OK, it’s (almost) official. The zombie TPPA has been restored to life and Winston Peters will support it. Both Labour and New Zealand First will sell out the principles that led them to reject the ratification of the deal before the election.
They claim the TPPA 11 (I refuse to call it the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership) is much improved and that adopting it is in the national interest. No-one believes the spin. But both parties clearly calculate there’s enough political brownie points in supporting the deal to justify burning off the loyal constituencies who voted for them and expected them to keep their word. Only the Greens retain their principles.
What’s the latest move and is it irreversible? Last night in Japan, New Zealand and the other ten countries reached a deal to resurrect the TPPA, a year to the day after Trump notified the US withdrawal. The text remains unchanged, except for provisions about entry into force and similar institutional rules, the wording of which we have yet to see.
As most people who follow this know, some items will be suspended, pending the US re-entry. These include most, but not all, the really toxic rules that would expand the profits of Big Pharma, Hollywood, Google etc. Changes to foreign investors’ rights to sue the government have been trimmed around the edges but the main legal risks and corporate rights remain untouched.
All this was settled by the last ministerial meeting in Vietnam in December. There were four outstanding issues, including Canada’s demand for a stronger cultural exception.
The Canadian government was seen as the main stumbling block. Like our new government, they inherited a toxic deal. Unlike our new government they refused to become a party unless the others agreed to politically important bottom lines. Last night Canada cemented a deal that involves side-letters on culture, as well as on the local content of automobiles (something NOT on the list of the four outstanding items announced in Vietnam). That’s still not going to be an easy sell for the Trudeau government at home, but at least it played hardball and won some additional concessions.
In other words, Canada’s government showed political backbone and it succeeded. Ours caved at the first post-election meeting and rationalises that as the best they could do.
The signing is set for Chile on 8 March. We still haven’t seen the new text, and the Japanese have suggested it may not be released until after it is signed – including the side letters that Canada and some other countries have negotiated. The travesty of democracy lives on!
There is still time to put the feet of Labour and NZ First to the fire before 8 March, but it will be very hard to get either party that has put political capital behind the TPPA-11 to admit they are wrong. The longer-term game is the domestic ratification process, and rising the political price to a point where the current calculus no longer holds.
That needs to start now. Waitangi Day around the country should be an early test, although Labour, MFAT and pro-TPPA Shane Jones have been doing a hard-sell to Maori economic interests. There will be public meetings in Auckland on the evening of 12th February and in Wellington on 14th. Details will be on the Its Our Future website.
And yes, I know there are people who want to get out on the streets. We need to think about when and where that might have maximum effect. But we can’t go off half-cocked. People need to be confident that they know why the TPPA-11 is as bad as the original, and believe that their voices collectively can make a difference. And we can.
Jane thankyou again for your excellent criticism of this rotten trade deal.
It is disgusting to have to realise that labour who promised us all “complete openness,inclusion and transparency has now finally resorted to pure secrecy again.
They loose my vote here as we must take them at their word and honesty above all here and hold them to a higher standard than this sloppy back room dealing without our inclusion and input.
This is Labour’s second major error since the first debarkle at Parliament on day one when they give in to National blackmail over voting for speaker Trevor mallard.
They are full of amateurism today again over the sloppy manner in which they announced this “trade deal”
Only the Gereens will possibly benefit from Labour and NZ First doing a U-turn on the TPPA. Listening to Peters this morning on Morning Report, I was incredulous that he hadn’t even read the final draft!! Who the hell signs an agreement, sight unseen???????
Yes PRISS,
From what i gather the PM said yesterday “they are awaiting advise from their Government advisers”
The Labour government need to get away from Aristocratic bullshit and fix the whole national inbreed right wing ideologies these bureaucrat’s all have now.
Grow a pair Labour.
Representative Democracy was designed to prevent democracy. To ensure that the rich maintained power over the resources of the nation so that everyone else remained poor and had to work for the rich.
Our whole system is actually anti-democratic.
They won’t admit that they’re wrong as they still believe that they’re right, that capitalism and the enforced trade of FTAs works despite all the evidence to the contrary.
“Representative Democracy was designed to prevent democracy.”
Bang on. ‘Representative democracy’ is like ‘conditional sovereignty’; a contradiction in terms. ‘The Democracy Project’ by anthropologist David Graeber is an excellent read on the two contradictory meanings of “democracy”, self-rule or elected dictatorship, and how the latter was created to suppress the former.
