The Federal Government will not be keeping its election promise to toughen anti-dumping laws due to complications with World Trade Organisation rules.
Prior to winning the election in 2013, the Coalition promised to protect Australian suppliers by making it easier to enforce anti-dumping actions against unfairly cheap imports that are seen to damage Australian companies in the marketplace.
Trade expert, and former ambassador to the WTO, Alan Oxley said at the time that Tony Abbott’s promise to ‘reverse the onus of proof’ in anti-dumping cases, will break WTO trade rules, which state that authorities “shall not impose an unreasonable burden of proof."
In an address to the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday, Industry minister Ian Macfarlane said that the government would not be able to fulfil its election promise, The Weekly Times reports.
“We are trying to resolve those issues but can I say the euphemistic term reversal of onus of proof is not valid anywhere,” Macfarlane said.
“The Americans don’t do it, there is not another example of it in the world and it is not WTO legal.
“I can assure people that in terms of anti-dumping, we are introducing a streamline system which will be far more effective.
“But we are working our way through that and we expect to get to a final position in the not-too-distant future.”
Victorian-based fruit and vegetable processor, SPC Ardmona lodged an application with the antidumping commission on 10 July 2013, alleging that Italian tomatoes were being exported to Australia from Italy at margins that constituted dumping, resulting in material injury to local producers and reduced profitability/ lower sales volume for the business.