The Australian government introduced legislation to ratify a controversial free trade deal with the US yesterday, aiming to expose opposition divisions on the deal ahead of national elections.
Amid conflicting claims about the benefits of the US agreement, the main opposition Labor Party said it would support the legislation passage through parliament's lower house but could still scuttle it in the upper house or Senate.
Treasurer Peter Costello accused Labor of trying to adopt two positions on the free trade deal so it could avoid scrutiny on the issue ahead of an election expected to be held in October or November.
"We don't want funny business here, we don't want trickery ... either you support the free trade agreement or you don't," Costello said.
Labor said it would await next month's release of a Senate report into the agreement before it decides whether to give its full backing.
Introducing the legislation, Trade Minister Mark Vaile said the free trade agreement represented an unprecedented opportunity to link up with the world's largest economy.
"From the day it enters into force it will deliver real benefits and opportunities for Australian exporters," Vaile told parliament.
"In the longer-term, dynamic gains from the agreement promise to yield even larger benefits to the the Australian economy and to Australian families."
The agreement has come under fire in Australia because it excludes sugar, leaves US protection on dairy and beef untouched for decades and gives US pharmaceutical firms the right to appeal government programs that keep down the cost of medicines here.
Parliament's government-controlled Treaties Committee issued a 300-page report yesterday recommending the treaty's ratification because "it will be in Australia's national interest."
However, Labor members of the committee issued a dissenting report which called for more time to weigh up its pros and cons.
"The inquiry has been exceptionally rushed; normally when you would have a treaty of this magnitude you would have an extension of time to prepare a more comprehensive report and go through the evidence," Labor committee member Kim Wilkie told reporters. "We've not been able to do that, purely to fit in with the government's agenda."
Wilkie dismissed the government accusation's that Labor's position showed it had an anti-US bias, saying the party simply wanted more time to examine the deal because of its huge potential impact on the Australian economy.
After being criticized by senior White House figures over its pledge to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq by Christmas, Labor wants to avoid giving the government more pre-election ammunition to claim the opposition is threatening the US-Australia alliance.
The Australian newspaper said the resulting caution had created an opposition policy vacuum and Labor had little choice but to support the free trade agreement.
"The combination of withdrawal from Iraq, a strategic retreat of sorts from the US and becoming the first nation to negotiate, then repudiate, an FTA with the US would leave the Australian people thinking that Labor had lost its grip on the national interest," the newspaper said.
The free trade agreement cannot be ratified without Labor support as the minor parties that hold the balance of power in the Senate have already pledged to vote it down.
The trade deal is expected to be debated in the US congress next month, where Australian officials expect it will pass comfortably.
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