Review of Bilateral and Regional Trade Agreements

Submission to the Productivity Commission

Prepared by Lynn Gailey and Richard Letts
March 5, 2010

The submission lays out the basic argument from the cultural sector for the exclusion of culture from free trade agreements. It agrees with Minister Sherry that greater benefit is to be gained from multilateral agreements than from bilateral and regional agreements, given that in negotiation of bilateral agreements Australia can find itself a very unequal negotiating partner with nations the size of the USA or China.

It notes that most bilateral agreements are negative list agreements and the severe disadvantages for culture in such agreements as compared with positive list agreements.

The submission gives a brief historical account of agreements back to Menzies’ time and the prevailing attitude that they should not encompass cultural activity. Nevertheless, in the free trade agreement with the USA, the Howard government surrendered significant cultural sovereignty in exchange for doubtful US concessions in agriculture. It now appears that the benefits to Australia from this agreement are minimal and far less than the benefits to the USA.

The Music Council considers that whatever sectoral interests might be advantaged by negotiating bilateral and regional trade agreements, Australia’s negotiating leverage is always likely to be limited – the result of being a small country with an open economy – and the costs can, as evidenced by the AUSFTA, be considerable. Given the very considerable resources involved with negotiating bilateral and regional agreements, it is to be hoped that if Australia is to pursue this path, it will achieve much greater benefits, and with fewer important concessions, than those achieved from, for instance, the AUSFTA.

Read the submission