TPPA text released

BREAKING: TPPA text finally released – too little, too late!

It is not clear whether this will also start the 90-day countdown before President Obama is allowed to sign the agreement under US law, or whether any of the other countries would sign unilaterally before the US does.

Prof. Jane Kelsey

The Daily Blog,

6 November, 2015

‘Today’s release of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement text ends the farcical situation where governments were touting the benefits for the nation with no prospect of any independent assessment to contradict them,’ said University of Auckland law Professor Jane Kelsey.

It is not clear whether this will also start the 90-day countdown before President Obama is allowed to sign the agreement under US law, or whether any of the other countries would sign unilaterally before the US does.

But, Professor Kelsey points out, ‘the legal text is not enough on its own. We need to see the background documents that help make sense of the text, but the parties have vowed to keep secret for effectively another six years.’

‘We also need the various analyses the New Zealand government has relied on when talking up the benefits and playing down the costs. They have been coy about who has done this work, especially the projections of $2.7b benefits for the economy, and stalled on Official Information Act requests to release them, despite the High Court’s rebuke last month’.

A further statement relating to the content of the text will be released later tonight.

anti- TPPA National Day of Action Nov 14h

^{New Zealand releases TPP text}

^{The government has released the legal text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership on behalf of the deal's 12 member countries.}

Radio NZ,

6 November, 2015

Read the TPP text, released yesterday.

It is the first time the public has been able to see what the government has signed up to.

Ministers from the 12 member countries at the start of TPP talks in Atlanta.

Photo: Twitter / @USTradeRep

The government has said the trade agreement will boost New Zealand's economy by $2.7 billion a year by 2030 but, until now, the public had been kept in the dark as to what the agreement entailed.

Trade Minister Tim Groser released a statement on Thursday evening including a link to the text.

He said he was pleased the public would now finally be able to thoroughly review the full text of the TPP before it was signed by governments.

Work on the legal verification of the text would continue in coming weeks, he said.

"This is a complex agreement, with 30 chapters and associated annexes. The large number of documents released today amount to over 6000 pages of text and market access schedules.

"Understanding the legal obligations of the TPP will require careful analysis of all documents, given the inter-relationship between many provisions in the agreement."

The government has also released extra information on the estimated economic benefits of the TPP for New Zealand, Mr Groser said.

It will put out a legal summary of the agreement when that work is completed.

University of Auckland law professor Jane Kelsey said the government needed to release the background documents to the talks too, so people could make sense of the legal text.

The agreement's 12 member countries are: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam.