It isn't very controversial on the street, the big doubt seems to be whether the US is really serious about permitting access to Australian farm products. Most commentators doubt this, but it would be important. I think the FTA with Singapore is a bit further advanced, though nobody is taking much notice of that.
> > But when the Prime Minister announced, soon after the Dalai Lama's visit,
>>that a >deal had been struck with China for the purchase of Australian
>gas -
>>the biggest >contract we have entered into with another country - it became
>>clear why the >Dalai Lama couldn't possibly have been entertained. Offend
>>China by consorting >with him; put the gas deal at risk. Simple.
>
>Does Australia trade with Myanmar? There must be a similar question there .
That's true. Though it is a lot less costly to offend the Burmese Junta, doesn't take much backbone or risk serious repercussions like it does to offend the Chinese. There is some trade with Burma I believe, but I'm a bit vague about that.
> > Either way, the looming FTA negotiations should prove instructive. In
>>return for >Australia being offered better access to US markets for beef,
>>lamb and other farm >and manufactured products, the US is asking our
>>government to make some truly >amazing concessions: abandon our power of
>>veto over foreign investment >proposals from US companies; change our GM
>>food labelling laws; dismantle >our "single desk" organisations for the
>>marketing of commodities like wheat; and >even relax our quarantine rules.
>
>Is farmers' lobby very strong in Australian politics?
In some ways, with the liberal/national party coalition government anyhow. Hard to explain why. But probably influential enough to demand that the US genuinely permits access to agricultural products if there is to be a free trade deal. Now, rather than some pie in the sky arrangement. So the best hope of killing it would be that US farm lobby is influential enough to sabotage that. The Australian cockies will kick up a hell of a stink if the government tries to cut them out in a FTA deal and since there isn't much else in it for Australia, that would likely kill the idea.
> > A deal like that would create a very different Australia: we'd be so
>>beholden to >the US that we'd be at risk of being treated like a de facto
>>52nd state.
>
>Is the question of sovereignty a major issue in Australian politics?
Not that I can see. Here in Tasmania the issue of weakening quarantine standards might be a problem for the aquaculture and fruit-growing industries in particular and many farmers are also discovering there are marketing advantages in GM-free status in general. There's already been a big stink about letting in Canadian salmon or New Zealand apples. The state government unilaterally banned imports of these a couple of years back when Australian quarantine standards were relaxed as a result of a WTO ruling. (The sniffer dogs at Tasmanian airports are trained to detect fruit, rather than bombs.)
Whether the sheep and beef cockies will be able to over-rule these at-risk agricultural industries is open to question, probably not in Tasmania, but on a national level Tasmania isn't very important. Tasmania may revolt. The rest of the world won't really notice.
Sovereignty isn't something Australians care about in the usual abstract patriotic way. It isn't as though most Australians actually know the words to the national anthem and when they do hear them they are more likely to be embarrassed than anything else. Traditionally, Australia has never really had true sovereignty, making a clean transition from a UK colonial outpost, to a US vassal state, without seriously considering the idea of true independence.
Paranoia about the Asian hordes you see. That attitude is still alive and well, if muted, as demonstrated by the deranged over-reaction to a few hundred refugees from Afghanistan and the middle east. Now of course the 'war against terrorism' is threatening to fan the same incipient racism.
But racism isn't the same as nationalism. Come to think of it, racism is probably what precludes sovereignty becoming an issue. Sorry, I'm raving now, it just got me thinking and some things don't bear thinking about too much.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas