Media Release: Professor Jane Kelsey
Sunday 26 February 2012
Call to Censure Mike Moore for Co-hosting TPP Lobbying Bash for Big Oil, Tobacco & PhRMA in Washington DC
New Zealand’s Ambassador to the United States, Mike Moore, went ahead an co-hosted a $1500 a head lobbying bash at the
plush Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington DC on Friday night, despite calls for him to follow the lead of
Australian Ambassador Kim Beazley and decline to attend.
The “exclusive reception” was sponsored jointly by Philip Morris, PhRMA, Chevron Oil and Target, and was promoted as “a
unique gathering designed to establish and strengthen the critical person connections at the highest level of state
government with embassy and industry representatives”.
Moore was an official co-host representing the ambassadors from the nine countries involved in the Trans-Pacific
Partnership agreement negotiations. Reportedly only five of the nine actually attended.
The event has outraged tobacco control advocates, public health campaigners, environmentalists and labour organisations
who are campaigning against the TPPA.
Washington-based activists slipped past tight security at the Willard and handed spoof TPP menus to arriving guests with
offerings that included
Offshoring Edameme a le GE, drizzled with Chevron Amazonian oil spills,
Teenage smoking salmon toast points a la Philip Morris, served with lawsuits against plain packaging laws, and
Pfizer Filet Mignon, with sauce of attacks on cost-savings medicine formularies.
University of Auckland Professor Jane Kelsey, who has been strongly critical of the TPPA negotiations, described it as
“outrageous that the New Zealand ambassador was acting as host to corporate lobbyists who were buying access to TPP
ambassadors, among others, to press their cause”.
In a last-minute letter to New Zealand’s ministers of foreign affairs and trade on Friday, New Zealand, time, she urged
them to instruct Moore to pull out of the event, as Beazley had done.
Kelsey pointed to the government’s assurances it would defend Pharmac against concerted attacks from big PhRMA attack in
the TPPA negotiations, and its obligations under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to protect tobacco control
policies from influence by the tobacco industry – at a time when Philip Morris is suing the Australian government over
its plain packaging laws.
“If the government wants us to take seriously their assurances that they are looking after New Zealand’s interests they
need to censure Moore and ensure this conflict of interest never happens again”.
Ends.