Australian Senate Approves China Trade Deal

The Australian Senate approved on Monday 9 November the implementing legislation for the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA), overcoming the last barrier in Canberra for the deal’s ratification. The decade-long negotiations for the trade deal were concluded last November, with the agreement then signed by both sides this past June. (See Bridges Weekly, 20 November 2014 and 25 June 2015 ) The two pieces of legislation passed by the Senate early this week were the Customs Amendment (China-Australia Free Trade Agreement) Bill and Customs Tariff Amendment (China-Australia Free Trade Agreement) Bill, both already approved by the House of Representatives last month. The bills will allow goods satisfying the trade deal’s rules of origin to enter Australia at preferential rates of customs duty, along with setting out the island country’s tariff commitments under the pact. The news comes after months of controversy around the bilateral trade agreement, particularly over whether additional labour market protections were needed for domestic workers in either the trade pact itself or in Australian law. The two main political parties in Australia – the Liberal Party, which is in power, and the opposition Labor Party – ultimately brokered a deal in October that amended or clarified the...