Secret agreement to privatise all public services
Secret agreement to privatise all public services
Media release: The Community Cauldron Visit their website: http://www.communitycauldron.com
G.A.T.S..
Privatising all Services!
In secret, governments are
negotiating the end to all not-for profit
public
services. In less than 2 years, 130 plus governments expect
to
quietly sign an agreement called GATS, General
Agreement on Trade in
Services. This binding and
irreversible treaty will lay all government
services open
for international tender, and no doubt
international
labour, that is, foreign, lower paid
nurses, teachers, builders, water
technicians, posties,
media, maintenance, childcare and transport
workers.
Public services are next in line for the WTO _s corporate battering ram.
Global corporations have been so
successful in persuading governments
everywhere that
their agendas are the same- that the pursuit of
corporate
profit and the good of society are one and the same- that
their
access to many areas of public life has already
been improved. Quality of service
and democratic access
has not necessarily improved. Services is the
fastest
growing sector in international trade, and
employs 72% of Australians.
Services offer rich pickings
for cannycorporations.
And of all public services,
health, education and water are shaping up
to be the most
lucrative. Global expenditures on water services now
exceed
$1 trillion every year; on education, they exceed
$2 trillion; and on
health care, they exceed $3.5
trillion. Since multinationals pay little tax,
these
services are becoming increasingly hard for governments to
provide.
The USA might suggest a model for the
dismantling of public services
which GATS will unleash
all over the world. In fact, much of the GATS
policies
and the World Trade Organization policies are designed to
increase
USA mega corporation domination of world
markets.
In America, health care has already become a
huge business, with giant
healthcare corporations
registered on the New York Stock Exchange. Rick
Scott,
the president of Columbia, the world _s largest for-
profit
hospital corporation, is clear that health care is
a business, no different to
any widget manufacturer. He
has publicly vowed to destroy every public
hospital in
North America- doctors, he says, are not "good
corporate
citizens". Americans spend twice as much on
Health as a percent of
their bloated GNP as Australia,
yet overservice the rich, and cannot really
care for 40
million of their own increasingly large poor segment of
society.
Meanwhile, investment houses like Merrill Lynch
are already predicting
that public education will be
globally privatised over the next decade
the way public
health has been. They say there is an untold amount
of
profit to be made when this happens. The European
Union recently announced that
every publicly- run school
in Europe must be twinned with a corporation
by the end
of the decade. The conquest of foreign market and support
of
big business has now become a key common strategy
among universities around
the world. So much for academic
freedom! Disturbingly, GATS also includes authority over
"environmental
services" and natural resource protection.
Our parks, wildlife, river systems,
and forests could all
become contested areas as global
transnational
"environmental service" corporations demand
the competitive model. The
fate of our sacred and
essential soil and water is at great risk.
Many parts of
the "Third World" have been forced to dismantle
their
public infrastructures in recent decades under
International Monetary
Fund- imposed structural
adjustment programs. In order to be eligible
for debt
relief, for example, dozens of "developing" countries have
been
forced to abandon public social programs over the
last 20 years.
Foreign corporations have come in and sold
their health and education
"products" to wealthy elites -
"consumers". Billions are now without basic
social
services, with a lower standard of living than 20 years ago
in 100
countries! Latin American countries are currently
experiencing an
invasion of US healthcare corporations.
Asian countries allow branch plants of
foreign- based
university and health care chains. Recently, the World
Bank
has been forcing the same countries to privatise
their water services
and are openly working with
corporate water giants like Vivendi and Suez
Lyonnaise
des Eaux, to establish their _rights _ to profiteer in
the
Third World. Bolivian people have been shot
protesting water charges
that cost a third of their
wages. Water may be bought and internationally
shipped
according to WTO rules. When the market rules, the rich
get
most of whatever is valuable!
Now, through the GATS
negotiations, these corporations want binding
and
irreversible rules guaranteeing them access to
government service
contracts everywhere in the world. And
they are succeeding. Already,
over 40 countries,
including all of Europe, have listed education within
the
realm of the GATS, opening up their public education
sectors of foreign
based corporate competition. Almost
100 countries have done the same
with healthcare. As the
new talks progress, it will be very hard for any
country
to swim against the tide- even if any are brave enough to
try.
Frighteningly, there can be no local restrictions on
quality of graduates
and service standards, this would be
seen as a "barrier to free trade".
Does the WTO want us
all to live and shop like Americans? Or die if we're
too
poor to do so? If we all lived like Americans we _d need
three
planets!! How will 72% of Australian workers in
health, environment,
childcare, transport, tourist,
broadcast, social work, dentist, teaching,
office staff
feel if cheap foreign labour can come in? How can
we
complain when, like Australian refugee/prison workers
are controlled by
a USA corporation like Wackenhut, which
is brutal to staff and refugees and
prisoners in its
"care". And to whom can you complain if governments
have
given away all their serious roles; perhaps we will just
have a branch
office of the WTO; secret, undemocratic and
only interested in money.
We better start spreading the
word soon!! While we still have shreds of
democracy and
objective media and unions. Ask your cowardly pollies
why
they are silent on this issue!! Remember Beasley and
Howard wanted us to
sign the MAI Treaty, later shown not
to be Australia _s interests!!
Perhaps some of the 700
billion dollars that has come into Australia in the
last
three decades to buy our industry and land, the profits of
which leave
Australia untaxed, has influenced Canberra.
Perhaps its their
superannuation! What do you think? What
will your children think?
Dr E. Elliott with Maud
Barlow,
mailto:catcher@norex.com.au
http://www.communitycauldron.com
ENDS