It would be prudent for us in New Zealand to have CTPPA11 countries as full partners as fully engaged in our economic growth as China or Australia. The aim of CTPPA11 must be to reduce any turbulence between U.S. China relations on the South Pacific and for CTPPA11 countries it can also benefit significantly from South Pacific growth.
To succeed in the South Pacific CTPPA11 countries must co-op Kiwi talent and create alliances with New Zealand businessmen. They need to become multicultural organisations to compete successfully in knowledge based sectors. Corporations who get there ideas from one culture will lose out in innovations. Free trade partners should tap New Zealand business ventures to joint ventures and alliances. New Zealand’s indigenous enterprise should benefit from the infusion of technology and know how through such joint ventures.
Even if the banks survive these upheavals by refusing to invest in culture and innovation, we will have to abandon all thought of liberalisation towards plurality and more democratic freedoms, because severe and repressive government is the other side of austere or negative economic growth.
An over strong dollar causes trade deficits. A volatile and speculative foreign exchange market has exaggerated the factors working towards a strong dollar. A CTPPA must give ground to optimism that the overvalued Kiwi dollar can be brought down by CTPPA finance ministers and there canal bankers. Parliament may want to steady there hand and allow efforts to work.
I do not believe New Zealand should be sweet talked into opening up her markets.
To Jane Kelsey
You stated and restated in your piece that Canada had backbone. But New Zealand did not.
At no point did you discuss the errors of the NZ Government. Just hurled undocumented diatribe.
I am disappointed in you.
From what I have read of the Government’s approach to the revised Comprehensive TPPA (which title you insultingly deride), the Five Points required by Andrew Little et al, have been met.
You have perched yourself well above others. No wonder you are not consulted.
Tokoroa – I’m curious. How can Jane (or anyone else) “document their diatribe” when we have not been able to read the fucking document?!?!
Even Peters admitted on Radio NZ this morning that he had not read the final draft;
ref: http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/348882/winston-peters-defends-tpp-flip
best response to hand from frank;
We are being treated like gormless lost sheep by these Global cabals who hatched this toxic plan to carpetbag the weakest of countries in this secretive “business plan” without allowing us first to see what we are signing up for!!!
I am no fool,
We have been had here; – like Greece we will be stripped of any chance to recover if this elitist cabal get their way here.
TPPA … BANKERS’ SCAM
Rothschild … the maker of Wars, Poverty and Despair.
It doesn’t matter which Party you follow or which Party is “in”, from a certain level up they are all Rothschild’s servants. Blackmailed or bribed, both go. We just keep being treated to theatrical tactics to throw us off guard. Ownership of all country’s above and in ground assets will soon be taken over by the U.N. Owned by Rothschild. Solutions to poverty and lack of housing will be solved thru genocide. Depopulation is very real but given the yes sir talent in our Media you wouldn’t know it and by 2025 New Zealand population is projected to be 3,289,660 http://www.deagel.com/country/forecast.aspx?pag=3&sort=GDP&ord=DESC
Will Jacinda’s out of wedlock child go unvaccinated and therefore be included in the count? Probably. Most probably your grandchildren wont be in the count. Autism is skyrocketing and the brains of dead children diagnosed as “autistic” by those with no knowledge of or degree in “autism”, show high levels of aluminium. Why?
The “average” New Zealander is over weight, under educated, over vaccinated and fed propaganda. As an example of effective propaganda, we eat bacon and eggs because we’re told to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44I3pMouCnM
Depopulation is ongoing now big time and we have just seen it with weather manipulation in the Caribbean and on both U.S. coastlines. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead or missing … but you don’t know unless you make your business to follow up on these things.
And how are the DEVIL’S BANKERS GOING TO TAKE THE LAND? By using the weather, of course! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX8gj2-JZFA Great examples are on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ6AmxsHzyk and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTmQwS-GoAQ
The Devil’s Bankers can control the weather, create droughts, cause earthquakes and wash your home away with floods.
Give up reading newspapers and watching T.V. Television was purposefully designed to KILL YOU and there’s a patent to prove it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMvUVifDEXk&t=3s
Wake up people!
1000% Wonderful response Helena;
Shades of Greece we see happening now to us by the same ‘guttersnipes” who ruined Greece, are out to destroy NZ now.
