Hi. OK, we’ve started to get into what this World Trade Organisation meeting in Homebush Bay, Sydney, next week is about – discussion of GATS, a proposed general agreement on trade in services.
In Explaining GATS: An attempt (smhNov5), Brian Bahnisch told us what the critics are on about. Lest it be thought that the critics are mere outsiders to power banging on with crazed conspiracy theories, the annual conference of the NSW Local Government Association passed a resolution of strong concern late last month. Local councils fear the GATs will see the privatisation of water and all sorts of other services. Marrickville Council, my local, passed a GATS unanimously before the conference endorsed it in substance (see below). The final wording should be up on the site of the Local Government Association (lgov) soon.
As far as I know State governments haven’t played a part in this debate so far. NSW Police Minister Michael Costa certainly hasn’t – his contribution has been to accuse people wanting to protest against GATS at Homebush – many of whom are unionists whose leaders will speak at the protest – of being terrorists, and to condemn any civil disobedience at the event (See Labor’s new crime: Civil disobedience, smhNov1).
As you’ll recall, Costa went troppo in Parliament early last week about a seminar to be hosted by the Greens MP Lee Rhiannon in NSW Parliament last Friday – authorised by Upper House president, Labor’s Meredith Burgmann – on the history and practice of civil disobedience in the lead-up to planned protests against the WTO meeting. Costa alleged the seminar was really about discussing violence at the WTO meeting. He had no evidence – in any event, it would be crazy to discuss violence at an open, public meeting – but that didn’t stop Michael Costa. After getting his message out through the Daily Telegraph, he took the police minister along to Homebush for more propaganda. This is reminiscent of Joh Bjelke-Petersen in the days when his police minister Terry Lewis did Sir Joh’s bidding.
I went along to the seminar for a little while on Friday, and, of course, no violence was discussed. Civil disobedience is, by definition, about non-violent protest. It is about breaking the law, peacefully, to make a political statement, and thus it’s about taking the risk of being arrested and fined for that activity.
My only personal experience of civil disobedience was in the late 1970s, when Sir Joh banned the right to march by telling police to refuse to issue any march permits. In response, I joined hundreds of others in King George Square outside City hall in the middle of Brisbane. We faced an ampitheatre – the street was surrounded by onlookers, and more than 700 police stood ready to defend the patch of street in front of the square. When we walked onto the street we were arrested and put in jail until someone – in my case my mother – arrived to bail us out. I was chucked into a tiny cell with about 20 others, where I worked out pretty quickly that this was not my scene. I also worked out that I had nothing but respect and admiration for people who could take all this to confront the system with its own injustice. Several ALP members who went on to become State government ministers were arrested in the right to march protests.
To see the NSW police minister playing Costa’s game fills me with dread and foreboding. I don’t know what Costa is up to, apart from creating hysteria, but I don’t like it.
At the seminar, rumours circulated that Costa’s police boys were refusing march permits for a couple of marches planned for Sydney city during the WTO talks. I couldn’t confirm these rumours, but the Australian on Saturday reported them, although the report was confusing. I hope like hell it isn’t true. If Costa wants a police state imposed before the State election, it’s a nasty turn of events from an increasingly nasty government. The effect of a ban on street marches would, of course, be to provoke confrontation and even violence. If that’s what Costa wants, he’s unfit for office.
The papers presented to the civil disobedience forum will be available soon at internationalactivism. In the meantime, Sydney University of Technology academic James Goodman, who organised the seminar, has complained to the Press Council about the Daily Telegraph’s coverage. The Press Council has accepted the complaint and written to the paper for a response.
Here’s the complaint:
A. Complainant Information
Name: Dr James Goodman
Address: Co-Convenor of the Research Initiative on International Activism, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Technology Sydney PO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2048. Phone: 9514 2714, Fax: 9514 2332, Email: james.goodman@uts.ed=u.au
B. Publication Details
Daily Telegraph, 1. 1/11/02, Headline ‘In Your House’, front page.
C: Contact with Publication
Yes. In two ways:
(i) Face-to-face interview with the Daily Telegraph reporter who was writing the story. He had not at this stage submitted his story to the paper. The interview was held at the paper’s offices in NSW Parliament House, from approximately 7.30 pm to 8pm on October 31st.
