John Armstrong wrote a good piece in the Saturday NZ Herald on Key’s trip to Japan last week for APEC and talks on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).
I would have missed it because was consumed with other matters, so thanks to Eddie at The Standard for your piece on it.
I first wrote about the TPP on Red Alert in May.
My interest is in NZ ensuring it doesn’t sell out our ability to control out intellectual property, particularly in the digital environment. New Zealand produced content is our economic edge. It’s also our identity.
I remain alert. And thanks for the funny bits in your piece John.
PS: The TPP is a grouping of nine countries – New Zealand, Brunei, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, the United States, Australia and Malaysia - currently negotiating a free trade pact which would phase-down tariffs to zero in all sectors. Japan is thinking about joining up.
I believe they’re about to have the fourth TPP meeting in Auckland in early December. It’d be great to get involved – but once again we seem to be following the ACTA model where the governments intend to negotiate and then present the people with a fait accompli.
I personally believe that the publicity and protest around ACTA meant that a lot of the worst aspects were removed or significantly watered down.
Therefore the first thing we need to do for the TPP is to ensure that the negotiations are open and that drafts are released periodically.
Perhaps you should also listen to this discussion from Radio New Zealand from yesterday morning.
http://static.radionz.net.nz/assets/audio_item/0019/2435023/sun-20101121-0940-Lori_Wallach-m048.asx
Frankly, it appears a total waste of time and effort having the US as a ‘partner’ in this .
‘a free trade pact which would phase-down tariffs to zero in all sectors’
*laff*
A good way to keep in touch with what’s happening on the TPP front is the website TPP Digest http://tppdigest.org/. Another good one is the recent book “No Ordinary Deal: Unmasking the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement”. Scoop has some coverage of this at http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1011/S00125/no-ordinary-deal-book-launch-pm-response.htm.
Lots of things to watch carefully.
Must be said that reading books is easier on the arms than waving signs. And definitely more appropriate when wearing a bikini.
@Commonsense touche