Press Release
MANA Vice President John Minto

Monday 3rd December

MANA is calling on the government to open up to public scrutiny the TPPA (Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement) negotiations which start their 15th round in Auckland today at the Prime Minister’s favourite venue – Sky City Casino.

“We want to see the TPPA abandoned and the clear light of day is the best weapon to expose these secret negotiations between governments and international corporations” says MANA Vice President John Minto.

“The decisions here are too big to be made by just a few right-wing National cabinet ministers – democracy demands community debate and input. It’s an outrage it won’t even be debated in Parliament before our government signs up”.

“What we know about the TPPA so far from various leaks is that it involves the government giving away our sovereignty for some future pie in the sky”.

“Major concerns include:

1. That TPPA is a Bill of Rights for corporate multinationals to plunder the New Zealand economy even more easily than they can at present.

2. It will tightly constrict any future New Zealand government from regulating any area of our economy in the national interest of New Zealanders.

3. Our government will be open to being sued in international tribunals if it regulate in a way which could reduce profits of foreign corporates.

4. It will mean greater expense for us buying drugs, accessing entertainment, etc …

“The negotiations involve 29 chapters – of which only five deal with trade in goods. The others are demand lists from foreign (mainly US) corporates”.

“The capitulation to Warner Brothers over the Hobbit movies is small change compared to what is planned here. Every sector of our economy will be given the Warner Brothers treatment”.

“Prime Minister John Key has shown he doesn’t have the ability to do decent deals for New Zealand. He’s a walkover for any corporate”.

“New Zealand is set to agree to these concessions in the mournful hope we may get future access to US markets for our dairy products. However even if the US agrees to some future access it will take as long to increase dairy exports to the US as it’s taken to get apples into Australia”.

“We are selling our sovereignty for pie in the sky”.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

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