“beware of false gods wearing gifts”
You have written some fairly crazy stuff there, Helena (no human can control the weather…..it’s a chaotic system determined by the interaction of a huge number of physical phenomena) but you are absolutely right about the bankers controlling western societies: it started, as far as I know, when the Bank of England was established as a private bank in the late seventeenth century on the basis of a fractional reserve and the charging of interest on government money.
Since then banks have extended their ‘stranglehold’ on westernised societies to the point they decide not just interest rates and mortgage payments but which nations will be attacked for their resources, which governments (socialist or communist) need to be taken down, which trade deals need to be promoted and which ones can be allowed to languish.
All NZ governments are servants and agents of international banks and the unseen families that control them……which is why NZ governments continually promote everything that destroys the resilience and sustainability of society and ultimately will destroy the very habitability of the land mass and the waters that surround it.
There is no stopping what is underway because, as you say: ‘The “average” New Zealander is over weight, under educated, over vaccinated and fed propaganda.’
Of course, the whole purpose of ‘education’ is to convert children into compliant adults who will look to authority for direction……people who know very little of what they actually need to know and generally cannot think for themselves. But they do know how to consume -as required by the system, which is essentially all about converting fossil fuels into waste and maintaining the bankers’ Ponzi scheme as long as possible by doing so.
A tiny portion of the populace does become educated and can see what the game is, despite the efforts of the empire to stamp out access to important facts and denigration of alternative thinking.
Depopulation will occur, not as a planned process (banks always want more debt-slaves and more consumption) but because the Earth is physically incapable of sustainably supporting the population overshoot and the gross overconsumption that characterise the times we live in: around 90 million barrels of oil go up in smoke (atmospheric CO2) and an untold quantity of coal do the same every day!
The bankers are more than happy to promote that which completely destroys the long term habitability of the Earth because they have huge investments in the fossil fuels sector and in industrialism in general: profits before people.
Atmospheric CO2 is now around 180 ppm above the 800,000-year average, and is rising rapidly).
Arctic and Antarctic ice covers are at record lows; Arctic ice is failing to form in the middle of winter, and Antarctic ice is melting.
The NZ government could not care less about the meltdown of the planet (despite Adern’s pre-election narrative about “taking climate change seriously”).
The global energy system is on its last legs (mass consumption of fossil fuels having the basis for everything for the past 200 years, and peak conventional oil, 2007, being a decade into history). And the NZ government couldn’t give a damn that it’s all unsustainable and going to fall over some time in the next few years (possibly within three years). The NZ government will continue to promote the mass consumption of fossil fuels (NZ vehicle imports have never been higher) until it can’t.
So, we will continue to witness the ‘progressive’ deterioration of everything that matters at the hand of the controllers, until the systems does collapse….after which we should expect mayhem.
I’m thankful to Jane Kelsey for all her work but we are just a small fry are we expecting too much?
To the ingrates who have criticized Jane Kelsey ,you have my deepest contempt. Throughout the TPP process Jane would have put in hundreds of hours digesting a very complicated subject, and then presenting a summary to us so we know what it represents, as opposed to what its proponents say it represents. Her contributions have resulted in a better informed citizenry . And then you make nit picking criticisms, while your personal contributions have been sweet bugger all ! Suitable punishments are unfortunately no longer available. A dunking in the horse trough, your breeches filled with pig manure, and horse whipped three times around the village square, would have been your lot in the “Good Old Days ” !!!
Canada is a country with huge land and sea areas, a fairly bit larger of a population, and very strategically placed on this planet, hence it can play its cards more successfully.
New Zealand is a smallish nation of now 4.8 million, often even confused with being just another ‘state’ of Australia, if people in other continents know of its existence at all, and has a tradition of selling out, certainly since Roger Douglas et al changed the face of this country.
I am not surprised, I would be happy to attend protests, but as Jane writes, these need to be carefully and smartly planned, if they go ahead.
Labour have always been a bit dishonest with their ‘opposition’ to the TPPA and whatever it is known for now.
NZ First are the bigger sell outs now, given their past staunch opposition. Only the Greens have stuck to their principles on this matter.
Canada is a major supplier of oil to the US, and is deeply integrated into ‘trade deals’ that decimate the Canadian landscape (and the long-term future) whilst propping up business-as-usual.
