In January 1998 Pauline Hanson drew our attention to the fact that this Government was involved in the, now infamous, Multilateral Agreement on Investment. For her trouble she was castigated by such 'eminent' politicians as Senator Kemp, Kim Beazley, and others who said , "the MAI will be good for Australia", and that Pauline 'was ill informed and scaremongering', etc, etc.
However, thanks to her, the public soon checked the facts and decided it did not like the MAI and that it was a big No No. Approximately 900 written submissions of opposition were subsequently made to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.
Because of the intervening Federal Election this Committee was stood down and about that time we were told that the subject had been put on hold for several months and just before Christmas we were told that the matter had been abandoned and Tim Fischer is reported to have said that "the MAI is dead, dead, dead." ( How you kill something three times was never explained.)
Our local Federal Liberal MP for Forde, Government Whip (Madam Lash?) Kaye Elson, in her Christmas Progress Report stated "The MAI has been dumped by the Howard Government". She further goes on to tell how the wicked former Labor Government began negotiations on it and in fact had signed hundreds of foreign treaties on our behalf, without any debate or discussion. ( Weren't they the naughty ones?)
She also went on to say that she had been elected to the joint Statutory Committee on Treaties and will work to safeguard Australians' sovereign rights. Sounds most laudable doesn't it? But wait, there's more.
On the 21st December I received a letter from Patrick Regan, Inquiry Secretary to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties which was dated the 17th December, advising me that the Committee had been re-established on the 7th December and that it "has decided to re-open the inquiry" as a result of the OECD's October decision to cease work on the draft MAI and has led the Committee to decide to take further evidence from the Treasury, the Attorney -General's Department, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and from Dr James Goodman, Coordinator of Stop MAI in NSW.
It also stated "A public hearing has therefore been arranged in Committee Room 2R1 at Parliament House in Canberra, beginning at 11am on Monday, 21st December 1998, the very day I received the notification. What exquisite timing, don't you think?
Meantime, I have downloaded from the Internet, 54 pages of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency Act 1997 No 126 of 1997. This had it's second reading in the Senate on 24th February 1997 (Check this on http://www.gwb.com.au/gwb/news/mai/miga2.html) and was signed into Law by the Governor General on the 15th September 1997.
Now I have to say that the Guarantee Agency Act is not quite the same thing as the original MAI was going to be, but all the same it is a bit of a serious worry and needs careful study. I haven't had the time to give it the in depth treatment and to go into the detail of 54 pages here is just not practical, but my understanding of it is as follows:
There are 21 Category 1 Member Countries, which include Australia, and 128 Category 2 Countries which include Indonesia, who have agreed to create a financial organisation within the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and including The International Finance Corporation, other Development Financial Institutions and the IMF.
The purpose of this new organisation is to underwrite, or insure, the Banks and their Development Finance Institutions, against any losses that the Banks may incur in any Country they may lend development funds to. Membership of the Agency is open to all members of the Bank and to Switzerland. The latter is a rather curious provision, seeing that Switzerland is already a category 1 member with 1500 shares.
Australia has 1713 shares in this arrangement to featherbed the Banks. So, when a banana republic receives a loan from the IMF or similar organisation to, say, improve its infrastructure in some way such as building a major highway, railroad or dam, after all the local wheelers and dealers have had their fingers in the pie, and seen to it that all their mates get a rake off, it results in the project being aborted after all the money is spent. It will be YOUR money that will go down the gurgler. The beauty of the scheme is that the Banks don't lose a brass razoo. A sting worthy of Mayer Rothschild himself.
I may, of course be wrong, but it seems to me that there is plenty of scope for financial skulduggery, all at our expense, not the Banks. When you look at the structure of this organisation and the numbers of the Council of Governors and Board of Directors, a President and his staff, and see that the President of the International Bank is the ex officio Chairman of the Board, it begins to look as if the Bank will control the Agency anyway. The huge overheads of such a giant outfit will be an added burden to us taxpayers who are about to be slugged with a GST. (Is that why we had to have it?) The IMF insisted on it?
Oh, and bye the bye, authorised capital in the Agency will be One Billion Special Drawing Rights. (SDR 1,000,000,000.) It says: "The Capital Stock shall be divided into !00,000 shares having a par value of 10,000 on the average value of the SDR in terms of the US dollar for the period 1st January 1981 to 30th June 1985, such value being 1.082 US Dollars per SDR. Also, surprise, surprise, "The IMF are the final arbiters of the value of one currency against another." Convenient for devaluation of a currency from which the Bank will make a profit. One wonders why those particular dates were set and why were they working on this MAI thing way back then,…without telling us?
Article 47 states "The Agency shall be immune from all taxes and customs duties and there will be no taxes on salaries, expenses and other emoluments. Article 48 states Officials and staff of the Agency shall be immune from legal process in respect of all acts performed by them in their official capacity. A NEW MEANING TO THE TERM UNTOUCHABLE.
What I want to know is, if all this was going on in 1997, why were we told in 1998 that the MAI had been dumped and if it had been dumped why was the inquiry reopened when the OECD itself had given it away? Also why have we had to succumb to the request to featherbed the International Banks? Who is determined to push the MAI and The Agency through, whether we want it or not?
Answer: THIS HOWARD GOVERNMENT AND THE BEAZLEY LED ALP, AIDED AND ABETTED BY THE DEMOCRATS AND THE GREENS. Cec. Clark.