Secrecy is the enemy of fairness.
Australia's environmental, labour, and health and safety laws are threatened by a free trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership or RCEP, currently being negotiated between Australia, New Zealand, China, India, South Korea and the ten member countries of ASEAN - about half of the world's population. How can we ensure trade is globally fair, safe and environmentally friendly?

On 10th August 2019, Blue Mountains Unions & Community hosted a "Politics in the Pub - Free Trade or Fair Trade?" at the Family Hotel in Katoomba.
This episode is a recording of Dr Pat Ranald of AFTINET speaking at that event about the RCEP. The potential problems she spoke about in the proposed RCEP are not new and have been features of past free trade agreements. Not least of the problems is the secrecy of the negotiations as the exact terms of the agreement are not made public until after the deal is done, denying affected parties the opportunity to object or present alternatives.
If you'd like to take action against the RCEP, you can find out more and download a petition from the AFTINET website.
The other speaker at the event was Alison Rahill is the Executive Officer of the Anti-Slavery Taskforce, Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney. 
Disclaimer: We seek a range of perspectives but that means that views expressed in these podcasts are not necessarily endorsed by the Blue Mountains Unions Council Inc.

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