The National government announced on the last day of Parliament that Cabinet has endorsed terms for a major new trade and investment deal – the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement minus the US, or TPPA-11. It said the TPPA text will remain basically unchanged, despite the US no longer participating. That begs multiple questions, says University of Auckland law professor Jane Kelsey.
The National government has got its wish – the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is off the front pages and back into the shadows of secret negotiations. Big dangers lurk in those shadows!
The broad definition of security is long-standing, introduced around the same time as the SIS botched break in of Aziz Choudry’s house in Christchurch at the time of an APEC meeting there.
Ground control to Major Tom? Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong. Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Apologies to the late lamented David Bowie. But the bullshit from the National government on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) since the Trump administration formally pulled out in January is really off the planet (apologies, I don’t usually swear in blogs, but I couldn’t find a suitable acronym).
‘The hype leading into the meeting of ministers from the eleven remaining Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement countries in Hanoi today assumes…
As Prime Minister Bill English heads off to Japan with trade minister Todd McClay in their quest to revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) minus the USA, ‘the silence from Labour is deafening’, Auckland University law professor Jane Kelsey observes. ‘In an election year, they had hoped the TPPA was dead and buried. Now there is nowhere for them to hide.’
Just let it die. Let the TPPA die. Not a dignified death, because it doesn’t deserve that. But at least let the corpse be buried in some deep hole, wrapped in the American flag, without the threat of being disinterred and shrouded in some surrogate garb.
The governments and corporate lobbies that champion these deals are in a state of denial and desperately trying to rescue their bankrupt model. This year we begin work with others internationally to set a new agenda for international economic agreements that really work for people as part of a new economic paradigm.
Blaming TPPAs collapse on a xenophobic megalomaniac allows the media to continue to ignore the real dynamics behind Trump’s victory, Brexit, the rejection of TTIP and resistance to CETA in the EU. The model is broken.
The idea from Prime Minister Bill English that New Zealand and other countries might proceed with Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement without…