5 May 2016
‘Pathetic’ select committee report on TPPA shows inquiry needed into treaty-making process
‘The travesty of democracy that has enveloped the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) from day one continued with
a pathetic report released by the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade committee yesterday’, says University of Auckland
law professor Jane Kelsey.
‘Other countries are confronting the democratic deficit surrounding such negotiations and reviewing how governments can
better respond to people’s legitimate concerns. In New Zealand, there has been an unprecedented groundswell of criticism
of the TPPA from health professionals and economists, from Maori, unions and the tech industry. The government has
treated them all with contempt.’
Professor Kelsey described the select committee process as ‘a total farce’. The report was written while submissions
were still being heard, after the government fast forwarded the report date by three weeks. The reasons were never
explained, but were likely intended to pressure the Waitangi Tribunal in writing their report on the TPPA, which is now
scheduled for release later today.
Kelsey said the government majority on the committee ‘might as well have not bothered attending the hearings. Their
contribution is a truncated version of MFAT’s patsy National Interest Analysis tabled in Parliament and which forms the
bulk of the report.’
All the opposition parties criticised the secrecy of negotiations and truncated committee process.
Labour has said they will vote against ratifying the TPPA ‘as it stands’. But their minority report addresses only two
narrow issues: foreclosing the right to ban foreign purchasers of residential housing and the economic modelling.
Anything that was critical of previous agreements that Labour negotiated was ignored, including investor-state dispute
settlement (ISDS), despite clear evidence that is highly problematic.
Both the Greens and New Zealand First go deeper, with the Greens proposing some interesting ideas about processes for
future agreements.
But Professor Kelsey insists that ‘ad hoc changes are not enough. We desperately need an independent inquiry into the
treaty-making process that is freed from the overpowering influence of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’.
‘This is urgent. The government is currently engaged in three other major negotiations that are being conducted under
the same shroud of secrecy and have potentially far-reaching consequences – including a round of negotiations for the
16-country Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership in mid-June in Auckland for which no information is about
engagement is yet available.’
ends