Stop cheap goods from China: AWU
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
Stop cheap goods from China: AWU
2 March 2011
AAP. The Australian Workers Union (AWU) has renewed its calls for the federal government to protect jobs and producers from Chinese companies dumping subsidised goods in the local market.
The AWU’s national secretary, Paul Howes, said on Wednesday the government should follow its US and Canadian counterparts who are pursuing anti-dumping measures to defend their markets against abuses of World Trade Organisation (WTO) free-trade rules.
The federal government last month said it would unveil measures in the May budget to stem the tide of cheap goods from China and other countries.
But the AWU is pushing for action sooner as part of its Don’t Dump on Australia campaign.
"Australian political leaders are lagging far behind their counterparts in the USA, Canada, across Europe and Russia, where concern about cheating on the WTO rules is now high on the local political agenda - and politicians are beginning to act," Mr Howes said in Sydney.
"While new measures are being brought in in these countries to protect WTO free-trade rules, here in Australia little or nothing is happening."
The AWU says thousands of manufacturing, agriculture, forestry and fisheries jobs are under threat because of goods being sold in Australia below their normal home market price or below the cost of production.
In many cases the price discrepancy is because of direct and indirect government subsidies that give exporters an unfair advantage over local producers.
"China, with deep pockets, is a major abuser of the WTO rules," Mr Howes said in a speech to the Foreign Correspondents Association in Sydney.
"Unless the Australian government joins with other governments to enforce the free-trade rules the principles of the competitive marketplace and global free trade will completely disappear."
The AWU and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) are inviting business leaders and politicians to sit down with them at the Trades Hall in Sydney next month to discuss solutions.
Mr Howes said one major component of the problem was that Australia viewed China as a market-based economy despite involvement by its government.
"If progress is not made we should review the market economy status we grant to China," he said.
