Release the Text: Wellington Public Forum on the TPP

Monday 27th of June 2011

For Immediate Release

Wellington activists are hosting a public forum to focus attention and generate critical debate on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a trade and investment agreement currently under negotiation.

Speakers include Jane Kelsey (University of Auckland), Des O’Dea (University of Otago) and Thomas Beagle (Tech Liberty).

TPP Action Group Wellington will hold the forum at 6pm on Wednesday 6th of July 2011 in the mezzanine meeting room at the Wellington Public Library.

“The TPP 1 is not about ‘free trade.’ It’s about ripping the country open to multinational companies,” says Mary Ellen O’Connor of the TPP Action Group Wellington. “The TPP represents the great New Zealand sell-out. The fiasco over *The Hobbit*, and the Copyright Bill, would be just a taste of what is to come if the government goes ahead with the TPP. This forum will examine some of the impacts the TPP could have on our daily lives, and we invite Wellingtonians to join us.”

Jane Kelsey from the University of Auckland School of Law2 will put the TPP in a broad economic and geopolitical context, and explain the key international and local issues, including health policy, foreign investment, corporate versus sustainable agriculture, privatisation and financial stability.

Kelsey says proponents of the TPP have been over-ambitious and it may well collapse under its own weight, going the same way as the Doha round of the WTO and several other mega free-trade negotiations.

Thomas Beagle of Tech Liberty will talk about the impact of the TPP on New Zealand's intellectual property laws and the internet. He says the TPP is the latest attempt by the US to impose draconian policies on NZ to advantage US corporations while infringing the civil liberties of New Zealanders.

Des O’Dea, lecturer in health economics in the Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington3 will look at how the pharmaceuticals industry might be expected to go about calculating its selling prices on world markets, the procedures PHARMAC follows in assessing whether specific pharmaceuticals should qualify for subsidy and in negotiating prices with drug companies. He will also look at the estimated savings to New Zealand from Pharmac’s pricing strategies.

ENDS

© Scoop Media