Culture and the proposed Australia/United States of America Free Trade Agreement

SEE ALSO: Cultural Diversity in the Proactive Examples section.

The Music Council has joined with a number of Australian professional arts organisations in a coalition, the Australian Coalition for Cultural Diversity (ACCD), to advocate the interests of culture and cultural diversity during negotiations for free trade treaties, whether bilateral, regional, or under the auspices of the WTO.

The immediate impetus for the establishment of the ACCD was the announcement that Australia and the USA would attempt to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA). For the cultural sector, the USA is probably the most feared protagonist of free trade because of US opposition to the governmental support upon which much of the cultural life of smaller countries depends.

It transpired that the first task of the ACCD was to respond to an invitation from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to offer observations about the prospective Australia/US FTA. The Executive Director of the Music Council, working with representatives of the other ACCD members, prepared the response.

Read the ACCD response

While the ACCD response covered broad issues of concern to the entire cultural sector, many ACCD members wrote submissions detailing the concerns of their own subsector.

The Music Council of Australia's response presents many major concerns for the music sector.

Read the Music Council of Australia Response

NOTE: The agreement was completed and ratified by the two nations. The outcomes for culture are negative, despite a vigorous public campaign by the cultural sector and in particular the film industry. The Music Council was successful in ensuring that Australian music quotas were retained for all free to air radio. This was a very modest outcome, however, given the overall objective of total exclusion of culture from the agreement. A summary of the outcomes was published in Music Forum.

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