Essential services 'under threat'

("Standard", 31 Oct, 02, page 8)

by reporter Eve Lamb

Essential public services will be threatened unless they gain exemption under a new World Trade Organization treaty now being negotiated, a Warrnambool forum was warned this week.

Political candidates expressed fears about the implications of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) international agreement.

"No-one knows much about GATS, but it threatens local regulations, trade protection and essential services", said Jean Christie, a spokeswoman for Warrnambool's Emmanuel College, which hosted the forum. ALP candidate for South West Coast, Roy Reekie, said GATS posed a "major threat to local communities losing control over decisions governing essential services". Greens Warrnambool branch convenor Gillian Blair said that under GATS, funding for education, health and other public services would be classified as a subsidy and a barrier to foreign corporations seeking to provide such services for private profit. She said the government would be expected to fund public and private providers under GATS but "this would not be possible" and "a corporate takeover would be the result". Ms Christie said overseas experience indicated that in such a situation, large international corporations could sue the Australian Government for subsidizing public services such as education while not also subsidizing private education providers. (last sentence is ambiguous and should have read "foreign education providers" G.B.) Australia's "clean green image", quarantine regulations, health providers, and water services were among vital public services under threat, she said.

"We were disappointed with the number of people who attended the forum, probably only 30 or 40, but those who did attend were gob-smacked at the implications of GATS and now the LOCAL POLITICIANS WHO ATTENDED (!) are sitting up and taking notice", Ms Christie said. (this was a mis-quote, as there were no politicians there, and the Liberal State politician John Vogels was in Parliament, but despite our invitation did not send a representative. GB) Mr. Reekie said GATS amounted to "privatization writ large" and threatened "to divest control of essential services to foreign corporations". "The problem is GATS doesn't distinguish between professional services like legal services and public necessity services like education and health", he said.

"If our government doesn't exempt essential services they would be prohibited from creating legislation, regulations or requirements relating to them, because that would be anti-competitive", he said. "The detail for GATS is still being negotiated, and is expected to be completed by 2005, but the Australian Government has until March 30 (no year mentioned! G.B.) to nominate its exemptions."