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.

“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 21^st 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.