28 January 2016

New TPPA study at odds with Govt report

A new US study on the impacts of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement casts doubt on the Government’s analysis of its impact and highlights the need for a truly open debate on the controversial deal, Opposition Leader Andrew Little says.

“A Tufts University analysis written by two senior UN economists shows the likely loss of 6000 jobs over the next decade and a transfer of wealth from working families to corporates under the TPPA.

“It is completely at odds with the Government’s own report which was based on information from before the agreement was completed and which fails to ask one of the most important questions about the deal – how will it affect employment?

“This has been left out of the Government’s analysis or it was never examined. Either way it is a serious omission.

“John Key has shut down any debate about the merits or otherwise of the deal when an open and transparent debate is in the country’s best interests, both on the economics of the TPPA and its erosion of our democratic rights.

“The TPPA allows other countries and big business to have a say on how laws are made in New Zealand. We lost the ability to restrict sales of our homes to overseas speculators even as Australia and other signatories carved this right out.

“Labour supports free trade but this agreement goes beyond trade and is an attack on our democracy. That is why we cannot support it in its current form.

“There can be no trade off between citizens’ rights and economic interests. We don’t put a price on our democracy. It is not for sale,” Andrew Little says.

http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1601/1601CapaldoIzurietaTPP_1.pdf

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