Winners, losers - and others - under TPP

Predictably mixed reactions have greeted news of the billion-dollar Trade Agreement.

After years of secret negotiations, details of the Trans Pacific Partnership has been released.After years of secret negotiations, details of the Trans Pacific Partnership has been released.

After years of secret negotiations, details of the Trans Pacific Partnership has been released. Source: AAP

After years of negotiations, trade ministers from 12 countries, including Australia, have finally agreed to create one of the world's biggest free-trade zones.

Despite million-dollar boosts to many industries, not all farmers feel they'll benefit under the deal.

But some industry advocates remain wary of the details in this largely secretive deal.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has told radio 3AW Australian businessess will reap rewards from the deal.

"It means that you, your business, will be able to sell its services into other markets around the region much more easily than it can today. It means that if you're involved in agriculture, you'll be able to sell a lot more beef to Japan, than you currently can. And more sugar to the United States. And more cheese to Japan."

But for the Australian sugar industry, a $16 million uplift is bittersweet and doesn't go as far as some would have liked.

Annual sugar exports to the United States will increase by 65,000 tonnes to 152,000 tonnes each year.

It's a great deal less than the 700,000 tonnes or thereabouts many had hoped for.

The chairman of Canegrowers Australia, Paul Schembri, says the once-in-a lifetime deal was a lost opportunity.

"Yes we've been included, but I must be honest and say that the outcome falls well short of what our expectations were. We believe we had a credible case to increase access to the United States, and what this shows, what this shows more than anything else, is that the Australian sugar industry has come up against that huge wall of protectionism for the United States agriculture, paticularly the sugar industry. So an economic uplift, but a lost opportunity as well."

Australian farmers seem to agree.

Chief Executive of the National Farmers Federation, Simon Talbot, says while it's disappointing for sugar cane farmers, it's ultimately positive for the agricultural sector, saying it will return around one billion dollars to farmers overall.

"Certainly market access improvements for rice, for dairy, and some pretty good outcomes for the red meat sector. We've got tariff reductions for carrying across 14 countries around the Pacific, and it's already building on the back of what is a record high year for beef in particular in this country."

Mr Talbot says he looks forward to going over the detail of the agreement, which is yet to be released.

He says farmers will be keeping a close eye on the tariff reduction critera and the period of time they will be reduced over.

Others, however, remain skeptical about the slow release of detail.

Convenor of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, Patricia Ranald, says she holds concerns about a price increase to pharmaceuticals, despite govenrment assurances they won't rise.

"What the Minister is saying about medicines is that he has not agreed to make changes which would link the monopolies on biologic medicines. However the US government is saying that there is provision for longer monopolies but because we don't have the text, we don't exactly know how that's going to work."

Meanwhile, the Opposition has offered broad support to the agreement.

Opposition trade spokeswoman Penny Wong says continuing support will depend on the wording of the deal, which they will be scrutinising in coming weeks.

"There's always issues in trade agreements and always issues when you look at the press releases versus what's in the agreement... But in relation to the TPP, we welcome Mr Robb's assurances he's held the line in the relation to the accessibility of medicines. We'll hold him to that and we will consider and analyse the whole of the agreement in the national interest."

 

 


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4 min read

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By Rachael Hocking


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