Media release

Government slagging TPPA opponents shows how weak its arguments are

“The continuous slagging and belittling of opponents of the TPPA, describing them as dupes and anti-trade, shows just how weak the Government’s arguments are,” says CTU National Secretary, Sam Huggard. He was commenting on recent statements by the Prime Minister John Key and Trade Minister Tim Groser.

“Rather than showing how out of touch they are with the genuine concerns of a fast growing number of New Zealanders, they should show us what is in the text so we can see for ourselves. They say that is never done in negotiations like these but it happens in the World Trade Organisation, it happened with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and it happened with the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.”

“They can’t have it both ways: dump on people who are worried by the TPPA by saying they don’t know what’s going to be in it, and then refuse to show them what’s in it. All they offer is to show us the text after the deal is done and it’s too late.”

“They have a record for hiding the truth by withholding official papers and pretending the papers support their story until they are released and the Government is found out. What are they hiding in the TPPA?”

“The 20 to 25 thousand New Zealanders who care enough to spend a Saturdayafternoon marching down the streets of 21 towns and cities are in excellent company,” Huggard said. “Economist Gareth Morgan, business journalist Bernard Hickey, the Libraries Association of New Zealand (LIANZA), Consumer NZ and Internet NZ are among those who have expressed their concerns here in New Zealand. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, prominent economists Jeffrey Sachs and Princeton University professor Dani Rodrik are among those who have condemned the proposed agreement as increasing inequality and corporate power when they should be reversed. The Productivity Commission in Australia has described such preferential trade agreements as “dangerous” and opposes giving investors the right to sue governments for huge sums in private international tribunals, which the Government has accepted in the TPPA. Hundreds of health experts around the TPPA countries, including the US, New Zealand and Australia, are clear that the proposed changes in intellectual property rules which they can see from leaked chapters will push up medicine prices, slow down innovation and make public health campaigns more difficult. Many local software innovators are furious at the protectionist intellectual property rules being negotiated.”

“None of these experts are anti-trade, let alone dupes. It’s time the Government woke up to the real concerns of thousands of New Zealanders and either released the text or called the deal off,” Huggard concluded.

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