I’m on a tight deadline today and wasn’t going to write anything here, but a reader pointed me in the direction of the Australian Productivity Commission’s newly-published Trade and Assistance Review 2013-14, which devotes an entire chapter to “Issues and concerns with preferential trade agreements” (pages 61-86 here).
As the Sydney Morning Heraldsummarised it:
The Productivity Commission has launched a scathing attack on Australia’s latest series of free trade agreements, saying they grant legal rights to foreign investors not available to Australians, expose the government to potentially large unfunded liabilities and add extra costs on businesses attempting to comply with them.
Allowing for the relative restraint of bureaucratic language on the one hand, and newspaper style on the other, “scathing attack” doesn’t seem like an unfair description. Perhaps as importantly, the report raises serious questions about TPP, (although the APC has not seen the documents being negotiated).
As regards rules…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Jun 25, 2015 @ 11:46:06
cracking article.
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