New Zealand not for sale
Another secret agreement
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is a “free trade” currently under negotiation between NZ and 8 other countries, including the U.S. The countries want to complete negotiation by the end of 2011.
Trade is only a minor part of the agreement. That’s just a clever branding exercise. A TPPA would be an agreement that guarantees special rights to foreign investors.
If these negotiations succeed they will create a mega-treaty across 9 countries that will put a straight jacket around what policies and laws our governments can adopt for the next century – think GM labelling, foreign investment laws, price of medicines, regulating dodgy finance firms, NZ content on TV …
There is a petition opposing the agreement
To sign the petition GO HERE
Dr Jane Kelsey recently had this to say about the negotiations:
Thursday, December 23rd 2010
This agreement if signed will affect virtually every New Zealander for the rest of this century. It basically takes away our sovereignty and we become pawns in a globalist corporate agenda.
What are its affects?
The TPPA would be an agreement that guarantees special rights to foreign investors. If these negotiations succeed they will create a mega-treaty across 9 countries that will put a straight jacket around what policies and laws [NZ] governments can adopt for the next century – think no GM labelling, overriding our Laws on foreign investment, shackling PHARMAC, increasing price of medicines, no regulating info on cigarette packs, and not regulating dodgy finance firms, less NZ content on TV, private prisons, privatising education, land acquisitions, mining, fishing, high rise hotels at NZ beaches? …
As the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations have been completed in Auckland, an alliance of civil society groups in participating countries have announced a “release the text” campaign ahead of the next round of talks in February 2011 in Chile.
The co-ordinated campaign aims to mobilise central and local government lawmakers, civil society organisations and ordinary citizens to demand an end to the shroud of secrecy around the negotiations.
“The negotiators themselves say this is not an ordinary free trade agreement. It would reach deep behind the border into the realm of domestic policy and regulation, super-imposing enforceable constraints over decisions for which our elected parliaments and local councils are currently responsible.”
If this TPPA really is so good for us, why are they scared to release the draft text and open it to scrutiny?There are now draft texts on the table on financial services and investment, and possibly more. Negotiators have flatly refused to release them at any stage in the negotiations, claiming there is no precedent in a free trade negotiation.
It is nonsense to claim that releasing draft texts is unprecedented. All nine countries are Members of the WTO, which now routinely posts country position papers and draft texts in progress on its website.
The New Zealand government itself recognised in its paper on IP, leaked earlier in the negotiations, that “groups are acutely aware of what they see as ‘secret’ negotiations to strengthen IP rights under FTAs and other international instruments.” After repeated leaks of the draft texts, the parties to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations eventually released them for public scrutiny.
“We are repeatedly told this is a 21st century agreement; yet the secrecy that surrounds it is redolent of the Star Chamber. We would never tolerate such a blatant rejection of transparency and accountability in our domestic legislation, so why here?”
“If this TPPA really is so good for us, why are they scared to release the draft text and open it to scrutiny?”, asked Professor Kelsey.
“The challenge then is for Parliament to convene an inquiry before the process has reached the stage where irreversible commitments have been made where we can test out the arguments for and against a TPPA and New Zealanders, including MPs, can know what we are signing up to for the next century”.
For more information, go to:
http://tppwatch.org
http://www.nznotforsale.org
And digest site for researchers http://www.tppdigest.org
The New Zealand Human Rights Commission has declined a request for a scoping study on the human rights implications of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), saying it doesn’t have the resources.
ReplyDelete….no surprises there, then. You can almost taste the desperation or JK to get this one in the can with the minimum of disruption.
Perhaps, once he has this TPPA signed; and has sold our assets; and redistributed most of the wealth to his friends he can go back to what he is so good at - currency speculation?
ReplyDelete