Speaker: TPP: This is a fight worth joining
52 Responses
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Thanks, Hadyn, appreciate the updated scarey preçis. I wonder if it will eke out long enough for Cunliffe to be our main man, If so, where will he take us?
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Should be an interesting debate about the TPPA between Wayne Mapp and Jane Kelsey on opposite sides tonight in Auckland.
As far as I’m aware it s about the first time that one of the supporters of the TPPA has fronted up. Personally I suspect that Jane Kelsey will cream him.
http://cdn.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Putting-the-TPPA-to-the-Test.pdf
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Thanks for this Hadyn, I appreciate it a lot.
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The TPPA in its current form will be even more pointless if farm subsidies remain a sacred cow, and the ICT sector treated as expendable, by which point it will simply become an excuse to have an East India Company with cellphones.
Aside from InternetNZ, where do our local techpreneurs like Rod Drury, Sam Morgan and Selwyn Pellett stand on it?
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I think we're screwed. A TPP between the "small" pacific countries was a good idea for NZ.
But the inclusion of the large anti-competitive, protectionist countries like Japan and the US means that the TPP is likely to be very bad for NZ since it is likely to include provisions that are anything but "free-trade".
But we can't walk away now because a TPP that excluded NZ could easily be the worst outcome ... or maybe not depending on just how bad the TPP is for the small economies.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
But the inclusion of the large anti-competitive, protectionist countries like Japan and the US means that the TPP is likely to be very bad for NZ since it is likely to include provisions that are anything but “free-trade”.
But we can’t walk away now because a TPP that excluded NZ could easily be the worst outcome … or maybe not depending on just how bad the TPP is for the small economies.
Australia's experiences with the US-AUS-FTA are a cautionary tale, especially if you ask its farmers. I'm still of the view that no deal is better than a bad deal.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
But the inclusion of the large anti-competitive, protectionist countries like Japan and the US means that the TPP is likely to be very bad for NZ since it is likely to include provisions that are anything but "free-trade".
I agree completely. Allowing the US in was a huge mistake.
But we can't walk away now because a TPP that excluded NZ could easily be the worst outcome
I don't think so. What's that deal China and ASEAN are working on? It strikes me as being the better one to be involved in.
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Schrödinger's Trade Agreement...
Why would we want to enter a Free Trade Agreement with a country that owes at least $US16 trillion (and gawd knows how many dollars there are in existence these days) and has ground to a halt because of a bid to borrow more?Time to cut up their credit cards methinks...
Keep up the good work Hadyn!
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I did enjoy the US press briefing which rather downplayed John Key's role:
Secretary Kerry served as the head of – took the President’s place and played a very important role in the meeting both in terms of presenting the U.S. perspective but also in helping to lead the discussion with Prime Minister Key of New Zealand. New Zealand serves as the secretariat, so to speak, of TPP, and so he played that role accordingly.
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This Knowledge Ecology International paper, Evolving Copyright and the Relationship With the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, offers a detailed and highly useful update on the copyright/IP elements of TPP negotiations.
It's notable how the USTR position tramples not only on existing US law, but on explicit White House positions. You have to ask who is running this thing.
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lprent, in reply to
Generally the tech sector views it with trepidation. A agreement designed to make it easier to sell milk powder trading off our fastest growing export sectors? Haven't found a tech manager/investor yet who views it with anything apart from disquiet.
Doesn't offer us anything and gives us the negative creativity of US style patent/copyright system. Personally I didn't spend a lot of time and effort becoming a greenfield programmer so I could start acting as a lawyer.
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That J-Pop video is actually pretty cool. It's funny how the concerns raised from an economy so different from NZ could be so similar, though it probably should be expected.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
downplayed John Key’s role
i.e. he kept the minutes. I hope his typing skills were up for it and they didn't make him run and get tea and biscuits too often.
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The TPPA could limit our local creative industries also. It would make local quotas for TV or music illegal (unfair favouring of local suppliers). Although we don't have quotas at the moment they've worked really well in Australia and we might need them in future. This method of assuring local culture creation could soon be lost to us.
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A TPP between the "small" pacific countries was a good idea for NZ
But they already buy lots of stuff from us, and are mostly constrained by having no money.
Generally, if we make things people want, they'll buy them, free trade agreement or not. Even if they hate and despise us and refuse to deal, they'll buy them from someone else, using up their production, so we'll sell more elsewhere.
I've never found a free trade agreement of any use in selling things overseas. The only thing that would be useful is an open border agreement like the European Single Market, so that goods can be shipped between states without customs inspection, but that has never been on offer, even with Australia.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I’ve never found a free trade agreement of any use in selling things overseas.
