Aotearoa Is Not For Sale Wellington fights for democracy

Aotearoa Is Not For Sale Wellington will illustrate how the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) will leave New Zealand defenceless to corporate power at noon at Midland Park today.

The pro-sovereignty group will hold a boxing match to illustrate the power the TPPA will grant the trans-national corporations, who are driving the global financial crisis, currently being negotiated behind closed doors in Auckland.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), often described as NAFTA (North American Trade Agreement) on steroids, involves eleven Asian and Pacific-rim countries including the United States, with the aim to extend it to all 21 APEC countries.

“Aotearoa Is Not For Sale Wellington is deeply concerned that the government intends to sign the Nation up to a binding international agreement with the same disregard to public interest as it had when it decided to sell our state assets, ” Aotearoa is Not For Sale Wellington spokesperson Ariana Paretutanganui-Tamati says.

“The government has already shown it has no interest in hearing the views of the people when it comes to making decisions involving our land, our environment and collective resources. The agreement will benefit multi-national corporations, not the general public nor small and medium sized business, which makes up the vast majority of industry in Aotearoa. It’s our right to have a say.”

“We challenge John Key to show us the projections or assumptions of how the TPPA can actually benefit New Zealand. We strongly doubt there will be anything in this Agreement for the ordinary New Zealander. The vast majority of us stand gain nothing and lose all, including our rights and sovereignty, if John Key and the negotiators sign us up to the TPPA”.

Aotearoa Is Not For Sale Wellington is particularly concerned the Investor State Dispute Settlement provision in the agreement that will allow foreign corporations that want to ‘protect’ their profits to be able to sue governments in secret international tribunals.

“Aotearoa Is Not For Sale Wellington continues to call on the government to follow Australia’s lead in acting to protect its own citizens and taxpayers from the bullying of international corporations like the tobacco companies, which are currently opposing the plain packaging of cigarettes,” Ms Paretutanganui-Tamati says.

“We are saying to the handful of government officials and John Key, who know what is in the agreement, to expose the text and not to sign away our future. No individual, including the Prime Minister, has the right to sign away our future and sovereignty without our consent. We are calling for an end to these undemocratic negotiations and to this treacherous Agreement.”

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Arguably Reassuring: Inspector-General Finds GCSB "Arguably" Legal

Of the 88 individuals:

• 15 cases involving 22 individuals did not have any information intercepted by GCSB.

• another four cases involving five individuals were the subjects of a New Zealand Security Intelligence Service warrant and the GCSB assisted in the execution of the warrants. The Inspector-General is of the view that there were arguably no breaches and the law is unclear.

• the Bureau only provided technical assistance which did not involve interception of communications, involving three of the individuals, so no breach occurred.

• the remaining cases involved the collection of metadata, and the Inspector-General formed the view that there had arguably been no breach, noting once again that the law is unclear.
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