On the ‘knowledge’ panel at the hui in October 2018 on What an Alternative and Progressive Trade Strategy for New Zealand, Professor Jane Kelsey explained how trade rules on ‘e-commerce’ would cement the dominance of Big Tech and close off our ability to shape the digital domain in the public good.
Documents I’ve obtained under the Official Information Act, although heavily redacted, show our government really has no idea of the implications.
In the past week Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been a cheerleader for free trade negotiations with the United Kingdom and European Union, aiming the finish the EU one within the year.
‘The message from the hui was very clear: we need to generate real alternatives that confront climate change and disruption, while supporting sustainable local businesses and jobs that pay a living wage, in a nation founded on te Tiriti o Waitangi.’
The Labour-New Zealand First government will be hoping that New Zealanders have got short memories as it celebrates the entry into force of the rebranded Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, minus the United States.
These days I feel depressed, cautiously optimistic, and frustrated at the same time.
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.
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.
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.
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.