Abbots insanity in big-noting himself by signing Free Trade deals willy-nilly will come home to roost in a very expensive manner.
It's all to do with the clauses concerning ISDS, something that until now Australia has been resisting, for demonstrably very good reasons.


ISDS.
                  Investor-State Dispute Settlement

What this arcane phrase refers to is the right of foreign companies to sue national governments of the signatory countries, not in domestic courts, but in opaque international forums, if they think some element of that government’s policy is harming their interests.

If a mining company, for example, is unhappy with environmental safeguards which inhibit its operations, if a pharmaceutical company is unhappy with the prices it gets for its drugs, if a chemical company is upset with the banning of an agricultural pesticide, if a tobacco company does not like laws restricting cigarette sales, ISDS provisions in trade agreements give them the means to challenge government policy and to seek compensation.

And they do this increasingly often, sometimes claiming enormous amounts of money. According to a report in May 2013 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which monitors these things, a record 58 ISDS cases were begun in 2012. In the same year, decisions were made on 42 cases by an assortment of more or less credible international arbiters. Only 31 of these were publicly disclosed, but of those, 70 per cent went in favour of the corporations, at least in part; and nine resulted in significant awards for damages, including one – to an oil company which sued Ecuador – for a record US$1.77 billion.

Now the Mad Abbot has put us all right in the firing line, against all advice and against common-sense.
     I suppose now he can look forward to some extremely rewarding and lucrative directorships once he inevitably loses the next election, unless he follows his natural instincts and deserts the sinking ship?
     Thanks Tony!!