The Trans Pacific Partnership is a trade agreement that has been under negotiation between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States and Vietnam. A highly complex agreement it has been in the works for over four years it may actually be close to signing off this year.

It has received a bit of attention lately thanks to the fact that we don’t know much about it. Its contents have been kept under wraps with the media and even elected politicians being banned from any discussions. However of late we have learned a number of details thanks to leaks of the documentation, and a tireless army of people working in the public interest to expose the enormous agreement that will affect our economy and the way we make laws for the near future.

It is a highly complex agreement (its legal contract-style wording has been publicly criticised) and it seems that each week we receive a new report on how life will change if the TPP comes to stay. We’ve provided a rough guide to what we know about the agreement, and sought out some experts on the most important aspects facing our technology industries here in Australia.

A lot of people are worried about the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clause, whereby corporations will have the right to sue governments for loss of future profit. Australia’s plain cigarette packaging laws, for example, would require a foreign manufacturer to produce a separate line of goods just for selling here. Had this kind of legislation come in once the TPP was in place, this case would be a perfect candidate for the ISDS. Of course this legislation is too late for the agreement. Any laws we have in place now will be here to stay which is a concern for Australia’s laziness in the climate change action department. New restrictions on coal mining; controls on fracking or pollution laws in relation to manufacturing or transport will be blocked thanks to the ISDS clause.

Companies and governments will receive stronger protection for ‘trade secrets’. This extends to the protection of proprietary formulas which could impact on Australia’s food labelling laws. This has environmental ramifications (undoing the progress made in palm oil education) but also grave consequences for anyone looking to do the right thing such as potential whistleblowers or investigative journalists who may think twice before taking action on dodgy practices, for fear of litigation or worse.

Australia (and anyone except the US) could lose out on medication and surgical methods thanks to the medical patents provisions. The agreement will extend patents on brand-name drugs thus delaying how long it takes for generics to enter the market.

Dr Deborah Gleeson and her colleagues submitted a report to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in December 2014 stating their concerns on the TPP’s affect on biologics in particular. These are drugs produced through biotechnological processes and commonly used as vaccines and as treatments for cancers and auto-immune conditions. Last financial year Australia spent at least $1.2b on biologics through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme – had access to generic versions of these drugs been available (called biosimilar medicines in this case), the economy could have saved over $200m.

But the TPP isn’t just stopping with the medications. Patents for ‘diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical treatments for humans or animals’ (and possibly ‘inventions for plants and animals’ – think agriculture and livestock) could also be extended and new laws enforced, requiring hospitals or specialists using such treatments to pay royalties – which will only be passed onto patients (either for specific procedures or via their insurance premiums) and also to those medical professionals training to use the practices.

US lobby group Public Citizen gave an example of costs under the TPP of a common medical procedure: a coronary angioplasty. Broken down the costs would be $15 for the stent; a few cents’ worth of electricity for the scan; and a few hundred dollars for the technician or doctor’s labour costs. The patient would be charged in the thousands due to the royalties.

When it comes down to it, the United States owns most of the patents for drugs and procedures so the TPP means great news for them, terrible news for developing countries and a quite a bit of pain where our wallets are concerned. The Australian government’s health budget will also suffer, which raises speculations about how that might be handled.

There are many concerns about having any kind of a policy in place when it comes to the IP/copyright chapter, namely consumer rights, free expression, and impeding research, innovation and competition.

Publishers have been trying to enforce digital copyright protection for years. The Trans Pacific Partnership may be the answer to their prayers. The copyright/IP chapter is set to bring in all those threats we have been fighting and so far, beating. But this time corporations will be able to implement geoblocking and demand information on suspected infringers from their ISPs. Criminal convictions for illegal downloads is very much a possibility and everything used to obtain the file can be seized (computer, router, cabling) regardless of the owner or if it is used for 99% legal purposes.

Australia is in the midst of its forming its own bill but if we sign the TPP it will overrule anything we come up with. It doesn’t help that our own politicians can’t agree on a strategy.

Dr Matthew Rimmer from Australian National University has summed it up: ‘[Communications Minister] Malcolm Turnbull is trying to get the industry to arrive at the rules themselves through voluntary agreements. [Attorney-General] George Brandis is taking the discipline-and-punish approach, while [Trade Minister] Andrew Robb sees IP as trade.’

Trish Hepworth from the Australian Digital Alliance does not want to see domestic processes overruled. ‘At this very moment industry is collaborating on a code to tackle piracy. ISPs will be sending warning notes to users, and importantly there will be no disconnection for people who infringe copyright. To have an international agreement come and change the terms of this industry agreement, with no sensitivity to the needs of the Australian public, would not be in our interests.’

‘Whenever we sign an agreement we diminish our chances of changing others and yet copyright moves quickly. We are locking in things that are out of date.’

As for the TPP she says, ‘Australia is really going to lose out with the IP chapter as we are a major importer of US entertainment.’

Associate Professor Kimberlee Weatherall from the University of Sydney points out how definitively legislative the wording of the IP chapter is, and does not allow for mistakes to be made “such as for innocent infringers”. The TPP provides an “increased incentive for litigation” and very little protection for the defendant – and this is worrying.

Does the government have room in the budget for a public education campaign on fair use of copyright and IP? Because there will need to be a lot of clarification provided.

Under the parallel imports chapter companies will be able to decide where their product sells and for how much. So there will be no more importing things cheaply overseas and shipping them here (legally, anyway). This could be good news and bad news for us – allowing us access to new products, and Australian companies access to new markets – but it brings increased price competition. The lowering of agricultural tariffs in particular is bad news for the Australian industry.

Similarly, the e-commerce chapter seeks an answer to those questions we have been asking about our own software prices here in Australia for years. Why is it comparable to fly to the US and buy a copy of Adobe Creative Suite and bring it home as it is to buy it legally here? The IT pricing inquiry (in 2013) reflected ‘the price differences for IT products cannot be explained by the cost of doing business in Australia’ where we pay 50-100% more for the same product than our international counterparts.

Dr Rimmer is hopeful about this particular chapter of the TPP as US Senate members have been actively (and publicly) encouraging decision-makers to ensure the TPP comes to an agreement on cross-border data flows that, simply put, makes other countries want to agree to the terms. Dr Rimmer says it has potential to fix the problems presented in the IT pricing inquiry, however if poorly handled it could also lead to the markets being divided up for further price gouging. ‘We will have to wait and see,’ he says.

Overall the Trans Pacific Partnership doesn’t look great for Australia and the secrecy over its contents is only more concerning. There are still many more questions to be answered, but the United States is trying to fast-track the process to get it all signed off as soon as possible.

This is not the first trade agreement we have signed but it is happening right now, and it is the biggest one we’ve considered so far, covering a significant area of the Asia-Pacific Region. It is absolutely the one we should be concerned with right now. As Weatherall says, ‘Australia might want to change its laws someday but we will have an international obligation not to do so.’