Rethinking the trade and investment agenda in turbulent times ‘What an Alternative and Progressive Trade Strategy Should Look Like’,
These days I feel depressed, cautiously optimistic, and frustrated at the same time.
Read More →Post-TPPA, we have to make the changes happen
Our unprecedented protests against the TPPA, from small rural towns to the main cities, moved the political ground on secretly negotiated international treaties that entrench corporate rights, handcuff elected governments and disempower peoples. Politicians were shaken. The Holy Grail of free trade agreements was now a political liability.
Read More →Lessons for the Left from NAFTA Mark-II
We underestimate Trump’s people. We don’t have to support their visceral racism and sexism and cynical manipulation of populist sentiment to recognise that something significant is happening. The rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico released last week poses crucial challenges for the left that we need to understand if we are to shape a genuinely alternative, progressive new strategy for the future – the goal of our hui in Auckland on 19-20 October.
Read More →Converting resistance to TPPA into a new agenda for change
Last week I was in New York at a conference on Rethinking International Investment Governance – the investor-state dispute system (ISDS) that lets transnational corporations enforce special rights through secretive, offshore, pro-investor tribunals.
Read More →Unions and NGOs announce Two-day hui on “What an Alternative & Progressive Trade Strategy Should Look Like”, Auckland, 19-20 October
The two-day hui at the Fale Pasifika at Auckland University from 19-20 October has a forward looking focus. The programme features ten impressive panels in conversation on the pressing issues of the future, from the international economy, geopolitics and livelihoods to Treaty-based relationships, sustainable worlds, health, knowledge and how to reinvigorate the local.
Read More →MUST READ: Trade for All is a lie
It has taken almost a year for the not-so-new Labour-led government to act on its promise of an inclusive and progressive new trade strategy. Only, ‘act’ a far too generous description. It’s too little, too late. The terms of reference signed off by the Cabinet are not going to explore the real reasons why Kiwis, among many others around the world, have turned their backs on these agreements.
Read More →“Trade For All” consultation lacks credibility while negotiations on old model continue
‘It is worrying that the Prime Minister aims to ensure New Zealand’s values and sovereignty were not “unduly compromised” in the quest for more market access. But the shroud of secrecy continues, leaving us in a “trust me” zone with a government that has given us no grounds to do so’.
Read More →“Trade for All” in the EU NZ FTA Offers No New Direction
I urge the coalition parties in government to deliver the genuine change in the model of trade agreements that they promised before the election.
To date the promised review of trade strategy has involved outreach or information-sharing sessions on negotiations already underway, within the anti-democratic shroud of secrecy that shields the negotiations from scrutiny. There is no tangible evidence that the government intends to do anything significantly different.
Read More →Which of Labour’s trade policies will the PM pursue?
‘As the Prime Minister heads to Europe, with the proposed trade deals with the European Union and Britain at the top of her agenda, which of Labour’s trade policies she is going to pursue?’.
Read More →Govt must tell NZers if the TPPA-11 is its bottom line
US President Donald Trump instructed his National Economic Council Director and the United States Trade Representative to look into joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement that he quit just over a year ago. This follows his earlier suggestion that he would consider doing so, provided its terms were made more beneficial to the US.
Read More →Capitulation in TPPA-11 raises fears of more to come – Professor Jane Kelsey
‘The so-called Joint Declaration on Inclusive and Progressive Trade, released by New Zealand, Canada and Chile alongside the signing of the resurrected Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA-11), comes across as a desperate attempt to put a gloss on a profoundly unprogressive deal’, says University of Auckland law professor Jane Kelsey. ‘They promise to make the TPPA-11 […]
Read More →Open letter to Trade Minister David Parker
Thank you for your invitation to join you in Chile on 8th March, at my own expense, for the signing of the resurrected Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement that your own party in Opposition said was seriously flawed.
Read More →TPPA-11 Don’t Do It! Petition
Despite the government saying that they would refuse to support ratification of the TPPA and demanding independent economic and health analyses, and promising a new inclusive approach to trade and investment agreements, the new ‘progressive’ TPPA-11 is the same as before, with a small number of provisions suspended for now.
Read More →Why we must rally to stop this new TPPA Frankenstein
The TPPA rubber hits the road over the next three months. After an about-face on their opposition to the original deal, the Labour and NZ First have spun as hard as they can without even sounding convinced themselves.
Read More →Labour’s first post-Waitangi challenge: will it allow the Waitangi Tribunal to complete the TPPA inquiry?
There were lots of positives at Waitangi this week. There was also a lot of gloss, driven by hope (and perhaps primed by Shane Jones hospitality). Labour promised that it will be accountable to Maori. That promise faces a major test next week, as the Crown responds in the Waitangi Tribunal’s inquiry on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).
Read More →The zombie TPPA is back!
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.
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