If you believe the politicians then free trade only benefits us and nobody else !!

So how come all of the fruit growers are having to kill off their crops and set fire to them just because it is no longer viable to can fruit in this country when the imported stuff is clealrly of inferior quality ?

Are we destroying our traditional manufacturing and production industries in exchange for propping up our resources sectors ? It seems that way and it proves that free trade is anything but free Something has to be sacrificed in the free trade deals and it looks like the traditional manufacturing and agricultural production is being sacrificed in exchange for selling a whole pile of unprocessed minerals to other countries.

Are the politicians selling us out whilst making sure their foreign mates Toyota, Holden and Ford survive the free trade Holocaust ?

Free trade it's free for us and free for them

Quantum wrote on Jun 21^st, 2013 at 11:34pm:


instead they get handouts so its the same thing in the end

Sir lastnail wrote on Jun 21^st, 2013 at 11:27pm:



Well the main problem is people like you pansi and crook demanding cheap product and are willing to accept cheap at any cost. Quality Australian product cost more, for a few reasons, one of which is we tend to pay our workers a decent wage.

Do crap on how you buy cheap overseas products and then act all surprised and indignant when Australian businesses close down, be they farmers or retailers or manufacturers. 

Who was it year ago, that talked about all this free trade?.  The unions, and what did they say?.  Can anyone remember?.  Fair trade, not free trade.    

Yes - I've been saying the same thing in my asshole (perjorative American term courtesy of donincomprehenso) redneck word salad way, for many years now.

Without MONEY coming in, your average Aussie consumer cannot even buy goods - thus all suffer and all businesses walk slowly towards the same wall for a low speed crash.  Thus the transporting of jobs, productivity, and incomes for the term of our natural lives MUST inevitably result in a situation where we cannot even begin to buy our own necessities.  No income - no outgo - no outgo - no purchasing power - no purchasing - NO ECONOMY (comment sponsored by ANZ Call Centres Offshore Inc).

Business and government need to get this idea through their very thick skulls, and stop chasing the short-term greed of the very, very few at the expense of the majority - an issue, by the way,that I put squarely as one major reason for the looming Civil War or War of Independence. 

Those 'few' are the middle men who profit massively from import/export of 'cheap' and rising in cost goods - UNTIL that market - as we now see - collapses, while the rest go without more and more (look around you).  Never in the field of human economics has so little been owed by so many to so few!

Now, of course, with the looming tragedy of our 'Asian Century', with our dollar in freefall and thus prices going up, and thus production going down (at a time when my lady in China is just receiving a 30% pay rise to keep up as a teacher with Cost of Living) in Asia, thus destroying their economies as well as ours - you see the (ta-raaaa) OUTCOMES of 'equalising the world'.

DFE - 99.99% dead farken  poor and the rest living in Fatland... Hunger Games here we come!  Damned equal on the farken breadline!              

The cultural advantage we have over China will stay with us for a long time. China is benefiting from the low birth rate, education and adoption of technology and engineering, but still suffers due to political issues and an education system that focuses on rote learning and stifles creativity. It will take at least a few generations for the Chinese to shake off those burdens.

Eventually they probably will equalise, but this will not happen by lowering our standard of living. It will happen by raising China's (and eventually other Asian countries that are further behind).

The rise of China and India will significantly increase the global economy and the rate of technological change. There will be a huge long term market for our resources. Our future is not that of peasant food growers, but of wealthy miners and intellectual/technological leaders.

Something costs $10 to make in OZ and sells for $15
but then 'crap' comes in
at a cost of $1 to make and sells for $14 to both undercut the OZ product as a cheaper alternative and then rip the consumer off when it breaks in half when they take it home under the belief that is was 'slightly' less in quality from the OZ product.
If the Import was 'Capped' to sell at only $5 - then Consumers (& Industries) would be more certain in 'they get what they pay for'.

- that's the problem we face here. Oranges are a good example.

If not - then Australian Companies just have to start manufacturing NICHE markets.
But its hard when China buys all the Patents across the board, does nothing with them and stifles the Market of Manufacturing until the term is over and the sell ...rebuy again if possible after another small vacant term for the Patent, etc.

FEDERAL level Politics and Polititians are WEAK AS in regards to the International Scene (unlike the UK/USA Feds).
Even the (current) PM serves the USA blantantly and directly, as does the Gov-Gen serves the UK: Both do not make our 'domestic' needs a priority and in fact sabotage our domestic efforts to benefit Internationals!
I don't like the ALP, but I loved it when all the (ALP) States pooled together to tell the (Lib) Federals where to go in regards to more urgent Water Issues, rather than the War in Afghanistan.

POWER TO PROVINCIALS (Republic  ) is the only way to get things done FOR AUSTRALIA directly!

I agree with you about food subsidies, and they highlight the risk of trade barriers. Once one country does it, people in other countries start demanding that their governments do it too. The people who really loose out from food subsidies are third world countries that are net food exporters. These are the countries that should be gradually and sustainably working their way out of poverty, but food subsidies keep them there.

The answer of course is more free trade, not less. Instead of campaigning for protection of our farmers, we should be campaigning for the end to US and EU farm subsidies.