Are you asking yourself what is the point of continuing to protest the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA or maybe the No China Club.) Well this post is mostly an explanation of New Zealanders, by New Zealanders, for New Zealanders. We take our country seriously, yeah nah you do. Maybe I should warn you that this issue often causes us to emote using strong language and other means!

Protest has a long and forgotten history in Aotearoa. From white women’s lib to nuclear tests we have enjoyed a tense medium history with Uncle Sam (US). This has lead our government to become infatuated with multinational investors/corporations for at least 30 years, as symbolised recently at our annual Treaty of Waitangi commemorations. Our politicians have been very coy about this engagement, as they didn’t want us Kiwis to get too excited or start thinking of previous historic elopements, before we were all of sudden hitched to the secretive TPPA. This literally why we started protesting way too early in the morning, we didn’t even know.

But now we do know what we are talking about, yeah right… sort of. With a bit of luck somehow the secret negotiating documents that will be used to interpret the text of this prenuptial agreement will be leaked on the internet, then hopefully made into a Hollywood movie sometime in the next six years. Meanwhile for the next two years following the February 4th signing we will just have to be content watching re-releases or pirate remixes of previous activism titles until the deal is either fully ratified or ‘catified’.

I am pleased to now finally be able to sit down behind a desk and make a submission to a New Zealand Select Committee on the TPPA. Like many thousands of Kiwis I have requested/protested for one way or another to have my voice heard. Today, knowing that the text has finally been released and independent peer-reviewed analysis is available, isn’t it not easier for anyone like myself living on the streets of the internet to understand “What is the TPPA?”

Well, as I only have until the 11th of March I better keep moving along. To motivate myself to become informed enough to make a submission, I spent ninety seconds or less on average previewing each video of white people talking about things related to the TPPA, selected by algorithm from the YouTube network, keeping backup copies of the one’s I liked to manipulate more thoroughly later. Amirite guys and/or gals? ;)

Yes unsurprisingly I have discovered that to #InformTheProtestors of what they should be talking/shouting about I need share information, initially over the internet. I commenced with private email then moved sheeplike on to other social media data based in the United States of America (US). Since this is where the National Security Agency (NSA) heads efforts to infringe the World’s Human Rights by keeping a copy of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex. Though any free trade agreement (FTA) would involve giving up something through negotiations in return for something else, it’s unsettling to me to think I should be in favour of every trade deal simply because trade = good. Our government is just bent on searching out how everything relates to the price of milk.

I’ve heard the explanation of comparative advantage before, but though it was colourful it wasn’t put in the context of Aotearoa. To be able to buy the things we love like movies, we need to be able to produce things that other consumers love like milk and sell it to them. Because each country produces things at different rates, [and maybe earn what they deserve from the invisible hand of the market,] it should make sense to agree to trade with other nations on a level playing field (through an FTA.) So goods overall will theoretically be cheaper and wages higher when we are allowed to do what we do best;

However when tariffs were lowered, as in past agreements like our FTA with China, many children had to stop the trade they were apprenticed for and study something else, like international law. There are still environmental problems damaging NZ Inc.’s ability to exploit our rivers for tourism and fishing. These are reasons to write a submission on the TPPA even if you are a rent-a-crowd protester who opposes every trade deal fair. I’m not sure at the last election if I voted but we’ll get to that next time.

I understand that it would be better to write, rewrite and edit my own submission even though there are alternative methods. I’ve tried to focus on the interrelated issues of The undermining of our democracy (ie. secret tribunals, secret negotiations), Internet protections and privacy and The cost to consumers for copyright extensions. I love feeling free to trade copies of anything across the internet that is fair use, and weigh in with my own comments as I go, at a marginal cost to my remaining submission time. But the real advantage of the internet is that it costs virtually nothing to produce copies of imaginary goods, while we are free to share what we think is best and we can then afford to spend more time on other important stuff :) Following on from my InformTheProtestors effort, Robbie Nicol is still waiting patiently behind a desk… for me to catch up. Thanks for waiting Robbie :D

Treaties (or trade deals that weren’t specifically about reducing tariffs if you will) like the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) obviously would have been more effective if there were consequences for countries like Canada breaking the deal. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has the supra-national power to enforce trade agreements because countries ratified the Marrakesh Agreement. Joining the TPPA may similarly have serious consequences unlike joining the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

This is largely why the European Union (EU) is developing an alternative to the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) supra-national justice system in the TPPA. If something isn’t in the TPPA, like the words “Climate Change” or the spirit of democracy for instance, it is effectively incompatible with other treaties in which that something is included. How much can be negotiated into a trade deal is comparable to how much can be put on a beast of burden before it spasms wildly. Reflecting how long and how loudly one protests abusive demands. Be they; present US based multinational investors/corporations; past supra-national-powers like the European Economic Community (EEC, repackaged as the EU on the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon;) or future superpowers like China (negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which is viewed as an alternative to the TPPA).

Examples of other acronyms where the US trade representative (USTR)/lobbyists have failed and succeeded to avoid politically damaging protests in time for countries to refuse the deal include;

Fails

• MAI
• FTAA
• SOPA (a controversial US piracy bill or the Spanish word for soup)
• ACTA

Successes

• NAFTA (TPPA before using steroids and pride of the Clinton family multimillionaires)
• AUSFTA
• CAFTA-DR
• KORUS

I have sent in the petition I had to print out and sign by hand, nevertheless I still have a chance to collect signatures in person, highly unlikely as further NZ — US dairy tariffs reduction opportunities will be

I must also #InformTheCabinet by contributing this to the Select Committee’s report and send an important message to all political parties and MP’s about the kind of society, we, the voters, want prioritised in 2017 since unfortunately our parliament will not get to vote on the TPPA

If I don’t have time to be as fly on the details of this overblown duck as University of Auckland Business School Professor Tim Hazeldine I could rent-a-petition/submission

http://nzfirst.org.nz/news/tppa-overblown-duck-yet-fly

http://www.labour.org.nz/tppa_petition

http://action.greens.org.nz/tppa

http://tppafacts.co.nz/take-action

http://itsourfuture.org.nz/take-action/

I have not read the Kiwi expert papers on local government or copyright yet but the first five papers were clear and helpful, and require only minor proofreading

https://tpplegal.wordpress.com/

At the end of the day most New Zealanders will agree that as an example of international rules for future trade deals the TPPA is guaranteed to be huge

http://tpp.mfat.govt.nz/

And finally, if we really wanted to take a pot shot at New Zealand Prime Minister’s policy regime we would vote down his new flag pole

“For the Government to set its focus on whether we need a new New Zealand flag I think would be a very foolish thing to do when you are trying to deal with big international economic issues.” — John Key http://www.nzflag.com/press_09022010.cfm