Harawira Calls For Full Disclosure On TPPA

MANA leader Hone Harawira is calling on the government to release all details of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) which US president Barack Obama announced there had been preliminary agreement on.

Mr Harawira says MANA has consistently opposed the US led agreement between nine countries including NZ being negotiated in secret.

He says there is no reason for Deputy PM Bill English and Trade Minister Tim Groser, who have been in Hawaii at the APEC summit where President Obama made the announcement, to keep NZers in the dark any longer.

Mr Harawira says MANA is particularly concerned that the secret TPPA negotiations included measures which would:

* limit government's drug buying agency Pharmac's ability to negotiate lower prices with international drug companies

* determine which agencies, mechanisms and processes our government should use when deciding on domestic regulations

* further weaken our manufacturing base and lead to the closure of more NZ businesses

* lead to even greater pressure for wages to be lowered

* allow foreign investors to sue NZ in overseas courts if they disagreed with NZ government decisions

* contravene the principle of Maori sovereignty in the Treaty of Waitangi and the sovereignty of the NZ government itself.

"I signalled my opposition in a strongly worded memo to my colleagues at the time, but the Maori Party supported it anyway" said Harawira. "It was just one of the many reasons I had to leave the Maori Party."

"Maori will never forget the devastating job losses caused by Rogernomics, and the TPPA will cause even more havoc in Maori communities already suffering massive unemployment rates.

"Do we really want to go through that again?"

Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly said New Zealanders must be shown the deal before was signed. Former Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimmons said it would give away the freedom of our children to determine their own futures. Dr Gay Keating, National Executive Officer, Public Health Association of New Zealand said we should not be bullied into bad laws which would make for bad health and Andrew Campbell, Finsec Campaigns Director said it would straight-jacket us with the kind of laws which lead to the cowboy activities of the 1980's.

"Opposition to the TPPA is growing" said Harawira "and government would do well to heed the warning - walk away from the TPPA before it buries us all."

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