Support NZ First’s Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill and stop the TPPA 

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What do New Zealand’s Chief Justice, Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, Argentina’s chief legal adviser, The Economist, Business New Zealand, and the thousands of Kiwis who have taken to the streets to protest against the TPPA have in common?

They are all ringing alarm bells over the extraordinary power that investment treaties and free trade agreements give foreign investors to sue sovereign governments in private offshore tribunals for hundreds of millions if (in the investor’s eyes) their laws, policies or court decisions might seriously hurt the corporate’s bottom line and future profits. Often the foreign firms just threaten to bring these cases to harass governments and ‘chill’ them into backing off new measures the investors don’t like.

Today New Zealand First’s Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill in the name of its trade spokesperson Fletcher Tabuteau has been drawn from the ballot. The bill simply says no New Zealand government can include ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlements) in a future agreement. It mirrors a similar bill the Greens pushed in the Australian Senate and which drew hundreds of submissions at the select committee. An almost identical bill was introduced in the US Senate last month.

Labour must read the tea leaves and vote to support this Bill, along with the Greens and the Maori Party. The government will then have to decide whether to block the bill going to select committee or going through the pretence of parliamentary democracy.

There is an immediate opportunity to voice support for the Bill even before it gets to select committee. The government has just signed up to the same ISDS provisions in the NZ Korea free trade agreement. Key and Groser will sign it next week in Seoul.

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The text has been on the MFAT website since before Christmas, so we know what’s in there. Despite some cosmetic attempts to make the ISDS section look less risky, it is still toxic. That’s because South Korea has a free trade agreement with the US and now insists on including a similar model in all its deals – most recently in the Australia Korea FTA and now with us.

Once it is signed the Korea FTA must be tabled in Parliament and sent to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. There will be a farcical submissions process, because the committee cannot change the deal. But it will be a great opportunity to send a clear message to the government – and to Labour – that people won’t tolerate ISDS in any more deals.

Itsourfuture.org.nz will have a splash page with information and a standard submission that people can work from.

People should to point to the growing international backlash against investor-state dispute settlement – colloquially known as ISDS – especially from countries that are being extorted through this process.

The disputes now in play include Australia and Uruguay’s tobacco control laws, Quebec’s moratorium on fracking, Germany phasing out nuclear power plants, forcing Chevron to pay for cleaning up its toxic contamination of the Amazon basin, vulture funds seeking to bankrupt Argentina (again), terminating corrupt logging contracts in Indonesia and telco contracts in India, and Canada’s courts refusing to license a pharmaceutical.

Countries like South Africa, India, Ecuador and Argentina are either exiting these agreements where they can and not signing any more, or designing totally new models. France and Germany have said they won’t agree to ISDS in the mega-deal being negotiated between the US and EU. If you want to read more, look at the UNCTAD website for the World Investment Forum last October in the session on reform of investment arbitration.

Why is this important for us now? We are really fortunate that we currently have very few of these agreements.

The TPPA would give a license to US, Japanese and Canadian investors that they don’t have now to use these powers against central and local government decisions, and even to challenge decisions of our courts. Just think if all the areas that lake effective regulation, from forestry and mining to finance and worker rights.

There is now a grand opportunity to stop this happening in the TPPA, in the Korea FTA and ever again! Write to Labour MPs asking how they are going to vote on the Bill and the Korea FTA. Have organisations you belong to make statements to support NZ First. Encourage the Greens, who support the Bill, to energise their constituencies. Write to the papers. Ring talkback. Use your imaginations. Act Now!

 

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20 COMMENTS

  1. Kia ora Jane

    Recently I sent the text below to Action Station. As they have yet to reply I thought I’d ask you to comment…

    “I’ve been following Jane Kelsey’s publicity on the TPPA for many months now, and I’d like your response to a point that so far doesn’t seem to have been made.

    Much of what this National government has done, the recent 24 hour consultation period being only one of the worst examples, is terribly high-handed and arrogant but can still be claimed to be legal on the grounds that they got voted in with a parliamentary majority. Ridiculously short public consultation but nevertheless there was some, and the bill went through parliament.

    What makes TPPA fundamentally different is its secrecy and possibility of being signed with no parliamentary oversight. This makes it illegal for an elected government to do.

    Foreign corporations are assuming that once the TPPA is law, the public will be legally bound by it. But we can’t be legally bound by a set of laws illegally agreed to. We are legally advised before signing any legal contract to get independent legal advice on whether to do so, a decision which then belongs to us, not to our legal representatives or negotiators no matter how skilled they may claim to be. We are legally responsible for exercising our duty of care, and where we are being deliberately prevented from doing so, by virtue of that fact no claim against us based on such legislation could stand up if challenged in open court.

