The Black Vault

[rath]

June 20, 2012

Australian Prime Minister, JULIA Gillard is being proposed as the third member of a free-trade "troika" with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, as Australia heads towards hosting the G20 summit the year after next.

At the G20 summit in Mexico, some business leaders were so impressed with the Australian Prime Minister's tough talk on trade, they asked the host of next year's summit, Mr Erdogan, to work with Ms Gillard and Mr Putin to pursue an aggressive agenda of free trade.

Ms Gillard has strongly put the Australian free-trade argument at the past two G20 summits and has publicly argued against increasing protectionism at a time of economic crisis.

Yesterday, at the first plenary session of the G20, Ms Gillard again warned against the dangers of countries in crisis being tempted to raise tariff barriers to protect domestic jobs.