Trade Deal Muddies Waters

Clean drinking water has emerged as the latest risk posed by the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement, with the deal taking away the powers of governments to regulate this essential service.
The Australian Services Union, representing employees in Sydney Water, says the FTA is designed to prevent governments from placing regulations on essential public services.
"The agreement would freeze the current regulations but ties the hands of future governments to deal with issues that may arise such as dealing with water shortages, threats to water quality and environmental safeguards," say executive president Sally McManus.
Under the agreement, she said, the US Government could intervene and prevent a state government from introducing laws affecting the people it governs.
"If, for example, the state government wanted to increase fees for high users of water, the US Government could veto the legislation," McManus says.
"The reason for these barriers is that the Free Trade Agreement is designed to open the way for future privatisation of state assets, where regulations are seen as an impediment to the free operation of the market.
"This is just one of the many crazy ways that the Howard Government is planning to trade off our national sovereignty"