1998 October 14, Wednesday: PARIS, Oct 14 (Reuters) - France will not participate in the next round of talks on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) within the OECD, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin said on Wednesday. ... Copyright © 1998 Reuters Limited.

1998 October 17, Saturday, 10am-2pm: Stop-MAI stall, Corner Murray St and Forrest Pl, Perth city. 1998 October 17, Saturday: World Protest Against Poverty Day.

1998 October 29, Thursday, 5.30pm for 6pm, Lower Hall, 10 Broome St, South Perth, Planning Meeting: more delegates and individuals urgently required because other pro-monopolist treaties, agreements, and protocols are going through the Federal Cabinet without public participation and/or Parliamentary debate.

1998 November 10, Tuesday: Federal Parliament with newly-elected House of Representatives Members to open.

For future meetings, contact Brian Jenkins brian@nettrek.com.au (08) 9246 3882, or Dion Giles dgiles@chem.murdoch.edu.au (08) W. 9360 221, H. 9335 7646

TAX PAYMENT OPTIONAL
Jean Jenkins, spokesperson for the Stop MAI (WA) Coalition, long-time advocate of "people power," and a former WA senator, said that the people pushing for the MAI were the owners of the multinational corporations which controlled and made the profits from 90 percent of total world investment.
This agreement was designed to protect and advance their interests, and any advantage to anyone else would be purely accidental.
Mrs Jenkins asked whether the MAI was capable of solving three serious problems faced by Australians:

• Unemployment (in the region of 20 per cent, though official statistics show less than 10 per cent), linked to closure and multinational takeover of many Australian companies.
• A general collapse in the quantity and quality of our public utilities and essential services.
• Gross failings and inadequacies in education (from pre-school through to university level), in hospital services, in the delivery of justice and legal aid, as well as prisons and policing.

SPEED UP IMPOVERISHMENT
Fifteen years of creeping economic rationalisation had already answered the question, Mrs Jenkins said.
The MAI would mean more of the same, at a faster rate, without opportunity to correct mistakes through legislation.
Clearly, under the MAI, multinationals would force the privatisation and reduced subsidisation of more essential services, take over more of our primary and secondary industries, move more operations offshore, sack more workers and make it impossible for our governments to stop or reverse such changes.
Under the MAI, subsidised hospitals and schools would be classed as discriminatory unless the same subsidies were also paid to the hospitals and schools established by foreign investors.
All private universities would have to receive the same government assistance as the public ones – or they could sue the Federal Government for equivalent compensation.
"When we seek to hold governments accountable, they will shrug and say that they cannot make laws which contravene the MAI, or which cause any loss of profit to investors other than Australian investors," Mrs Jenkins said.
"There is a strong possibility that Australia could join with other countries in demanding important changes to the treaty before signing it.
"Because of the weak Government we have in Australia, and because of our very vulnerable trading position in our region, I believe we should go for a full withdrawal from it, and don't believe this would cause loss of investment," Mrs Jenkins said.

NO MORE MUM-DAD SHARES
Tony Cooke, the Secretary of the Western Australian Trades and Labour Council, began by expounding the central provisions of the MAI, for the benefit of many members of the public who were hearing about the proposal for the first time.
He explained the mechanisms of "standstill" and "roll-back" in their relationship to a mythical level playing field – which he said was itself very much open to question.
Mr Cooke recalled that the OECD was part of the Western world's response to the Cold War – evolving as a club of 29 members acting as an umpire and blowing the whistle in line with rules they had drawn up.
The rules were not necessarily appropriate to contemporary civil society, in which the community has a right to special precautionary arrangements, and to the accountability of Parliament for important national commitments.
The possible consequences of social fragmentation and disempowerment were necessarily part of the debate on the MAI, together with the pros and cons of globalisation in terms of economic and cultural influences.
Mr Cooke demonstrated the enormous market-opening potential of the MAI, pointing to the six or seven per cent of India's population which was capable of "middle-class" consumption.
Ability to free this up for unfettered foreign competition would create a new market exceeding the total population of the United Kingdom, Mr Cooke said.
He referred to a recent correspondence he had with State Energy Minister Colin Barnett over the latter's undertaking to ensure that purchase of shares in a privatisation of the electricity utility Western Power would be limited to Western Australian "mums and dads."
The minister was obliged to agree that there could be no such assurance under the MAI.
With reference to the dispute resolution mechanism proposed for the MAI, Mr Cooke declared that, in all his experience of dealing with tribunals and courts, he had never heard of any tribunal with powers as great as that which would be determining the compensation to be paid by national government to multinational plaintiffs.
In concluding, Mr Cooke cautioned against too archaic a view of national sovereignty – one of the important issues called forth in the MAI debate – and suggested that some of the views being canvassed had the intention of returning us to the insular pre-1956 era, which was unacceptable.

OPEN UP TREATY POWERS
Bevan Lawrence, a practising barrister and prominent campaigner in past issues including the Australia Card and the business improprieties of the 'WA Inc' State Government era, addressed the broad issue of the Commonwealth's treaties power.
He established that there was no legal requirement for the MAI or any other treaty to be approved by or referred to the Parliament.
The treaties power, inherited from the Westminster system, had been ultimately derived from the 'royal prerogative' of kings – and that same power now resided with the Australian Prime Minister, he said.
The present Liberal Government had instituted a policy of at least 15 days' parliamentary consultation through a new Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, and consultation with the States through a Treaties Council, but these processes had no powers and were little more than "window dressing."
Similarly, the requirement for a national interest analysis to be tabled was of little value in the probable event that it would be prepared by the very people who were promoting the treaty.
These placatory arrangements had resulted from the Liberals' vocal indignation, when in Opposition, over an abrupt announcement by the former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating that he had concluded a bilateral military treaty with Indonesian President Soeharto which, he openly acknowledged, had been done in secret because Parliament and the people might oppose it.
Mr Lawrence declared his preference for "people power" in the sense of Swiss-style direct democracy and volunteered his opinion that Australia had a long way to go before we could become a viable democracy.
This was illustrated by the fact that executive government need pay no heed to the recommendations of parliamentary committees.
Further, the import of treaties did not require complementary legislation to become part of the Common Law.
Since power over foreign affairs had been ceded by the States to the Commonwealth at federation, the Commonwealth had been able to use this power to override Acts of State and Territory parliaments on a number of occasions, he said.
For instance, the Northern Territory's law enabling euthanasia had been outlawed by the Commonwealth Parliament, and in 1983 Tasmania's legislation for the damming of the Franklin River had been similarly nullified.
Mr Lawrence made the point that, though he was personally supportive of the campaign against damming the Franklin, he strongly believed that it was legally inappropriate for a State Act to be overthrown in that way.
The treaty-making process should be opened up to full public scrutiny and made accountable.
In his opinion, this should involve the approval of both federal Houses and probably also of the States' Houses (or, at the least, of a majority of State Houses).

CAPITAL COMING WITHOUT MAI
Turning to the matter of the MAI, he was critical of the situation that the onus of proving the Agreement's unsuitability had fallen on the treaty's opponents.
"It should be the other way round -- let the proponents prove that the MAI will be beneficial to us," he said.
It was very apparent that Australia was attractive to foreign capital in the absence of an MAI, and that the inflow would not dry up because we decline to sign the MAI.
Moreover, changes to rules had a tendency to generate confusion and conflict. Wisdom should dictate that the rules should not be changed unless and until they absolutely had to be changed.
Mr Lawrence referred to the pronouncement of High Court Chief Justice Sir Harry Gibbs (1994) that treaties wee capable of expanding Commonwealth power to the extent that no area of legislation was excluded.
This fact had been demonstrated in controversial interchanges of legislation and judgment between the Parliament and Court in recent years.
The solution was to make treaties subject to parliamentary control. It was ironic that Senator Rod Kemp, who was responsible for carriage of the MAI, himself wrote in a 1994 paper that Australia's Constitution was being compromised by these processes.
It was indisputable that a measure of sovereignty was always surrendered in these agreements, Mr Lawrence said.

BIG BUSINESS 'WELFARE'
Liam Bartlett, television and radio journalist, Constitutional Convention independent delegate, and author of the most penetrating MAI criticism published in a Perth newspaper (the Sunday Times), opened his address with some observations on a journalistic level, noting that the MAI's supporters were uncomfortable when questioned for justification on a number of points, including:

• This treaty is about the welfare of big business.
• Are they (the proponents) struggling?
• Why is the MAI necessary?
• The record of irresponsible behaviour by multinationals is appalling.
• Their concept of a 'level playing field' is both a myth and a lie.

100 PROFITS OF $300m NOT TAXED
Questioner: Can one of the panel explain the concept of "roll-back?"
Tony Cooke: The MAI will require the Government to "standstill" or not progress further any laws or regulations which cause inconvenience or loss of profit to a foreign investor.
Laws which are already in place, or existing provisions for which the Government has succeeded in registering "exceptions" to the MAI , must be rolled back (repealed or withdrawn) within an expected number of years. The objective is that all exceptions will in time be eliminated .
By allowing such exceptions, the MAI encourages the Government to make the agreement saleable by lying. The exceptions they tell us about must be rolled back.
Questioner: In the Sunday Times article in April, Liam Bartlett stated some staggering statistics about the top 100 multinationals (each earning over $A300 million a year) paying no tax.. I ask Liam what is the source of those figures?
Liam Bartlett: The earning figures were turnover figures provided by the Australian Tax Office, together with information on tax paid by the named companies. There is no secret about it ; anyone can go to the Tax Office and get those figures.
Questioner: Does the MAI conflict with the Australian Constitution?
Bevan Lawrence: No, I don't see how it can. It is a trade agreement which the Executive Government has power to enter. The consequences may be unpalatable in terms of how we expect the Constitution to protect us, but in pure legal terms, the Government can sign and be acting in accordance with the Constitution.
Questioner: Would there be retaliation if we did not sign the MAI?
Tony Cooke: It is not being sold as something which is bad for us. We are supposed to buy it so that we can go out and rape another country without too much inconvenience.
Big companies desperately need the advantages which these arrangements give them. I'll give you an example concerning our own Homeswest organisation. They prize the triple-A credit rating they have with Standard and Poors. Every year, they pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to get Standard and Poors to come out and inspect their operation so that the same people can award them continuance of the triple-A rating!   /ends

MEDIA HELP INFORMATION
Contact Speakers: Tony Cooke (08) 9328 7877 tlc@ca.com.au; Bevan Lawrence (08) 9325 3466; Liam Bartlett (08) 9220 1442; Jean Jenkins (08) 9246 3882 brian@nettrek.com.au.   Rodney Vlais (chair) (08) 9424 4200 eco-heal@vianet.net.au
Further information: Convener Rodney Vlais eco-heal@vianet.net.au or researcher Dion Giles (08) 9335 7646 dgiles@chem.murdoch.edu.au or publicist Brian Jenkins 9246 3882 brian@nettrek.com.au   Mail to: Stop MAI Coalition (WA), PO Box 608, Nedlands, WA, 6909

A REPORT OF THE RESOLUTIONS of the June 30 1998 meeting is also at: http://dove.mtx.net.au/~hermann/wameet.htm