Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties Report 72 contains a review of four treaties: amendments to the Hague Conference on Private International Law; amendments to the Universal Postal Union and convention; amendments to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants; and a promotion and protection of investments agreement with Turkey.

The amendments to the Hague Conference on Private International Law will help to improve the efficiency of and lessen costs and time delays in international private legal matters. The Hague conference works towards the progressive unification of the rules on private international law and operates in the areas of international legal cooperation and litigation; international protection of children, family law and property relations; and international commercial and finance law. Member states work to develop and produce conventions reflecting an agreed approach to an area of private international law, which may be accepted by member and nonmember countries alike.

The amendments to the Universal Postal Union and Universal Postal Convention incorporate Australia’s reservations and include the revision of postal security provisions for the exchange of information between member countries on maintaining the safe and secure transport of mail items; an outward mandatory registration service for priority and airmail letter-post items and a registration service for outbound non-priority and surface letter-post items but only to destinations for which there is no priority or airmail service; that postal administrations must establish delivery standards and targets for their inward letter-post items and parcels; that it is no longer mandatory to accept inquiries about the non-receipt of ordinary letter-post items; that senders of prohibited articles that cause damage to other postal items, postal officials or postal equipment are now liable for that damage; the establishment of a terminal dues system consisting of two subsystems; a target system applicable to industrialised countries and a transition system designed for developing countries; and the introduction of a quality of service fund designed to help developing nations improve their postal infrastructure and quality of service. The fund will ensure that countries and territories in most need of funds receive them.

The third treaty included in Report 72 amends the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. The role of the convention is to ban or phase out the production and use of internationally produced persistent organic pollutants, manage waste stockpiles of pollutants in an environmentally friendly and sound way and reduce or eliminate releases of unintentionally produced pollutants. This treaty action, however, provides for dispute settlement procedures for member countries to the convention.

Finally, the fourth treaty examined by the committee is a promotion and protection of investments agreement between Australia and Turkey. The committee found that, in light of Turkey’s accession to the European Union and the modernisation of the Turkish economy, foreign direct investment in 2005-06 is expected to more than double that of the previous year, to reach $US5 billion. Turkey also recently reduced significantly its corporate tax rate from 30 to 20 per cent and partnered this with a reduction of its bureaucratic investment procedures in an effort to attract foreign investment.

The committee received evidence that Australia’s investments in Turkey, as a high returning market with a prospect of a strong economy, are likely to lead to increased export and investment opportunities for both countries. The committee also heard that investment is likely to come from a number of big business areas such as energy, infrastructure and mining—which is very important for states like Western Australia—and also from Australia’s 100,000-strong Turkish community. As the chair has already stated, the committee found, however, that the consultation process undertaken in relation to the agreement was not adequate and concluded that formal consultation with Australia’s Turkish community should have been undertaken. Despite this reservation, the committee is of the view that binding treaty action be taken.

I would again like to take this opportunity of thanking the secretariat for all their hard work and effort in preparing this report and in the public hearings. I commend the report to the House.

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