Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement

Submission to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Written by Lynn Gailey
August 25, 2009

This agreement is under negotiation with Brunei Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States of America. As with the other submissions on Australia's negotiation of international free trade agreements, the Music Council states its opposition to any inclusion of culture. The issue is especially pertinent in this negotiation because Australia already has agreements with New Zealand and the United States which tie the Australian government's hands in supporting Australian culture. The Music Council is strongly opposed to any of the concessions made in either CER or AUSFTA being replicated in new trade agreements.

There is a proposal in this agreement to treat advertising films and recordings as goods rather than services. The USA has used this tactic in negotiation of other agreements to take advantage of the stronger free trade protocols applying to goods under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. MCA opposes the use of this classification. The Music Council is also concerned that the treatment of audiovisual advertising materials is not captured under the Chapter 19 General Exceptions.

A General Exception is made for the Creative Arts:

"...nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent the adoption or enforcement by a Party of measures necessary to protect national works or specific sites of historical or archaeological value, or to support creative arts of national value."

As so often happens in these agreements, an apparently innocuous phrase can be the means to executing a major agenda. Here, Parties to the agreement could be put in the position of having to justify cultural support to anything not demonstrably of "national value" and obviously, there can be endless discussion and delay around the definition of "national value" -- most probably, on previous evidence, at the instigation of the USA. The USA is opposed by most of the world in its application of the free trade agenda to culture. It is unlikely to have its way in multilateral agreements under the WTO and so prosecutes its agenda in a succession of smaller agreements such as this one.

That being said the Music Council supports the provisions that restrict the scope of the Agreement in regard to government procurement, the provisions excluding services in receipt of government subsidy and the provisions contained in Chapter 10 covering intellectual property.

Read the submission