By John Percy
SYDNEY — "Bury MAI" was the title of a September 25 public meeting here to discuss the implications of the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment.
The MAI, which is being negotiated by countries, including Australia, belonging to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), is an international treaty which amounts to a bill of rights for transnational companies.
The agreement, if signed, will compromise the ability of governments to regulate the activities of transnationals, and thereby weaken their ability to control the social and environmental impact of investment. Under the MAI, international investors would have the power to sue national governments for compensation for lost profits, should these governments obstruct their profit-making activities.
By seeking to ban regulations protecting jobs, the environment and the interests of disadvantaged groups, the MAI is an attempt to neutralise, in one blow, decades of reforms won by social justice and environmental campaigns.
The meeting, attended by about 60 people, heard the views on MAI of a range of political organisations, and discussed ways to build opposition to it. All those who spoke, ranging from the Democratic Socialists and the Greens, to the Young Liberals and the Democrats oppose the MAI. The Labor and Liberal Parties did not send speakers.
A major concern is that the Australian government is considering signing the treaty without a thorough public discussion. The meeting chairperson, Frances Milne, reported that the OECD meets on October 20-21, when it must either agree to the MAI or agree to a deadline for an agreement.
It may surprise some that the government may be prepared to sign an agreement which would significantly constrain its own powers. However, since the laws and regulations the MAI seeks to override are generally those that have had to be forced on the government by public pressure and protest action, the government's willingness to sign away its capacity to enforce these laws is not so surprising.
Should the MAI be agreed to, governments will have even more excuses to comply with the demands of big capital and the profit motive.
[John Percy is the Democratic Socialists' candidate for the federal seat of Sydney and has been a socialist activist for 30 years].