Last week the Australian Labor Party agreed to vote in favour of a free trade agreement between Australia and the US that was the work of John Howard and George Bush. The Labor Party are the only party in Australian politics who officially admit to having members within their ranks who are Left wing, Right wing and Centre and who don’t always agree. The Labor Party’s Left Wing faction said they did not support the FTA, but that they would vote in favour of it in order to tow the party line. I wrote this letter last week in response and I’m unsure if it was published. (For those of you who don’t know about Australia’s federal system, Australia is divided up into small areas called electorates. Each electorate votes for who is going to represent their area. Whichever Party has the most candidates who win in their area/electorate forms the Government).
One of the attractions of the Labor Party is their frank admission to factional disagreements, which arises in all parties. But it also highlights a major flaw in our electoral system. Members of the Labor Left have been elected to represent the people of their electorate. If the party line does not allow these representatives to vote as they wish, then where is the sense in saying they represent their electorate?
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Now I don’t understand much about the FTA, and in that respect I agree with John Hewson that I am like most Australians (be they in favour or against it). But I want to point this out regarding the pharmaceutical benefits debate. Andrew Bolt was on The Insiders this morning claiming that Labor’s amendments that protect our pharmaceutical benefits scheme against greedy US drug companies were unnecessary because no one was going to exploit that anyway. He said that Latham was doing this just to save face and that he had achieved something that made basically no difference and was unimportant. Next up Alexander Downer is on the same programme and wants to tell us that there is a possibility that these amendments could cause concern for the Americans and they may or may not approve them. If these amendments aren’t really making a difference, then why would the Yanks be concerned? The Right is having a bet each way. I know we’re a gambling nation and betting each way is encouraged, but this is politics. I, like many Australians have trouble in trusting the Americans not to exploit the FTA for their own benefit and I doubt they would be signing it if it weren’t in their favour. I also still find the aspect of the FTA relating to television content extremely concerning and have found the Right remarkably unconvincing on this topic.