Media Release

Sunday 6 November 2011

TPPA referendum needed

"Under the proposals in a recently leaked United States position paper on regulatory coherence for the Transpacific Partnership Agreement the government's ability to create regulations to handle emergencies such as Christchurch's recent Earthquakes could disappear" says John Ring, Democrats for Social Credit’s Foreign Affairs spokesman.

"This paper requires that there be a registry of regulations which, among other things would inform its readers of any proposals for regulations that were likely to come up in the year.

"This would not usually be a problem, except in three circumstances.

"If there is a change of government during the year the new government would probably seek to get some things done quickly, so they are likely to want to pass regulations that the previous government did not anticipate. Such regulations would not have been notified at the start of the year.

"If there is a natural disaster various forms of regulation (for example curfews, cordons, compulsory demolitions, changes to Social Welfare policies) are likely to happen at times when nobody would have predicted them a month previously.

"Lastly, if there is a man-made disaster all sorts of measures may be required to cope with it, and people are more likely to resort to litigation than in a natural disaster, so there would be a high probability of expensive cases in international tribunals in this type of situation.

"Because the restrictions on regulations would be in an international treaty they would override constitutions, and anything with constitutional force or greater that restricts lawmaking ability should be subject to a referendum.

"Thus, the New Zealand government should not agree to the US proposals for regulatory coherence except if they are supported by a referendum in New Zealand."

ENDS

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