How to Kill a Country: Australia’s Devastating Trade Deal with the United States
The cost of the pharmaceutical benefits scheme will blow out by over a billion dollars, and Australia’s current account deficit – the amount of imports that outweigh exports – will worsen, following Australia’s Free Trade Agreement with the US. That’s according to Dr Elizabeth Thurbon. Together with Linda Weiss and John Matthews, they’ve written a book called “How to Kill a Country: Australia’s Devastating Trade Deal with the United States”. They argue that this agreement will severely negatively impact our economy, institutions and Australia’s sovereignty – and is therefore not in our national interest. Dr Thurbon says that particular members of the Howard government decided the deal was beneficial for Australia, before they actually critiqued its content and were not, in fact, prepared to analyse the deal.