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A decade on, is the Australia-US FTA fit for the 21st century?
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A decade on, is the Australia-US FTA fit for the 21st century?

A. George
The Conversation, Vol.22 October 2014
The Conversation Media Group
2014
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Abstract

Ten years on from the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement, Australia is entering another round of negotiations towards the new and controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership. In this Free Trade Scorecard series, we review Australian trade policy over the years and where we stand today on the brink of a number of significant new trade deals. Almost ten years on from ratifying the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), the level of concern it generated among academics, NGOs and others has heightened in response to further FTA and plurilateral negotiations. Similar obligations, and more, are being pushed through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The AUSFTA was a watershed event. A broad range of federal and state bureaucracies had to engage in highly complex negotiations. As the Senate Select Committee 2004 report lamented, particularly in relation to intellectual property rights, the evidence received showed few policy experts were sufficiently prepared, resourced or intellectually attuned for these complex and lopsided negotiations.

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