    I suggest a register be started, of citizens who will publicly undertake to refuse to comply with legislation they were unable to inspect before being signed up to it against their will. I would want my name to be on such a list.

    A list should also be made and published, of ‘negotiators’ and others previously, currently and in the future involved in an activity likely to be subject to legal challenge, with participants risking facing criminal charges for abetting an illegal enterprise.

    A crowd-sourced legal fund could be started, with a public announcement that the government that signs or attempts to sign such an illegal agreement against the wishes and interests of its citizens so named, will be brought as far as possible by them to the attention of the International Criminal Court.

    Arrogant, undemocratic and greedy corporations (along with any that are not) need to know that if they aid, abet and promote agreements made by breaking the law, they cannot and must not expect any compliance with any laws they get made in its place.

    I suggest that this legal challenge be started immediately.”

    • Cant answer that because the govt is not going to release information, why is that? You seem to know everything please enlighten us.

    • There is some truth in your argument – nothing that this government does has ever been in the public interest. The TPPA is merely a bigger rort among the myriad of smaller rorts.

    • There are none so blind as those that will not see… Wilful ignorance of the relatively transparent processes gone through in earlier trade negotiations has obviously flown right outside the radar of the herd of sheep that constitute the last, dwindling dregs of the corporate raiding party’s(national) support base.. ” Pity them lord they know not what they do”….

    • Because it gives corporations the rights to sue a democratically elected government – Gosman you knob!

  2. Thanks Jane for your amazing efforts to help NZ learn about this horrific
    nightmare train wreck called TPPA. These greedy corporations and their brain dead comrades need to be put out to pasture. We need to replace them with sound economical and environmental plans (Iceland etc.) that benefits all and grows our country into what it should be. We have got to take back control of our country away from those who are takers and not givers. Check out what Ralph Nader is saying about TPPA below.

    http://www.nznotforsale.org/

    http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/28/ralph_nader_on_tpp_gm_recall

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mLTlk40-C8

  3. Its so hard to believe that one person John Key can claim a mandate to do what he likes against the wishes of the people.
    He is a thief.
    We are registered on the stock exchange of America as New Zealand INC,who registered it?, we are classed as an asset of American interests,does America own us already?
    The National party has MPs who surely don’t want to see New Zealand
    ruined by Key ,are they so frightened of him or have they been bought by corporations and are complicit, or has he used the spy system to
    shut everyone up.
    Maybe the criminal court of the Haighe should be alerted to Keys criminal behaviour or does he own them as well.
    How many mps who have fallen foul of the law had their conviction hidden to suit a particular party,this National party is beyond belief,
    the charges should be out in the open, not hidden to suit Key,
    he shouldn’t have this power and the speaker shouldnt be allowed to shut discussion down and assist Key in his secrets and lies.
    Key believes hes bought all opposition and is invinceable. someone must have the courage to bring Sabins crime into the open,not to punish Sabin but to stop Key in his tracks.

    • @ elle – good one.

      The label NZ Inc has always bugged me, but I didn’t realize it was registered on the US Stock Exchange as such! Proves Key is treating Kiwis as commodities to be bought and sold! Deceptive currency trader tactics still at work it seems. Also more evidence he is a US plant, to turn us over! This is what the TPPA is all about! Something we must continue to oppose and be vocal about!

      We must keep the debate about Key, his treachery and betrayal out in the open.

      To ignore the issue and let it drop, is to comply with the treasonous acts Key himself indulges in!

      Debate, debate, debate.

    • In answer to your question in paragraph 3, Key is not alone in this and has the support not only of most National Party MPs but also of a significant number of kiwis. I can’t stand the man or the party that has chosen him to be its leader, but don’t make the mistake of demonising the head when the fish is rotten all the way to its tail.

  4. My thanks to Professor Kelsey for a most informative and authoritative article.
    As Professor Kelsey has noted the efficacy of the ISDS clauses is being questioned by even such devotees of free market economics such as The Economist, export power houses such as Germany and is unquestionably a surrender of sovereignty.
    In light of these facts the unrelenting and unquestioning pursuit of FTA’s by the Key government raises serious questions as to whether their allegiance is to NZ and its people or to some other masters.

