In 1991 U.S. president George H. W. Bush offered to begin FTA negotiation with Australia and New Zealand, but was turned down by Australian Labor Party Prime Minister Paul Keating.

The text of the Free Trade Agreement is divided into twenty-three sections, listed and summarized as follows: This chapter lays the framework for the FTA.

Finally, the chapter established a Committee on Trade in Goods with the purpose of providing arbitration for each country to "raise issues of concern in relation to tariffs, non-tariff measures, rules of origin and customs administration."

These quotas allow Australian producers to export increasing amounts of these products free of duty to the United States during the tariff elimination period.

The bulk of this section outlines the rules of origin provisions with regard to textile goods and safeguarding the domestic markets of the two countries.

In addition, this section details the cooperation of Customs authorities for ensuring that the rules of the agreement are carried out and outlines possible actions which can be taken if the exporting country appears to be acting in bad faith.

These rights and obligations were laid out by the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, which deals with standards, regulations, and conformity assessments, among other things.

The goal of the safeguards section of the agreement is to lay out an agreed upon structure to guard against severe adverse effects to each countries domestic industries during the transition period after lifting tariffs.

Section 10 of the FTA gives clear meaning to the phrase "cross-border trade in services" and provides suppliers with an open environment in which to conduct their business.

The section further lays out the scope of its application as it applies to measures by either country that affect: The parties agreed to minimise obstacles to the operation of each other's competition and consumer protection policies.

This provision is consistent with existing provisions of Australia's National Competition Policy Subject to some exceptions, and the non-participation of some US states, the agreement required, in government and government agency procurement, that each party should accord to the other treatment no less favourable than the most favourable treatment accorded to domestic goods, services and suppliers.

The agreement requires legal enforcement of digital rights management systems, however an Australian legislative committee has issued a report stating that this portion of the treaty has a "significant flaw": while the agreement provides permitted exceptions allowing the use of copyright access circumvention devices, it also disallows access to the tools used for such circumvention.

Article 19.2 states that "The Parties recognise that it is inappropriate to encourage trade or investment by weakening or reducing the protections afforded in their respective environmental laws."

See Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme After the FTA was signed, there were initially concerns that the American agricultural sector would lobby against the agreement, due to a fear that it could interfere with the government's farm subsidies program.

In a report to the USTR office, the Labor Advisory Committee (LAC) recommended that Congress reject the U.S.-Australia FTA because they believed the agreement failed to meet congressional negotiating objectives.

Partly as a result of these factors, the estimates of benefits produced by the CIE and relied on by the government were disputed by most economists who made submissions to the Senate Committees inquiring into the topic, some of whom concluded that the agreement would reduce Australia's economic welfare.

Other key changes included: For a discussion of the copyright changes, see Rimmer, M. "Robbery Under Arms: Copyright Law and the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement"[7] Many in the Australian film and television community expressed concern over the effect of the agreement on government regulations enforcing a mandatory minimum of locally produced content on television.

As a result, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, as well as a number of prominent artists individually, argued for rejection of the FTA on the grounds that it would erode Australian culture.

The eventual provisions of the agreement did not go as far as had been hoped, and as a result, some lobbyists for the sugar industry, notably independent Bob Katter, urged rejection of the FTA.

However, many, such as then Premier of Queensland Peter Beattie, still felt that the agreement was a net gain for Australian agriculture and supported ratification on that basis.

The scheme provides reimbursement to community pharmacy for the costs of dispensing prescription medicines prescribed in accordance with the PBS Schedule, a comprehensive but closed formulary.

Disquiet about the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme led to speculation that the American side would lobby heavily for its abrogation as an integral component of a free trade agreement.

However the relevant text was actually limited to issue of process and transparency, and contained no provisions that could affect price, and this was ultimately shown not to be the case.

Latham's amendment proposals were supported by the Australian Medical Association, but dismissed as ineffective by the Greens and Democrats, who still argued for outright rejection of the FTA.

This followed the International Monetary Fund's prediction that the Australia-United States FTA would shrink the Australian economy marginally because of the loss of trade with other countries.

Estimates also suggest trade between Australia and the United States fell in association with the implementation of AUSFTA - also after controlling for country-specific factors.

[15] Shiro Armstrong also concludes Australia and the United States reduced their trade with the rest of the world by US$53 billion and are worse off than they would have been without the agreement.