Media Release
Sunday 6 November 2011
TPPA referendum needed
"Under the proposals in a recently leaked United States position paper on regulatory coherence for the Transpacific
Partnership Agreement the government's ability to create regulations to handle emergencies such as Christchurch's recent
Earthquakes could disappear" says John Ring, Democrats for Social Credit’s Foreign Affairs spokesman.
"This paper requires that there be a registry of regulations which, among other things would inform its readers of any
proposals for regulations that were likely to come up in the year.
"This would not usually be a problem, except in three circumstances.
"If there is a change of government during the year the new government would probably seek to get some things done
quickly, so they are likely to want to pass regulations that the previous government did not anticipate. Such
regulations would not have been notified at the start of the year.
"If there is a natural disaster various forms of regulation (for example curfews, cordons, compulsory demolitions,
changes to Social Welfare policies) are likely to happen at times when nobody would have predicted them a month
previously.
"Lastly, if there is a man-made disaster all sorts of measures may be required to cope with it, and people are more
likely to resort to litigation than in a natural disaster, so there would be a high probability of expensive cases in
international tribunals in this type of situation.
"Because the restrictions on regulations would be in an international treaty they would override constitutions, and
anything with constitutional force or greater that restricts lawmaking ability should be subject to a referendum.
"Thus, the New Zealand government should not agree to the US proposals for regulatory coherence except if they are
supported by a referendum in New Zealand."
ENDS