What is arguably one of the most environmentally unfriendly processes on Earth takes place in Canada: trees are cut down, and the top layer of earth (of the order of 75 metres) is removed to gain access to low quality petroleum reserves.
The so-called tar sands are dug up using some of the most massive machinery on the planet, and transported to processing plant where the low grade petroleum is extracted using water heated by burning natural gas (or some of the oil ultimately extracted). The product is so gluggy that refined petroleum (imported from the US) with a low molecular mass is mixed with the ‘tar’ to make it pumpable. The sand is so abrasive machinery is regularly maintained or replaced.
Interestingly, there have been numerous train derailments, some resulting in huge fires. when Canadian ‘shit’ is transported to refineries in the US via decrepit rail systems that are at the point of falling apart because executive bonuses are ‘more important’ than safety.
Overall the energy involved in extracting energy is horrifically high (very low EROEI), and the greenhouse gas emissions are enormous.
Toxic waste is collected in manmade lakes, from which it leaks into the water system and into the Athabasca River, contaminating everything downstream and causing monumental health ‘problems’ to the few indigenous people still alive in the region.
All the ‘promises’ to restore the landscape to its original condition are blatant propaganda: restoration has been attempted on less than 10% of the desecrated land are (now approximately the size of England) and that restoration has been ineffective….which is exactly what one would expect when global corporations are involved.
When oil prices were low tar sands extraction was not economic (and it can never be environmentally economic); when oil prices are high tar sands extraction is very profitable. The current price for WTI of around $66 is more than enough to cover financial costs -all environmental costs, including the inordinate contribution to planetary overheating, being completely ignored by the [corrupt] political-economic system, of course.
The whole topic is more-or-less taboo as far as mainstream reporting is concerned but it does not take much effort to become informed via the Internet.
With Asia now seriously running pout of cheap energy:
http://crudeoilpeak.info/asia-pacific-oil-supply-gap-widening-as-china-production-drops
China has been investing heavily in extraction of petroleum from tar sands, and the decimation of the landscape does not affect China directly in the way that local energy project do, of course.
The Canadian government is more than happy to see a large portion of its landscape utterly devastated if there is fiat currency to be acquired. And rapacious China has to have hydrocarbon energy to maintain its dysfunctional economy (50 years ago China’s demand for petroleum was miniscule).
Without energy nothing happens. And the world is now dependent on extracting the last dregs of hydrocarbon energy from the most inaccessible places using the most environmentally unfriendly methods because there is all the easy-to-access-high-quality oil was burned decades ago. For the current system to be propped up, there is no alternative but to utilise petroleum sources that are difficult to extract and difficult to transport and which cause [largely] untold environmental damage.
Needless to say, the NZ government (blue or red or yellow or green or any combination, it makes no difference) is all in favour of sacrificing the next generation’s future in order to prop up current living arrangements for as long as possible. And the government (whatever its colour) will lie incessantly to the masses in the process.
The looting-and-polluting of the commons will continue until the whole system goes ‘bang’ at some stage in the not-too-distant-future as a consequence of the energy depletion and planetary overheating which are a natural result of operating the idiotic economic and financial system we inherited.
Nailed it 100%, Marc.
The Greens get my vote in 2020.
@ MARC … Canada’s government has strange ways of arranging land clearances (reminds me of California): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obkqdb8Ve64 Perhaps being a dissenter has disadvantages.
With all due respect to our NZ First supporting allies who frequent this blog, we did warn you. If the Greens had got more votes than NZ First, and were inside the coalition instead of tacked on as a third wheel, the TPP would have been toast. Please remember this betrayal of core principle by Peters and his crew (particularly the virulently pro “free trade” Shane Jones) when the 2020 election rolls around,
Thanks Professor Kelsey for your usual measured and helpful comment. I’m a centrist and consider the Tee Double Zombie Pee Eh highly problematic. Lefties are good at mobilisation, what works best (it must be lawful of course)?
TDB misues the term CONSPIRACY THEORY and was rude to
Helena ( myself and others ) over this issue. They refuse to publish my replies to their ignorance.
Freedom of speech is compromised here.
Get informed about who coined the term – ” conspiracy theorist ”
and why and how you continue to use it to dismiss and discredit others.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/08/24/the-term-conspiracy-theory-was-invented-by-
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