A move to tighten Australia's anti-dumping laws is being led by independent MPs Bob Katter and Senator Nick Xenophon.

And insiders believe the push - supported by unions - could represent the best chance yet to have dumping laws overhauled.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union, the Australian Workers' Union and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union co-hosted a meeting in Sydney last week to discuss anti-dumping laws.

Dumping occurs when a foreign company sells goods in Australia below the cost of production.

Australian law requires local companies hurt by the illegal dumping to engage lawyers and mount a case to customs, but overseas laws require the company doing the dumping to prove the goods are not being dumped.

Senator Xenophon said a Senate inquiry next month would examine a Bill he introduced to Parliament which aimed to reverse the onus of proof.

"What was agreed (at the meeting) would be a broad-based campaign to push for the Bill," Senator Xenophon said.

"We (Australia) are free-trade fundamentalists. Trade is important, but let's not allow the free-trade cheats who abuse the rules."

AWU national communications co-ordinator Andrew Casey said dumping resulted in factory closures and job losses.

Unions would begin "pushing more" when the matter came up before the Senate inquiry on May 4, he said.

The Weekly Times revealed in 2009 that Australia's lax anti-dumping regulations had cost SPC Ardmona more than $300,000 in legal fees, and more in lost sales as dumped Italian tomatoes affected the domestic tinned tomato market.

Last year, Australian customs' service department failed to take action on the below-cost dumping of cheap toilet tissue from Indonesia and China, saying it had not caused "material injury" to Kleenex tissue manufacturer Kimberly-Clark.

The company, which has spent more than $100,000 on the case, dismissed the verdict as "wrong".

The Australian dried fruit industry spent $120,000 and three years to finally have an anti-dumping tariff applied to dumped Greek currants, which decimated prices paid to Australian growers.

April 27, 2011

By Leslie White

Source: weeklytimesnow.com.au