    • Keys allegiance is to not one country like the US. His gang of mineral and resource thieves are all the worldwide mega – corporations (and Agenda 21 promoters ) that care less about the people/environment but only their growing bank accounts and controlling the masses towards a New World Order. People are waking up though and it is refreshing to see
      the most recent activities.

      Good news as the divesting movement is growing leaps and bounds just recently. Many are selling their coal and fossil fuel investment shares by the gang fulls and moving away from the main producers of climate change and Vanuatu and Calilfornia being out of water in a year and on and on.

      People are waking up and universities and corporations are waking up and many are saying no to World domination that benefits the few and the expense of the many and the environment. Keys government is on its way out because, simply, it is the right thing for the country. More need to get smart and learn the facts and take action and get united.

      Divesting – ” a real good thing ”

      http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-logic-of-divestment-why-we-have-to-kiss-off-big-carbon-20150114

  5. 1000% Jane, Theanks for your excellent coverage of this criminal activity called TPPA.

    TPPA is a master plan hatched by the groups of multi global Corporations and they have influenced the wording as rules of being in “The Club” even down to those two words that Master salesman Shonkey is now constantly saying, We are all in “The Club”.

  6. Indeed…if we hear more of the Sabin episode – this week- we may find yet that Winston Peters will have an even bigger platform to put the pressure on….

    No wonder the National party is at once bribing and threatening/bullying the people of Northland.

    No wonder Key was so enthusiastic in supporting Labours Kalvin Davis to defeat Hone Hawera and the Left.

    He had much bigger fish to fry…the TTPA , changing laws to cover his illegality in endorsing the GSCB to spy on 88 Kiwi’s including Kim Dotcom , as well as insuring that mass surveillance full data uptake was possible – through Xkeyscore – and lying bald faced to the public that none of this was taking place.

    Dotcom in particular because he was viewed as confronting the Hollywood moguls who are part of the process of submitting broad drafts to an organisation representing entrepreneurs and manufacturers/corporations – that in turn submit this to Congress…indeed …the very terms and conditions of the TTPA itself.

    So indeed…I hope that – and am confident – Winston Peters will win in the Northland by-election.

    It will be particularly sweet to see Key start to squirm as the pressure goes on. And no amount of lying will save his deceitful agenda as it will all be out in the open for all to see.

    As it should of been right from the beginning.

    We should never have had to endure these long years of lies and corruption.

    Not in this country.

  7. Yes, I’m hoping it all comes out in quick succession, all the lies, dirty deals, back handers, and that the people of NZ will wake up to the mess, that is this government…and its quickly down hill to the sewers for them, from there.

  8. People of Northland who are concerned about the TPPA, now is your turn to stand up and be counted!!
    It bothers me greatly hearing Key the other trying to allay fears about the TPPA by simply saying that Pharmac won’t be touched, trying to make out that that is the only concern that is out there about the TPPA.

  9. theyve already got everything ive been saying on skype and facebook screensaved including my private messages to use against me in alexandra court on 30th march 2015 and again on 16th april 2015…all because i spoke out in the best interests of public safety by naming a pedophile cop who filmed a young teen showering on his police issued iphone and also naming a extortionist who has been trying to push survivors/victims to suicide and by telling a parent whose child had just died that her child would burn in hell…but these scumbags that are evil pos seem to get catered while those who speak out for interests of public safety get punnished far more than the actual offenders…its my beleif that things are only going to get worse with new laws coming into effect designed at targeting whistleblowers whose only crime is looking out for public safety…if you go to laudafinem.com you can read about the hassles and struggles of naming someone for the best interests in public safety.

  10. theyve already got everything ive been saying on skype and facebook screensaved including my private messages to use against me in alexandra court on 30th march 2015 and again on 16th april 2015…all because i spoke out in the best interests of public safety by naming a pedophile cop who filmed a young teen showering on his police issued iphone and also naming a extortionist who has been trying to push survivors/victims to suicide and by telling a parent whose child had just died that her child would burn in hell, including being caught with child porn on his computer…but these scumbags that are evil pos seem to get catered for while those who speak out against them for interests of public safety get punnished far more than the actual offenders…its my beleif that things are only going to get worse with new laws coming into effect designed at targeting whistleblowers whose only crime is looking out for public safety as a form of self defence after 8 straight years of judicial fraud and abuse…if you go to laudafinem.com you can read about the hassles and struggles of naming someone for the best interests in public safety. The reasons why i am how i am are on this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4T1LTXOaHc&list=UUpFLGzCi5kGwfbwqItvsRSQ and you can see just how important public safety is to the person prosecuting me for speaking out in the best interests of public safety on this link http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10644932

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