10 November 1999

14 Crowcombe Way
Karrinyup 6018
Western Australia
Phone +61 (0)8 9246 3882
Fax: +61 (0)8 9246 4284
E-mail: brian@nettrek.com.au Website http://www.nettrek.com.au/~brian

The Hon John Howard, MP
Prime Minister of Australia
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600

To Fax: 02 6273 4100

Dear Prime Minister,

WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION, SEATTLE MINISTERIAL SUMMIT

I wish to register my disappointment with the unrepresentative position being taken by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in formulating Australia's approach to the WTO Seattle summit this month. DFAT evidently regards transnational trade and investment interests as more important than the Government's obligations to promote environmentally sustainable development while protecting citizens' livelihoods, constitutional rights and standards of living.

I object to DFAT's perfunctory and insincere public hearings at which civil society viewpoints were neither recorded nor adequately addressed. This may accord with the WTO's lack of democratic process but is totally unacceptable to Australian society. Like the WTO tribunal which "liberalised" our salmon import policy, our negotiators seem to have little concern for domestic law or for government responsibility to protect workers, the environment and human rights. It is unsurprising that every environmental or public health law challenged at WTO has been ruled illegal. As a result, current proposals to "liberalise" health care, education and other government-subsidised services pose an enormous threat to the Australian way of life.

I am especially concerned by Australia's shameful neglect of its responsibility to conserve environmental values, protect threatened species and reduce 'greenhouse' gas emissions. Increasing areas of our farmland are being degraded while other areas are still being opened up for new farms for export crops such as cotton, sugar and beef, by the clearing of native woodlands at a rate that almost equals that of the Amazon basin. The combination of tree clearing and excessive use of irrigation has caused massive salinity problems.

Solving such problems warrants a higher priority than current trade policies which have created a big class of "new poor" in our society while incurring a record balance-of-payments deficit. Please ensure that my reasonable concerns are represented at the WTO Seattle Ministerial.

Yours faithfully

Brian Jenkins