The official Australia-China free-trade agreement webpage has been removed and its contents are currently 'under review until further notice' after the Australian election. Is this an ominous sign of dark days ahead for the much-talked-about trade deal with the nation that has recently replaced the United States as Australia's biggest trading partner? Australia's newly elected prime minister, Kevin Rudd, is committed to the trade deal, which was launched in 2004 by John Howard, the man he beat in Saturday's election. But that's not the issue. The problem will come when the 76-member Senate is asked to approve the deal. The upper chamber in parliament has the power to reject bills passed by the lower house, the 150-member House of Representatives. While Mr Rudd won control of the House of Representatives, his party failed to gain command of the Senate. Instead, from July 1 next year - the date on which new senators begin their term - it will be a coalition, with Australian Greens and populist independent senators holding the balance of power. The Greens don't like free-trade deals, unless they are liberally sprinkled with enforceable clauses about environmental and human rights protections - which, of course, the vast majority are not. And they regularly lambast Beijing over such issues. The other two senators who would be needed by the Rudd administration to say 'yes' to any legislation giving rise to a free-trade deal are also no pushover. One hails from the home of the Australian car industry, which might be adversely affected by such a deal; the other has strong views on China, particularly in relation to religious persecution. When Australia agreed to a free-trade deal with the US in 2004, the Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown wanted an independent environmental impact assessment before it was implemented. No doubt he would ask for the same in any deal with Beijing. And he, and his fellow Greens and independent senators, will seek to force Mr Rudd to commit China to improving human rights and the rights of its workers. What would Beijing do if it were faced with a scenario of having to include non-economic conditions in a trade deal with Australia? Han Feng, of the Chinese Academy of Social Science's Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, observed in a 2005 interview that it is of 'great importance' for China to sign a free-trade deal with Australia. That is because it is the first time Beijing has worked with a developed country on such an agreement. But Chinese leaders are also likely to baulk at the idea of negotiations being used for social and political objectives. They may simply walk away from the deal. The consequences of such an outcome need to be thought through carefully by the political forces in Australia; the nation stands to gain some US$18 billion from greater access to China's markets. The newly empowered Australian senate cross-benchers need to remember that derailing the trade deal for the sake of scoring domestic political points is unlikely to lead to improvements in China's environmental protection and human rights standards. Greg Barns is a political commentator in Australia and a former Australian government adviser