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TPPA: Kiwis say it ain’t over. Don’t sign!

This weekend thousands of New Zealanders will join rallies, marches, picnics and protests at fourteen actions nationwide to call on the government to reject the TPPA.

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This week­end thou­sands of New Zealan­ders will join ral­lies, march­es, pic­nics and protests at four­teen actions nation­wide to call on the gov­ern­ment to reject the TPPA.

“After six years of secre­cy and gov­ern­ment spin, we can now see what’s in the TPPA. Buried in over 6000 pages of legal text are oblig­a­tions that no gov­ern­ment should sign up to”, said It’s Our Future spokesper­son Bar­ry Coates.

“The TPPA would mean that we give away sov­er­eign pow­ers from demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ments to unac­count­able for­eign cor­po­ra­tions. We say: don’t sign.”

Analy­sis of the final agree­ment is being under­tak­en by aca­d­e­mics and researchers, through a rig­or­ous peer reviewed process. A series of papers analysing the most cru­cial issues will be released over the forth­com­ing weeks.

“It is already appar­ent that the gov­ern­ment has used spin, exag­ger­a­tion and mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion to try to sell the TPPA. The ben­e­fits are far less than we have been led to believe, the costs have large­ly been ignored and the restric­tions on the rights of future gov­ern­ments to act in the pub­lic inter­est are utter­ly unac­cept­able“, Bar­ry Coates com­ment­ed.

The strug­gle to stop the TPPA ain’t over. TPPA nego­tia­tors have con­clud­ed an agree­ment but it won’t be signed until Feb­ru­ary next year at the ear­li­est. Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates and senior leg­is­la­tors, Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans, are already ques­tion­ing whether the TPPA should be signed before the Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion or whether it will be signed at all. This week, the Chair­man of the pow­er­ful Sen­ate Finance Com­mit­tee, Orrin Hatch, called for the TPPA to be re-nego­ti­at­ed.

“The gov­ern­ment has claimed that the TPPA is a 21st Cen­tu­ry agree­ment. This could not be fur­ther from real­i­ty,” said Coates.

“Instead, it is a des­per­ate attempt to lock in the failed poli­cies of the past. The TPPA will under­mine our abil­i­ty to meet the chal­lenges of cli­mate change, social equi­ty, tech­no­log­i­cal change, decent work and inno­va­tion in the years ahead.”

Details of the events this week­end and TPPA resources at www.itsourfuture.org.nz.

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