MEDIA STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,
TUESDAY, 15 OCTOBER 2013
“Senior Doctors Endorse Nurses Concerns Over Secret Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement Negotiations”
“Senior doctors endorse the concerns raised by nurses about the secret negotiations over the Trans Pacific Partnership
Agreement,” said Mr Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, today. Mr Powell
was commenting on the recent media statement by the NZ Nurses Organisation.
“Senior doctors have serious concerns about the secrecy of these negotiations and the government’s failure to provide
firm evidence that New Zealand’s ability to negotiate better drug prices through our drug buying agency Pharmac will not
be undermined by large American businesses.”
“Likewise the secrecy means a lack of confidence that New Zealand’s sovereign right to determine its own public health
policies, such as tobacco control, won’t be undermined by American business interests.”
“While the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement is supposed to be about free trade, the secrecy and government
ambivalence suggests that this freedom is about allowing overseas businesses to profit out of our public health system
at the expense of the rights of New Zealand patients,” concluded Mr Powell.
Ian Powell