Trade deals should not be able to include clauses that allow foreign companies to sue the Australian Government for legislative changes, known as ISDS clauses, the Australian Greens have said.

The Greens Finance and Trade spokesperson, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, has announced that she will introduce a Bill into the Senate that would disallow any ISDS clauses from future trade negotiations.

Future trade deals need to hold every day Australians at their centre, not just corporations, Australian Greens Trade spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said today, following reports of Trade Minister Steven Ciobo trying to revive the dodgy Trans Pacific Partnership.

“Trade deals need people, not corporations, at their core. The mark was missed with the TPP and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership when corporations took the wheel and left Australians in the dust,” Senator Hanson-Young said.

Labor must end the cat and mouse game over the TTP, the Australian Greens have said today, calling on the Opposition to clarify how they will vote when implementing legislation is presented to Parliament. 

"Labor needs to stop the double speak on the TTP and commit to voting the dodgy trade deal down when it reaches the Senate," the Australian Greens Trade spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young said. 

The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook released today highlights the Turnbull Government’s dead-end plan to balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable Australians, Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale said.

​“There is one message in this MYEFO for everyday Australians: unless you’re a big corporation or Liberal Party donor, you don’t matter.”

“Malcolm Turnbull’s plan to hand out tax cuts to the wealthiest Australians while wage growth remains stagnant is a slap in the face to ordinary Australians doing it tough.” 

Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, welcomes the comments from Scott Morrison on regional community development and also on the value of ‘good debt’ for financing infrastructure. Both of these policy ideas have been high on the Greens economic agenda and were subjects of Senate Inquiries instigated by the Greens in the last Parliament.

Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, says that the quarterly economic figures show that the Government needs to urgently walk away from its austerity drive and to ‘borrow to build’ for productive public infrastructure.

Senator Whish-Wilson, “Scott Morrison’s policy prescription is delivering nothing but bad medicine for the Australian economy.

“The Government’s austerity measures are hurting poorer people and they are actually now harming the wider economy.

Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, will be attending the white-collar crime Senate Inquiry hearing tomorrow in Melbourne [information below] and will be asking criminologists and regulators, “How tough do we have to make penalties to help stop endemic financial misconduct in Australia’s financial system?”

Senator Whish-Wilson said, “In Iceland, they held the bank Chairmen and CEOs responsible for the fraud and market manipulation that was carried out in their name by the bank staff, during the global financial crisis; and they were sent to jail.

Greens Treasury spokesperson, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson is relieved to see the backpacker tax impasse finally resolved to provide certainty for Tasmania’s agriculture and tourism industries and to have helped deliver additional funding to landcare groups right across the state.