You may not be looking hard enough. NZ’s exports to China have trebled since the signing of the China-NZ FTA in early 2008. See the graph. That FTA was and is crucial to our economy.
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Sacha, in reply to
You have to ask who is running this thing.
Powerful US industry lobbies who as Hadyn notes have had privileged access to the negotiations all along (unlike our own parliament).
Groser and chums are utterly deluded if they think our farmers will get better access to the US, but they're stupid enough to negotiate away our future IP-based industries on that prospect. Milk powder for everyone. Huzzah.
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So John Key is saying the opposite now from 2003. What is he going to do when he is no longer PM? Do a Helen Clark? Unlikely. But there are surely openings for gamblers like inside the WTO or the World Bank.Oh..and Tim Groser has been in the running for some seats as well recently. Now who would be voting for those positions?
Looking after citizens? Nope.
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I wonder what would happen to any FTA if the USA becomes a fractured or divided country? - they sure seem hellbent on fomenting insurrection at the moment...
I'd want some clause in there that said if the level of democratic process or basic freedoms drop below a certain point it all becomes void, or somesuch. -
Islander, in reply to
I wonder what would happen to any FTA if the USA becomes a fractured or divided country?
*This* is not an impossibility, and has been contemplated & signalled by USA writers since the 1940s-
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I’m worried for New Zealander’s access to affordable medicines through Pharmac.
And beyond that, the availability of generic pharmaceuticals is a global issue. If the TPP is agreed in the form that is feared, it could have implications for access to affordable medicines all over the world, particularly if its provisions become a new global standard. New rules under the TPP could stop the flow of affordable generics, extending monopoly protection, reducing competition, and therefore keeping prices high. Proposed provisions prolong patent protection, including by extending (by 20 years) patents for modifications to existing drugs such as changes in formulations and dosages – even if the changes do not alter efficacy for patients. It is also proposed to make diagnostic, therapeutic, and surgical methods patentable.
I’m working in South Africa at present for Medecins Sans Frontieres, and we can only do what we’re doing because the drugs given to our patients cost around US$140 a year, rather than the US$10,000 it would’ve cost a decade ago. MSF wrote an open letter to TPP countries to express its concern, because generic competetion saves lives.
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linger, in reply to
NZ’s exports to China have trebled since the signing of the China-NZ FTA in early 2008. See the graph. That FTA was and is crucial to our economy.
… although the impact on NZ’s balance of trade is less clear-cut, as NZ imports from China have also risen since the FTA, though not in the same proportion. Long-term the FTA will be less positive for NZ (our exports to China being largely low-value-added bulk commodity products whose market price may be expected to increase proportionally less than the higher-value-added goods we currently import from China).
There is a tendency for Ministers championing trade agreements to focus only on the potential for increased exports; but that’s at best misleading. FTAs don’t automatically change the balance of trade, unless there is some real initial imbalance of trade restrictions that is reduced under the terms of the agreement (which, arguably, was achieved, in NZ’s favour, in the China deal). If that does not happen, an FTA is essentially only a catalyst, allowing increased trade volumes in both directions without affecting the balance point.
As described in this post, TPP looks like it could have a nett effect of imposing extra trade restrictions on NZ, changing the balance point to NZ’s detriment – but without much more detail, that’s really difficult to assess. -
Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Cause and effect? The Chinese economy has grown rapidly in that period. In particular, the middle class (who consume our dairy products) have grown greatly in numbers and wealth. Consumption of raw materials (such as timber and coal, especially before construction and hence the steel input complex slumped) has also grown.
I think that has more to do with import growth than the FTA.
The US does not have an FTA with China, right? Their exports have also grown similarly:
http://www.ibtimes.com/us-exports-china-have-grown-294-over-past-decade-1338693 -
Although there is a hint of instant gratification (I want my new show and I want it now...!!) regarding access to film and TV shows, there is an important issue around the monopolisation of content by one dominant player in NZ pay-TV. Certainly, Sky got off far too lightly in the recent conclusions from the Commerce Commission.
So many battles to be fought. Firstly, the GCSB Bill, and now the TPP ....
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Judith Fursdon, in reply to
As a mental health client, I take a range of medications, but the two most effective are the expensive ones. I really do fear the measures that Pharmac will have to take in order to keep their budget under control. After all, there are similar drugs in the same class as the ones I take, and many of them are off-patent. De-funding these expensive ones in order to provide more access to more drugs for more people is understandable - and it would be catastrophic for me and many others who have played medication roulette for a long time and finally found something that works.
I know my perspective on this rather large topic is very narrow and personal. The bigger issues matter too, and I know they will affect me in different ways, but this is the way that would do the most damage to my family and I.
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