Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

The engagement in relation to ISDS by this government and, in fact, by previous governments is nothing new. We do not intend to sign up to any rules that are against the national interest and that are not fair and equitable to all Australians. ISDS itself is not new. We currently have ISDS arrangements with 29 economies. Four of those are FTAs; 21 are investment treaties. We have always said that we will consider ISDS on a case-by-case basis, which we are now doing. As I understand it, in August 2014 the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee agreed with the case-by-case approach for the inclusion of ISDS in free trade agreements—a case-by-case approach.

The views of a number of commentators on this matter are curious; some would describe them as rankly hypocritical—but I will leave that to commentators elsewhere. We have had the ISDS opposed even by the Labor Party, notwithstanding the fact that, when they signed the Australia-Chile FTA— (Time expired)