Companies, Australian and foreign owned, already have the right to seek compensation “on just terms” via the High Court of Australia, if they believe their property has been appropriated by Commonwealth. So why would Morrison subjugate the pre-eminence of our High Court and our Parliament to a tribunal of international bureaucrats?

There is nothing hypothetical about the dangers that ISDS clauses, agreed to by the Prime Minister, pose to Australian sovereignty. While British American Tobacco may have failed in its efforts to use an ISDS clause to overturn the Australian Parliament’s plain-packaging legislation for cigarettes, the case provides a clear example of the risks attached to extrajudicial dispute resolution mechanisms.

What if a foreign oil company were to sue the Australian government for introducing fuel efficiency standards for our passenger vehicles? What if a foreign company sued us for reining in the power of the social media giants? Should the Australian Parliament and constitution provide the last word on such questions? Or a faceless trade bureaucrat in Geneva? Conservatives used to have a clear answer to such questions of sovereignty.

So-called free trade agreements don’t create “free trade” between nations, they simply spell out all the restrictions on trade that both countries are happy to retain. Australia’s 1,400-page FTA with the US doesn’t allow Australian consumers to pay US prices on the websites of American companies. We can’t import cheap US music or television, and Americans can’t import our cheap medicines.

Proponents talk up the benefits of the new trade “freedoms” without dwelling on the restrictions that remain in place or the new restrictions that have been agreed to.

Put simply, in order to make it easier for Australian farmers to export more of their products, trade agreements with Hong Kong and Indonesia will require the rest of us to give up a bit more sovereignty.

The logic of these trade deals has always been that they help to grow the economy and, while some workers might be hurt in the short term, in the long run everyone will be better off.

But the idea that, in order to protect Australian citizens, we must sign up to ISDS clauses that protect the rights of foreign investors that impose harm on our community is absurd.


Almost as absurd as Morrison pretending to be a populist nationalist while handing more power to an “unaccountable internationalist bureaucracy”.

No wonder he doesn’t talk to DFAT before he gives his big foreign policy speeches. As Tony Abbott taught us, captain’s calls don’t need consultation.