OYE News are in Auckland to witness the TPPA protests and report to you about what exactly this deal could mean for New Zealand and other participating Countries.

On February 4th 2016 the biggest trade deal and most secretive trade deal in history, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), was signed in Auckland, New Zealand by Trade ministers from all the 12 countries involved in what has been named the  Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA).

Protesters brought central Auckland to a standstill in protest against the TPPA, the deal being dubbed one of the most secretive trade deals in history has caused uproar around the World and is seen by many as a deal purely to benefit multi-national Corporations rather than the people.

“It’s not a better life for the people; it’s a better life for the corporations who are wanting to take over.”

It’s no wonder people are sceptical of such a deal when the specifics of the deal have been kept in absolute secrecy from the public.

Labour’s spokesperson on Health Annette King said “The secrecy is so extreme that one memo ‘The Final Mandate’ dated the 3rd of October to senior cabinet ministers, has no surviving unredacted pages in it.”

TPP / TPPA Affects

So what affects could this deal have on the people of New Zealand as well as other Countries who have signed up for the deal:

• Most restrictions on foreign investment will be frozen and rolled back even further.
• Big overseas companies will be able to sue the New Zealand government for millions in damages in secretive offshore tribunals, claiming that new laws and regulations (for example, a ban on fracking, smoking control laws, or a cap on electricity prices) have seriously undermined the value of their investments.
• Medicines will become more expensive as big pharmaceutical companies gain more influence over PHARMAC, and restrictions are placed on generic medicines.
• Copyright laws will be toughened and more harshly enforced, restricting internet freedom and access to information, costing libraries, schools, and businesses, and stifling innovation.
• Policy decisions like the privatisation of state assets would be effectively locked in, and public interest policies such as measures to discourage smoking would be subject to strong legal challenges. Defending these laws can be extremely costly, and waste state resources.
• Foreign banks, insurance companies and money traders will gain more powers to challenge laws designed to prevent another financial crisis; and overseas property dealers could contest moves to burst the property bubble, such as a capital gains tax.

Potentially the TPPA could be the biggest transference of power from Government to Corporations we have ever seen.

The secrecy is so extreme that one memo ‘The Final Mandate’ dated the 3rd of October to senior cabinet ministers, has no surviving unredacted pages in it.

As you’d expect the mainstream media have been demonising protesters and activists attempting to give the impression that all the protests have been organised with the full intention of leading to violence – But this is clearly not the case and is just Mainstream propaganda to take the focus away from the specifics of the TPPA itself and onto the people attempting to fight it.

Watch how Auckland University Professor of Law Jane Kelsey is attacked on national television with the presenter attempting to place words into her mouth and direct the interview to how they wish the public to perceive protesters.

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