The interview was conducted in the presence of Lee Rhiannon, Member of the Legislative Council of the NSW Parliament. At the end of the interview the reporter informed me that my comments could not be taken on board, and that he would have no influence on the headline for the piece.
On leaving I was told I should prepare for a difficult day tomorrow: it seemed to me that the paper was intending to publish an attack on the meeting, and was fully aware of the controversy it would be creating.
(ii) In view of this I returned to work on the evening of the 31st, and wrote up my rejoinder in the form of a lengthy email letter. This was sent at 2am, 1 November, when the article appeared on the Daily Telegraph’sWebsite with the headline ‘Anarchy in the House’.
Response received: No mention of the interview nor correction of the story. No response to email letter as of 5 November 2002.
D. Principles Breached
Breach of Principle 1 and Breach of Principle 5, in particular, the requirement of “not misrepresenting or suppressing relevant facts”.
E. Specific Reasons for the Complaint
Personal association: I have a direct association with the matter raised in the complaint. The Research Initiative, of which I am a part, is the organiser of the meeting that was referred by the Daily Telegraph in their front-page article of the 1 November. The Initiative was specifically mentioned in the article and was maligned and discredited by the article.
The paper had spoken with me and knew its story to be a misrepresentation, yet it went ahead and printed the accusation of the Initiative having organised a ‘training session’ for ‘violence’, as fact. The Daily Telegraphreport has been widely condemned by other media outlets. An ABC reporter, Jean Kennedy, for instance, stated on ABC Radio 702 on the afternoon of the 1 November that the Telegraph’s story had been “dubbed ‘the beat up of the year’ by members of the press gallery”. That “beat-up” has had a significant negative impact on the reputation of the Research Initiative.
Complaint details: The paper was informed by the organiser of the meeting (myself) that it was not a ‘training’ session to ‘create violent situations’, as had been claimed by the NSW Minister for Police. Yet the paper went ahead and quoted his accusations as fact: The paper’s headline states ‘Guess where the people who protest like this are holding their next training session…’. This headline appeared alongside a photograph of police on horses at a demonstration in May 2001. The Daily Telegraph knew this to be a misrepresentation of the facts, as he had been told as much by me before the story was submitted. In view of this I believe theDaily Telegraph wilfully misrepresented the facts. It printed information in the form of a front-page headline, that it knew to be false.
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I’ve expressed strong views on the Press Council process in the past, and repeat them here. I’ve been up before the Council once, about a story I wrote about a Senate Privileges Committee report into alleged interference with a witness to the Wik inquiry, the head of the Australian Law Reform Commission, by Attorney-General Daryl Williams and his Department.
A member of the public complained that my report was inaccurate and biased. Invariably a bureaucrat of the media company concerned fronts up and runs an abstract sort of case, but I insisted on turning up myself to argue my own case. I felt this was important as the reader who complained could do so to the reporter direct, and hear her case in reply, rather than be faced with a corporate suit who knows nothing of the background to or context of the story. It was a long hearing, the reader and I went toe to toe on several points, and I was able to explain the language ‘codes’ Senate committees use when they’re criticising fellow members of the club. At the end of it we shook hands and the reader said he was satisfied he’d got a fair hearing. I won – just.
There is another reason for the reporter turning up. When the media representative is a suit, the Press Council doesn’t find out what went on in the processing of the story,and instead gets a bland justification. I have no inside knowledge of what happened in this case, but I would be unsurprised if the reporter was powerless to stop the story being distorted out of existence by an editor. If the reporter turns up, the truth can come out, and the blame – if there is any – put on the person who is at fault.
I’d also like the hearing of Press Council complaints to be in public, not in private as at present. It’s about time the media started being at least a little bit accountable. At the moment, our self-righteous claim that we are here to ensure accountability is so screamingly hypocritical it’s our credibility that’s shot to pieces.
