Speech to Whangarei Grey Power on TPPA

Speech to Whangarei Grey Power on TPPA

“If you don’t know anything about the TPPA, you are committing your grandchildren to becoming serfs in their own land”, Whangarei’s Democrats for Social Credit Deputy Leader, Chris Leitch, told a Whangarei Grey Power meeting today.



Despite on-going statements from the Prime Minister and the Trade Negotiations Minister that the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement “is genuinely about free trade and getting trade rules that work for exporters,” the TPPA is far more comprehensive than that.

In reality it is about making the takeover of the country by trans-national corporations and investment bankers risk free, and reducing our ability to pass laws that protect our economy, our ecology, and our people.

And it is about doing that in absolute secrecy. Despite 5 years of negotiations, the public are not being given details; Opposition parties don’t know any details; most Govt MP’s don’t know any details. There will be no Select Committee process, no public consultation, no submissions, and no debate in parliament.

Yet the TPPA will have the most far reaching effects on New Zealand’s future of almost any agreement yet signed or piece of legislation yet passed into law.

Clauses in the agreement itself even require that the details of documents passed between negotiators during the course of the negotiations be kept secret for four years after the agreement comes into force.

The TPPA will affect the Government’s ability to pass laws protecting our environment, it will limit our control on genetic modification and food safety, and it will roll back restrictions on foreign investment and take-overs.

Medicines will become more expensive as big pharmaceutical companies gain more influence over PHARMAC, and restrictions are placed on generic medicines.

Big overseas companies will be able to sue the New Zealand government for millions in damages in secretive offshore tribunals, claiming that new laws and regulations (for example, a ban on fracking, smoking control laws, or a cap on electricity prices) have seriously undermined the value of their investments.

Even if there are benefits for NZ, who will own the businesses that those benefits accrue to? Will the profits stay in NZ or go offshore?

Foreign owners already controlled 33% of our share market in 2014. A plethora of well known, iconic New Zealand companies have already been sold to overseas owners, and the TPPA will make that process quicker and easier.

American Economist Robert Reich has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He also served on President Obama's transition advisory board.

He contends that the TPPA is a "Trojan horse in a global race to the bottom, giving big corporations and Wall Street banks a way to eliminate any and all laws and regulations that get in the way of their profits."

We have just a few weeks to get the message to our government that they should not sign the TPPA until there is widespread consultation with the NZ public on all its provisions, and unless there is majority approval.

ends

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