The Trans-Pacific Partnership : A Free Trade Agreement?
The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) currently nearing its final stages of negotiation purports to be about increasing trade and economic co-operation among its twelve negotiating parties. These twelve countries include the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Significantly, it does not include China.
The agreement is being negotiated in conditions of extraordinary secrecy. Only recently have selected members of each countries legislatures been permitted to see the drafts. They have been taken to a secure room for that purpose. No copies can be taken. No notes may be made. They are sworn to secrecy about what they have seen, and to remain silent for a minimum of four years.
To describe this as “normal” in trade negotiations, as the Australian Trade Minister did, and other apologists persist in saying, is to create a whole new meaning for the word “normal”.
The overwhelming inference to be drawn from this secrecy is that it is clearly intended that the provisions of the TPP will not be brought before the parliament for debate and ratification. There is otherwise no rational point to a four-year gag order. Our parliament is purportedly comprised of representatives of the people. How they can reflect the views of the people they “represent” when the people are denied the most basic information is unclear. It is certainly not democratic.
Some details of the draft chapters have been leaked. Those leaks represent only a small proportion of the total, but they are sufficient to raise serious concerns about a number of issues, including the powers being given to multi-national (largely American) corporations at the expense of national sovereignty.
There is an almost identical negotiation going on between the United States and members states of the European Union. Similar concerns have been expressed in the European media as in the United States, albeit for different reasons. The Australian corporate media is notable for the absence of discussion, which can only be partially explained by the absence of details of the draft agreement. Sufficient is known for example about the proposed changes to the pharmaceutical regime, the most recently leaked material, to produce detailed critiques from Australian and New Zealand academics. This has been given widespread coverage in New Zealand, but in Australia there has been yet again little or no mainstream media coverage.
