5 November 2015
TPPA text finally released – too little, too late!
‘Today’s release of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement text ends the farcical situation where governments were
touting the benefits for the nation with no prospect of any independent assessment to contradict them,’ said University
of Auckland law Professor Jane Kelsey.
It is not clear whether this will also start the 90-day countdown before President Obama is allowed to sign the
agreement under US law, or whether any of the other countries would sign unilaterally before the US does.
But, Professor Kelsey points out, ‘the legal text is not enough on its own. We need to see the background documents that
help make sense of the text, but the parties have vowed to keep secret for effectively another six years.’
‘We also need the various analyses the New Zealand government has relied on when talking up the benefits and playing
down the costs. They have been coy about who has done this work, especially the projections of $2.7b benefits for the
economy, and stalled on Official Information Act requests to release them, despite the High Court’s rebuke last month’.
ends