The Trans-Pacific Partnership is no ordinary free trade deal. Billed as an agreement fit for the twenty-first century, no one is sure what that means. For its champions in New Zealand a free trade agreement with the US is a magic bullet – opening closed doors for Fonterra into the US dairy market. President Obama sells it as the key to jobs and economic recovery, while protecting home markets. Australia hails it as a foundation stone for an APEC-wide free trade agreement.

None of these arguments stacks up. All nine participant countries except Vietnam are heavily liberalised, deregulated and privatised.* They already have many free trade deals between them. Who really believes that US dairy markets will be thrown open to New Zealand, or that China, India and Japan will sign onto a treaty they had no role in designing?

No Ordinary Deal unmasks the fallacies of the TPPA. Experts from Australia, New Zealand, the US and Chile examine the geopolitical and security context of the negotiations and set out some of the costs for New Zealand and Australia of making trade-offs to the US simply to achieve a deal.

‘Trade’ agreement is a misnomer. The TPPA is not primarily about imports and exports. Its obligations will intrude into core areas of government policy and Parliamentary responsibilities. If the US lobby has its way, the rules will restrict how drug-buying agencies Pharmac (in New Zealand) and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (in Australia) can operate, and the kind of food standards and intellectual property laws we can have. Foreign investors will be able to sue the government for measures that erode their investment. The TPPA will govern how we regulate the finance industry or other services, along with our capacity to create jobs at home.

Above all, No Ordinary Deal exposes the contradictions of locking our countries even deeper into a neoliberal model of global free markets – when even political leaders admit that this has failed.

*The US, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Malaysia joined in October 2010.

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The Contributors

Jane Kelsey, Bryan Gould, Patricia Ranald, Lori Wallach, Todd Tucker, José Aylwin, Paul Buchanan, John Quiggin, Warwick Murray, Edward Challies, David Adamson, Geoff Bertram, Tom Faunce, Ruth Townsend, Susy Frankel, Jock Given, Ted Murphy, Bill Rosenberg, Nan Seuffert

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Contents

Introduction, Jane Kelsey

1. Bryan Gould: Political Implications for New Zealand

2. Patricia Ranald: The Politics of the TPPA in Australia

3. Lori Wallach and Todd Tucker: US Politics and the TPPA

4. José Aylwin: The TPPA and Indigenous Peoples: Lessons from Latin America

5. Paul G. Buchanan: Security Implications of the TPPA

6. John Quiggin: Lessons from the Australia–US Free Trade Agreement

7. Warwick Murray and Edward Challies: The TPPA, Agribusiness and Rural Livelihoods

8. David Adamson: Quarantine and Food Safety Issues in a TPPA

9. Geoff Bertram: Border Carbon Adjustments and Climate Change Policy

10. Thomas Faunce and Ruth Townsend: Public Health and Medicine Policies

11. Susy Frankel: Intellectual Property in New Zealand and the TPPA

Jock Given: Culture and Information

13. Ted Murphy: Government Procurement and Labour Issues

14. Bill Rosenberg: International Capital and Investment

Jane Kelsey: Trade in Services

16. Nan Seuffert and Jane Kelsey: The TPPA and Financial Sector Deregulation

Epilogue, Jane Kelsey

Endnotes

List of Abbreviations

List of Figures and Tables

List of Contributors

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Professor Jane Kelsey teaches at the University of Auckland. Known for her research on policy and politics, she is the author of several books shaping the critical debate both locally and internationally. The New Zealand Experiment (AUP/BWB, 1995) struck a chord with its analysis of the 1980s political ‘experiment’, and went into several reprints. Reclaiming the Future (BWB, 1999), co-published with the University of Toronto Press, took a hard look at globalisation and its economic impacts. Ranging over law, economics and politics, Jane Kelsey’s sharp intellect brings important analyses to the globalising world.

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