Fischer expects threat from Internet

By Brian Fallow

The Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Tim Fischer, expects the next "campaign of mischief" in the path of free trade liberalisation to be waged on the Internet, ahead of the Seattle meeting in November intended to launch another round of world trade negotiations.

Already, "every radio talkback jockey from Dallas to Darwin" was beating a protectionist drum.

Mr Fischer cited the OECD's abortive attempt to secure a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) as a warning of the potency of such Internet-based opposition.

The investment agreement had got off to a flying start but succumbed to Internet-fuelled suspicion that this was "one-world government of the worst kind".

But other delegates to a seminar on explaining trade and investment liberalisation yesterday, held as part of the Apec trade ministers meeting, saw the Internet as a mechanism for broadening understanding and support for the free trade agenda.

The United States deputy trade representative, Richard Fisher, stressed the importance of transparency in overcoming suspicion.

"We must defuse the sense that these are negotiations conducted by elites in secrecy," Ambassador Fisher said.

"If the World Trade Organisation is opaque and inaccessible, we can expect fears to grow and support to erode."

Broadening support for the Apec and free trade process is one of the key themes of New Zealand's chairmanship of the grouping.

New Zealand Trade Minister Lockwood Smith said the fast and comprehensive approach to trade liberalisation was more likely to overcome domestic opposition than take a more gradualist tack.

If governments waited for everyone to agree before making trade liberalising moves, they would make no progress at all.

"The only way you finally win the argument is to point to positive results. You need to move fast and effectively and across the board so that people can see the benefits come through," Dr Smith said.

But despite New Zealand's early and wide-ranging unilateral trade liberalisation moves, the free trade agenda still has a public relations problem in this country, according to research summarised for the seminar.

Dr Richard Wirthlin, of PR consultancy Wirthlin Worldwide, outlined the conclusions of studies of people's attitudes to free trade and foreign investment in China, Thailand and New Zealand.

In all three economies people recognised the benefits of a wider selection and better quality of goods and services.

But that was offset by worries about job losses and concerns about "unfair" competition from countries where wages or taxes were lower.

"People see the costs and benefits falling unevenly. The beneficiaries are seen as being the Government, big business, the better educated, younger people and consumers.

"But the costs are seen as falling on smaller, less competitive firms, and by people who are already disadvantaged by being older, less educated or already unemployed," Dr Wirthlin said.

That a rising tide lifted all boats was definitely not the prevailing view.

Roberto Romulo, who chairs the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) said: "Unfortunately, there is a common and enduring perception that trade liberalisation is a Western - worse an American - phenomenon mean to benefit Western economies."

The counter-argument, he said, was the economic progress it brought, citing his own country, the Philippines, as one where the culture of globalisation had taken root.

Mr Romulo said: "Recently a spate of closures by multinational concerns has provoked debate, but it is heartening that the debate has not been about whether globalisation is bad, but about why can't we keep these companies here."