Today, the Marrickville Council resolution on GATS, Karen Jackson in Gympie, who started the GATS ball rolling in Green idiocy (smhNov4), suggests ways to get GATS into the mainstream media. Brian Bahnischgives details of protest activities next week in Sydney to coincide with the WTO meeting – Michael Costa might care to note the unions involved – and James Woodcock recommends more sites for more info.
Max Phillips is ready to put his energy where his heart is: “Bravo Brian! I was questioning whether I’d bother to try and get off work to protest the WTO – now there is no question, I’m already there! Thanks!”
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Unanimous resolution of Marrickville Council
That Council:
1. believes public policy regarding the regulation, funding and provision of essential services should be made democratically by governments at the national, state and local level;
2. calls on the Federal Government to fully consult with state and local government about the implications of the GATS negotiations for local government services and regulation;
3. calls on the Federal Government to make public the specific requests it made to other governments in the GATS negotiations which were due on 30 June 2002;
4. calls on the Federal Government to make public its specific responses to requests from other governments which are due on 30 March 2003;
5. calls on the Federal Government to support the clear exclusion of public services from the GATS, including local government community services and water services;
6. calls on the Federal Government to oppose any proposals which would open up the funding of such public services to privatisation;
7. calls on the Federal Government to oppose any proposals which would reduce the right of local government to regulate services, including the application of a “least trade restrictive” test to regulation;
8. writes to the Minister for Trade concerning the above; and
9. submits the above motions for adoption by the Local Government Association of New South Wales at its 2002 Annual Conference with an additional motion that they be submitted for adoption by the Australian Local Government Association at its 2002 Annual Conference.
Background
The current negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) being conducted by the Australian Government and other governments in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) could have serious repercussions for Australian local government.
GATS rules are binding on all levels of government but there has been little if any consultation with local government about the negotiations and their implications.
A recent study by the Canadian Environmental Law Association (found at www.policyalternatives=.ca) identified areas of local government services and regulation which could be affected by the GATS negotiations. The services identified included:
* Water and sewerage services
* Waste management
* Road building
* Land use planning
* Library services.
Changes to GATS rules on regulation of services could mean that local councils could face complaints about their regulation through the WTO complaints system. Governments can complain about the laws or regulations of other governments to a panel of trade law experts. The winner can ask that laws or regulations be changed and can ban or tax the exports of the loser.
Governments are being asked to increase the range of services included in the GATS agreement. Requests in the negotiations from the European Union, for example, include water services, which in rural areas are often local government services. There are also proposals in the negotiations to change GATS rules to reduce the right of governments to regulate by declaring that some regulation of services should be “least trade restrictive.” There are also proposals to define funding of government services in GATS rules as “subsidies” to which transnational corporations should have access, resulting in privatisation.
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Karen Jackson in Gympie, Queensland
Disclosure: Karen is a member of the Democrats
Thanks for publishing my little piece on GATS. Since the Dems went haywire I’ve been apathetic about politics; it felt as though my desire to help change the world had been torn to shreds by a small Machiavellian suicide squad and it wasn’t worth bothering anymore. But I knew the GATS meeting was coming up, and it’s too important to just sit back and watch it happen.
Brian Bahnisch’s piece was excellent, but I think it also answers my question about why GATS rarely gets a look in – it takes time and effort to understand what’s going on. What we really need is some quick, snappy Daily Telegraph headlines to generate interest.
Such as…
China’s standards good enough for our police: New NSW Police CEO
Coca-Cola takes 51% stake in Sydney Water
Domestic water tanks banned(Subheading: Sydney Water CEO claims they are undermining earnings and anti-competitive)
Building industry welcomes new international standards (Subheading: Cost of occupational health and safety halved)
Post to Bourke, Broken Hill end December 31 (First para: Australia Post spokesperson says competition with the cheaper US Postal Service means funds need to be freed up for advertising.)
Perhaps I’m being a little facetious with these, and they may be a little over the top, but this sort of thing gets attention. Alan Jones’ river plan may have been ridiculous but it nonetheless succeeded in stimulating debate about how we use our water resources.
In any case, I hope that the debate in Webdiary is the start of a larger tide of media attention on this issue.
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Brian Bahnisch in Brisbane
Here’s the AFTINET (Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network) PR material for next week: If I had the money I’d come to Sydney!
