Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Trade, upon notice, on 1 June 2011:

(1)   According to the department's website, Australia is 'providing $500,000 a year for three years to help fund the Office of the Chief Trade Adviser [OCTA], to provide independent support and advice to Forum Island Countries over the course of the negotiations' yet, according to an OCTA media release, dated 29 March 2011, 'Australia and New Zealand are yet to confirm whether they will provide the funds promised for the second and third years of operation to the OCTA as now constituted': will Australia provide funding to the OCTA for a further 2 years as per the promised commitment and will that funding arrangement support the maintenance of Forum Island Country control of the OCTA; if not, what are the specific reasons for the funding being withheld.

(2)   Given that the Government has not included PACER Plus in both its trade policy statement released in April 2011 nor in its report to the World Trade Organization (WTO): can an explanation be provided as to: (a) why PACER Plus was not included; and (b) how its exclusion will affect Australia's approach to PACER Plus negotiations.

(3)   Does the exclusion of PACER Plus from the trade policy statement mean that it will not longer have to be negotiated as a WTO compatible free trade agreement.