PoliticalClaims.au

While the Greens' criticism of trade agreement transparency has merit as a policy position, the specific claim that the Coalition "voted to keep the text of the China Free Trade deal secret from the public" is misleading in several ways: **What the claim gets right:** - Trade negotiations were conducted confidentially, with draft texts not publicly released during negotiations - The Greens and others raised legitimate concerns about the lack of transparency in the negotiation process - There were parliamentary votes related to confidential briefing procedures **What the claim omits or mischaracterizes:** - The final ChAFTA text was publicly released when signed on 17 June 2015 [1] - Confidential negotiations are standard practice used by all Australian governments, including Labor - Parliament had full access to review the agreement text through the JSCOT process before implementation - The claim conflates confidential negotiations (temporary) with hiding the final text (which never happened) **Comparative context:** This is not unique to the Coalition.