The Prime Minister's claims to the Infrastructure Investment Summit in Auckland today, that his Government is committed to a rules-based multilateral trading system, are undermined by his Government’s repeated breaches of the environment chapters of recent free trade agreements, says Greenpeace.

"The Prime Minister today is making his pitch to international investors that his Government is committed to a rules-based international trading system while simultaneously undermining that system by breaching New Zealand’s free trade agreements with the European Union and the United Kingdom," says Dr Russel Norman, Greenpeace Aotearoa Executive Director.

"The environment chapters of the free trade agreements between New Zealand and the European Union and the United Kingdom create binding obligations on New Zealand.

"However, the New Zealand Government has been systematically breaching these agreements by weakening environmental protections in order to gain trade advantage.

"New Zealand Ministers have made it clear that they do not intend to meet the commitments made by New Zealand under the Paris Climate Agreement. But meeting those Paris commitments is explicitly required under the terms of the free trade agreements.

"Likewise, New Zealand Ministers have made statements that they plan to weaken freshwater protection rules to create trade advantages for New Zealand agribusiness. This has alarmed our trading partners as weakening environmental protections to gain trade advantage is specifically ruled out under the free trade agreements," says Norman.

Questions on New Zealand’s commitment to the environmental chapters have already been raised in the UK and EU Parliaments.

Norman says, "Luxon can’t have his cake and eat it too. Either his government is committed to the free trade agreements, which include binding environmental chapters, or it is not.

"The European Union and the United Kingdom have made it clear that trade commitments are predicated on environmental commitments.

"If Luxon wants to present himself as committed to a rules-based multilateral international system then he needs to also be committed to New Zealand’s international environmental agreements," says Norman.

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