Japan and Australia trade deal signed but not Free

STRAIGHT talking minister Barnaby Joyce today said nothing was free for Australia in the free trade agreement with Japan to be signed this afternoon.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott is meeting with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in Canberra today, where the agreement will be signed

Mr Joyce said that trade between Australia and Japan is still not “free”, and many Primary producers would miss out.

MORE: Stuff is about to get cheaper

“There’s really no free trade agreement. That’s a euphemism for a bilateral trade agreement,” Mr Joyce told Radio National today.

“In this bilateral trade agreement you end up where the other party says, ‘I really don’t care what you say now, it’s a deal.’ And that’s that.

“You can walk away from it. You are entitled to. That’s your option.

“But then you go back I supposed to a 36 per cent tariff on beef, you go back to having no change in dairy whatsoever.’’

But Mr Joyce added it was a good agreement for Australia overall and we would be “vastly ahead of where we were.”

He argued Australia’s problem was we have removed many of our tariffs, while Japan had retained its barriers to our important exports.

“You have to do something otherwise you’ve got nothing to put on the table,” said Mr Joyce.

The tariff on frozen beef, for example, would fall from 38.5 per cent to 19.5 per cent.

However, Mr Joyce said there was no breakthrough agreement for Australian dairy, rice, sugar and pork producers.

veya_victaous wrote:

STRAIGHT talking minister Barnaby Joyce today said nothing was free for Australia in the free trade agreement with Japan to be signed this afternoon.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott is meeting with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in Canberra today, where the agreement will be signed

Mr Joyce said that trade between Australia and Japan is still not “free”, and many Primary producers would miss out..............

Irn Bru wrote:
Even at 19.5% that's still a hefty tariff that has to be paid to get the beef exports onto the Japanese market but I suppose it's better than 38.5%.
It'll be interesting to see if in future these exports shoot up to any great degree.

Lone Wolf wrote: 

RE: the EU's agricultural policies :

* A SWISS dairy farmer can survive on milking as few as only 25 cows !  The rest of his income being made up by EU subsidies..

A dairy farmer in Oz, NZ, the USA or Canada would need to be milking over 200 head to match the Swiss !  Over a thousand, if they truly wanted to be considered a "wealthy" dairyman in this day and age...

* FRENCH lamb producers can get by with only a couple of hundred sheep.

Anywhere else, they would likely need a couple of thousand to match France's subsidised sheep industries..

* BEEF ? Take away the EU's protections and subsidies, and France and Poland, and maybe Britain if included in Europe, are likely to be the only beef producing countries left standing over there in Europe ~ and both of those would have reduced herd numbers, as most Euro' land holdings are simply too expensive for "extensive grazing" industries these days. Much better if turned over to more valuable fruit, vege' and truffles crops..  

* IF Europe opened their markets again to meat imported from African states and the Americas, y'all could be enjoying pasture fed beef at half the price..    ::=|Q::