Bill Betrays Free Trade Legacy
Bill Shorten is again playing politics with Australia's economic future by opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the most significant export deal in the history of our region.
The TPP builds on Australia's existing export deals with some of Asia's biggest and fastest growing economies, providing Australian businesses with unprecedented access to markets far larger than our own.
And yet despite the overwhelming economic benefits of securing even greater access to the world's biggest economies, Bill Shorten is putting populist protectionism ahead of jobs and economic growth.
It was Bob Hawke and Paul Keating who steered Australia's economy away from a high tariff, high cost economy, benefitting businesses and consumers alike. And Australia started negotiating the TPP under the Gillard government.
Bill Shorten is instead playing a dangerous game of populist politics by embracing protectionism and turning his back on the legacy of Hawke and Keating.
It also marks a major backflip, with Bill Shorten and Labor previously saying time and again that they back free trade and the TPP. But now Labor is kowtowing to the unions and trying to walk both sides of the street.
This is exactly what happened with ChAFTA - an agreement that is now delivering real benefits to Australians.
As former Labor leader Mark Latham observed with another of Australia's export deals, the AUSFTA:
"Little Billy was in my ear about the [US] FTA, telling me the Party has to support it. I said that I thought both he and his union were against it, to which he responded, 'That's just for the members. We need to say that sort of thing when they reckon their jobs are under threat. I want it to go through. The US Alliance is too important to do otherwise. Politically, you have no choice'. Great, the two faces of Little Billy Shorten: Public Shorten against the FTA, Private Billy in favour of it." (Source: Latham Diaries, Mark Latham, Location 318)
Like Latham, we are already seeing senior Labor figures distancing themselves from Bill Shorten on this issue, with Labor's Trade spokesperson Jason Clare this morning saying he was uncomfortable with much of the commentary against the TPP (RN AM program).
Bill Shorten should come clean with the Australian people - does he stand for more jobs and stronger economic growth, or does he stand for protectionist policies that would harm the economy?