STAND UP FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE
STOP THE WTO AGENDA
PEACEFUL RALLY
Thursday 14 NOV 2002 12 Noon
HYDE PARK FOUNTAIN
COG performing live
Speakers include Allen Madden, Metropolitan Land Council; Doug Cameron, National Secretary, Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union; Joy Chavez, Focus on the Global South, Philippines; Father Brian Gore, Jubilee Drop the Debt Campaign; Shane Rattenbury Greenpeace; John Robertson, Secretary, NSW Labour Council; The Rev Dr Ann Wansbrough, Uniting Church Minister.
FAIR TRADE NOT FREE TRADE: A BETTER WORLD IS POSSIBLE
Today 2 billion people live on less than US$2 per day with little access to health, education and water services, and continued destruction of the environment.
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) sets the global rules for trade, is dominated by the most economically powerful governments, and is heavily influenced by corporations. The Australian government has invited only 25 of the 144 WTO Members to a meeting in Sydney November 14-15, 2002. The meeting is designed to pressure developing countries to support an agenda which includes:
* treating essential services like health, education and water as commercial goods, opening them to privatisation
* reducing governments’ right to regulate trade and investment in the public interest, and to support local jobs and development
* further tariff cuts regardless of their impact on job losses and economic insecurity
We oppose this agenda and support fair trade regulation through open and democratic processes:
* Trade agreements should support, not undermine, human rights, labour rights and protection of the environment.
* Essential public services should not be included in trade agreements.
* Governments should retain full rights to regulate for social and environmental reasons, and to have industry policies to support local jobs and development.
* Corporations must conform to United Nations standards on human rights, labour rights and the environment.
Supported by: Action for World Development, AID/WATCH, APHEDA-Union Aid Abroad, Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific, Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens, Australia Tibet Council, Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, Australian Coalition for Economic Justice, Australian Council of Social Service, Australian Council for Overseas Aid, Australian Council of Trade Unions, Australian Democrats (NSW), Australian Education Union, Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, Australian Greens, Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, Australian Nursing Federation, Australian Services Union, NSW Services Branch, Bougainville Freedom Movement, Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace, Community and Public Sector Union (PSU Group), Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, Economic Reform Australia, Fire Brigade Employees Union, Flight Attendants’ Association of Australia- International Division, Friends of the Earth Australia, Greenpeace, Indigenous Social Justice Association, Jubilee Australia, Labor Council of NSW, Labor For Refugees, Mercy Foundation, National Tertiary Education Union, National Union of Students, Northern Territory Environment Centre, Now We the People, NSW Retired Teachers’ Association, NSW Teachers Federation, Politics in the Pub, Progressive Labour Party, Rail Tram and Bus Union, Research Initiative on International Activism, The Grail, Search Foundation, Socialist Alliance, Stop MAI (WA), Tear Australia, Victorian Trades Hall Council, UnitingCare NSW.ACT, Women’s Electoral Lobby (WA) Inc, Workers’ Health Centre, WTO Watch Canberra.
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James Woodcock
Disclosure: James is a member of the ALP
I recommend the New Internationalist online, particularly the back issue newint, Inside Business, on how transnationals work and their role with GATS.
Also go to newint and download about 4 megs of leaked GATS documents for interesting reading.
The current “hard” issue (not online yet) has a great article on how the US is privatising its “public” education system. Entitled Oh no you don’t it shows how corporate pressure can override public opposition, and this is obviously the type of “public-private partnership” that GATS wants to see in all countries.
I recommend the New Internationalist as a great alternative to the mainstream media. While its main purpose is to highlight the imbalances between rich and poor nations (It was originally sponsored by Oxfam/Freedom from Hunger), the NI reports on virtually everything of global concern.
They were talking about the MAI (the now dumped Multilateral Agreement on Investment, of which GATS is the successor) ages before Pauline Hanson or the Greens raised it. It is a great educational tool as it explains these complex global issues and has lots of useful charts and graphs that demonstrate the stark differences between the rich and poor.
Best of all the NI shows being concerned about globalization is not the exclusive jurisdiction of some perceived violent looney fringe.