Speech at Christchurch rally during National Day of Action Against The TPPA, 29/3/14.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is not yet a done deal and hopefully never will be. I recommend that you go to www.itsourfuture.org.nz for all the details about it. I’ll just make two points about it: the first is, if enacted, the TPPA will give transnational corporations (TNCs) the right to sue governments in secret international tribunals (this is called the investor/State dispute resolution mechanism). This is not a hypothetical situation – the precedent is NAFTA, the North America Free Trade Agreement, where US transnational corporations (TNCs) have successfully sued Canadian and Mexican central and provincial governments for tens of millions of dollars at a time, because those sovereign governments have done something deemed to be not in the interests of the American companies. Much closer to home, it is the mechanism being used by tobacco TNCs to currently sue the Australian government to try and stop the introduction of plain packaging, using existing so-called “free trade” agreements. It is this fact alone that makes the TPPA so dangerous; it is the means for US TNCs and their client US government to do the damage across so many sectors of our economy and society.

The second point is that we need to fight to retain what we’ve got left that does provide a public service, things such as Pharmac (which was established by a National government, as a matter of interest). Pharmac keeps down the price of prescription drugs and for that reason is hated by the giant pharmaceutical transnationals who are working through the US government to get rid of it as part of the TPPA. We need to retain Pharmac because it is in the public interest.

The proposed Agreement itself has changed shape radically in the years it has been on the political and transnational corporate agenda – it started off being tacked on to an obscure existing agreement among a handful of Asia/Pacific countries, including NZ and has now ballooned into the Big Daddy of such agreements, which is being used by the US to cement into place its’ “pivot to the Pacific”, to reassert its self-proclaimed role as the world’s sole superpower (there is a parallel drive to implement a trans-Atlantic agreement between the US and the European Union). But, regardless of what shape the TPPA takes, one thing remains constant – everything about it is shrouded in secrecy. All that anyone knows about it comes from leaks.

Agreements such as this are always misleadingly and deliberately called “free trade” agreements. In reality they are not about trade at all, or certainly not in the way that you and I understand that word. In a nutshell they are about making things easier for transnational corporations in every sense imaginable. The TPPA has been called a modern version of the aborted 1990s’ Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), which was defeated by a global campaign, including in NZ, which saw it for what it was – an attempt to formalise the privatisation and corporatisation of global governance. A major reason that it was defeated was that the essence of it was leaked and the world’s peoples were outraged by what was planned to be imposed upon them. Those negotiating (or selling out, in NZ’s case) the TPPA are very anxious that there no such slip up this time around. Once again there is, and has been for several years, a growing global campaign to defeat the TPPA. Here I must pay credit to the indefatigable Jane Kelsey – the people of the world, not just New Zealand, owe her a huge vote of thanks.

If NZ does not end being ensnared in the TPPA or, even better if the TPPA doesn’t come into existence; that would mean that we would keep a modicum of control over our own affairs. What is at stake here is national sovereignty, and there is no more important subject, indeed it’s been at the heart of the whole debate over the Treaty of Waitangi since 1840. Does that mean that CAFCA and other opponents of the TPPA are “anti-trade”? Of course not but we need to retain our national sovereignty, our ability to control our own destiny, and our right to pick and choose with whom we trade and which transnational corporations we let into our country and on what terms. I used the phrase “a modicum of control”, meaning that we’ve already lost plenty of our national sovereignty due to rushing lemming-like into a whole lot of other “free trade” agreements.

Secrecy Just Adds Insult To Injury

One thing needs to be clarified here – would the TPPA be OK if wasn’t secret? Short answer – no. The secrecy under which it is being negotiated simply adds insult to injury. The campaign to release the TPPA text is all well and good, and sunshine is an essential ingredient of the democratic process, but the primary problem is the TPPA itself. New Zealand, whether led by either National or Labour governments, has been far too willing to relate to other countries and transnational corporations on their, rather than our, terms. Apologists describe this approach as “realistic”, that a small country like ours has no choice but to behave that way. History proves them wrong. I only need to mention the nuclear free policy, whereby NZ decided to put its own interests first for a change. Doomsayers predicted that the sky would fall – a generation of New Zealanders has grown up knowing no other reality and the sky still seems to be very much in place. Defenders of ‘free trade” agreements say that NZ’s current salvation is the Free Trade Agreement we have with China (the foreign policy high point of the last Labour government). But NZ would have reached that situation with China by means of normal trade; the Agreement has encouraged us to foolishly put all our eggs into one basket (the one marked “dairy products for China”); and we are seeing a systematic buy up of every sector of that very same dairy industry in NZ by Chinese transnational corporations and rich individuals, enabled by the terms of the Agreement. That is an unacceptably high price to pay.

I need to briefly mention another secret agreement, one to which New Zealand has covertly belonged since the late 1940s. I’m talking about the UKUSA Agreement, now referred to as Five Eyes, which is represented in this country by the GCSB and the Waihopai spy base (so this monster not only has five eyes, it has two balls). The GCSB is a junior subcontractor to its US Big Brother, the National Security Agency (NSA)

All of the revelations in the past couple of years about the GCSB, which have come to light as a result of the spectacularly bungled Kim Dotcom case, have proven just how the NZ State, including its covert arms such as the GCSB, plays a very subordinate, even servile, role when doing the bidding of the TNCs – the Hollywood music, movie and entertainment giants in the case of Dotcom. To quote a media commentator, writing in the National Business Review in March 2013: “Our spies’ principal mission used to be the defence of the realm. Today’s GCSB is about the protection of corporate property”. The US makes no bones about the fact that its’ State, including its covert agencies, exists to “serve America’s interests”. It wants to ram through the TPPA this year, which will greatly benefit US TNCs across the whole economic spectrum. Have no doubt that US agencies will be spying on the other governments and leaders involved in the negotiations, including Barack Obama’s best friend forever and golfing buddy John Key. Rest assured that the NSA and its sub-contractors in the GCSB will be spying on opponents of the TPPA in every relevant country, including NZ. Edward Snowden’s revelations from within the NSA make clear the close working relationship between the US covert State and US Internet and telecommunications TNCs. What we’re talking about is covert State agencies working hand in glove with TNCs in the interests of corporate colonisation.

What can we do about it? The people of the world, and of New Zealand, defeated the MAI in the 1990s with a grassroots campaign that was both national and international. To use a phrase much beloved by the Western press when applied to other countries – we need a People Power movement. That campaign has to be from the grassroots up, not from the top down. It should work in partnership with a political party or parties, but not be dependent on the Parliamentary process – that should only be part of the campaign, not the be all and end all. New Zealanders have a wealth of experience in campaigning, we are very good at it, world leading in some instances, and you don’t need me to tell people how to do that. This country needs People Power to let the world know that Aotearoa is not for sale! How we do that is up to us, the people of this country. So let’s get on with it.