The negotiations are over but the TPP details remain secret

AUSTRALIA has signed up to the world’s largest free trade agreement. But aside from our tired sounding Trade Minister, few people know what’s in it.

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IN ROBB we trust. That’s still the act of faith the Coalition Government is asking voters to make on the Trans Pacific Partnership.

And it is more likely to be delivered than it was three weeks ago.

Trade Minister Andrew Robb is one of the few Australians who knows full details of the 12-nation agreement settled in Atlanta, USA, today — and what we have sacrificed to join that pact.

We are being asked to wait until all that was negotiated in secrecy is made public, which could take a month in some cases.

The brutal truth is more Australians will be prepared to be that patient following the leadership change.

Andrew Robb is a highly regarded minister but under Tony Abbott voter cynicism was substantial and the readiness to trust the then Prime Minister was limited.

Under Malcolm Turnbull, Mr Robb has produced the same agreement he would have under Tony Abbott, but the electorate is in a different frame of mind — so far at least.

The preliminary opinion surveys show Mr Turnbull does not have the dissatisfaction rating Mr Abbott held for all his time in office, more voters have a fresh confidence in the Coalition and are prepared to vote for it in an election. And it is likely Mr Turnbull will rate more highly in a poll on his trustworthiness than his predecessor.

But the Trans Pacific Partnership will not disappear from the political conversation. The trust isn’t that deep.

TPP negotiations have been underway for six years with Andrew Robb taking charge for the critical final two years. And today he sounded as if he had been talking himself hoarse for roughly that length of time.

He now will have the equally difficult task of explaining what just happened.

The Australian sugar industry and the agricultural sector in general will want to know what they have been signed up for. Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce earlier said there would be no deal unless sugar was given greater access to markets.

The ACTU will want assurance wages and conditions here will not be forced down to the lower standards of some of our trading partners.

Labor and the Greens will want to micro-examine the agreement in Parliament.

But Mr Robb’s biggest political problem could be in the United States where President Barak Obama is dealing with hostile Republicans and few Democrats in Congress.

President Obama was given the power to negotiate the TPP without references to Congress, but now needs support for the final product.

Initially Republicans were champions of deregulation of trade as outlined by the TPP, but now there are suspicions within the party leadership that what they ordered has not arrived.

One issue is the suggestion the pact would ban tobacco companies suing governments for compulsory warnings on cigarette packs and plain packaging laws. Australia supports this; US representatives from tobacco states do not.

Like most Australians, most Americans have no idea the detail of the agreement, but their patience in a final-term Democrat President might be rationed.