hazardous pesticides as the UK.\u201d\u00a0 And just to make things that bit grimmer, Australian farmers also used feedlots, battery cages and sow stalls.<\/p>\n As for the agreed protections for British farmers, NFU President Minette Batters found little comfort<\/a>, suggesting they were neither extensive nor effectual.\u00a0 Dairy would be fully liberalised after six years, sugar after eight, and beef and lamb after 15.\u00a0 Phil Stocker of the National Sheep Association also noted the absence of \u201cany resolution on how TRQs could be managed in a way to limit potential damage to our own domestic trade\u201d.<\/p>\n A tone-deaf International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan sees little to bother<\/a> the UK farming sector, or anybody else in Global Britain.\u00a0 For one thing, most Australian beef and sheep meat exports (somewhere in the order of 70%) made it to Asia-Pacific markets.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re closer for them and they get great prices.\u201d\u00a0 She expected no \u201cdramatic surge into UK markets\u201d from Australian products but she was \u201cvery pleased to do things that will open up consumer choice.\u201d\u00a0 That is a choice that promises to be very costly indeed.<\/p>The post Double Standards: The UK-Australian Free Trade Agreement<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.\n This post was originally published on Dissident Voice<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Any agreement between governments led by the UK\u2019s Boris Johnson and Australia\u2019s Scott Morrison must be treated with a healthy dose of suspicion.\u00a0 A few minutes with the UK prime minister would lead you to believe that \u201cGlobal Britain\u201d is a meaningful term that covers loss and prestige.\u00a0 A session with Morrison will lead you [\u2026]<\/p>\n The post Double Standards: The UK-Australian Free Trade Agreement<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,189,39970,20461,200],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440251"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441314,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440251\/revisions\/441314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}