What exactly has changed?

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for TransPacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a free trade agreement negotiated by 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. They include four of New Zealand’s top 10 trading partners (Australia, Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia), and four countries with which New Zealand does not have a free trade agreement (Japan, Canada, Mexico and Peru).

It represents a significant opportunity for New Zealand exporters, opening up markets with a combined population of 480 million people, who already consume nearly a third of our overall exports.

However, the changes the government claims to have made to the TPP amount to very little. It has not negotiated a single change to the market access provisions from the original TPP. They are naturally defensive, because they spent so much time telling the public the TPP was bad. They promised their supporters they wouldn’t vote for it. They said the market access agreements were “rubbish,” in respect of dairy, and the rest “didn’t amount to much”.

We are saying it’s essentially the same deal, which is why the government has been prone to exaggerating minor changes to things like investor state dispute settlements (ISDS). How minor are those changes? They amount to two pages on top of the same 6000-page agreement National was negotiating.

Clauses around ISDS, for instance, show the government can still be sued. The only change is it can’t be sued for contractual disagreement. Claims about ISDS, particularly from NZ First, ignore the fact that those provisions provided far greater safeguards for New Zealand exporters and investors offshore than they did risks to the government being sued domestically. The New Zealand government has NEVER been sued under ISDS clauses, despite them being in free trade agreements for decades.

A month ago David Parker proclaimed, “There are very strong protections in there that mean we can do essentially anything we need to — in the environment space, with taxes, health and safety laws, labour laws, all those sorts of things.” Every one of those provisions was already in it!

You could drive a bus through their foreign buyer ban, as the government is finding as it hears submissions on proposed changes to the Overseas Investment Act. The submission from lawyers Chapman Tripp suggests the Overseas Investment Office’s job is likely to increase by 3816 per cent, with transactions requiring their attention jumping from 120 to 4700, based on present levels of investment.

Three years ago Winston Peters said, “The kaupapa of New Zealand First is about ensuring that there is one more vote against the TPP in Parliament.” The hypocrisy of this coalition government on this knows no bounds. It does not have the votes to pass this without us, as the Greens still oppose it. National knows this will be the best free trade agreement for New Zealand since the China FTA, so we’ll be supporting this legislation.

"Clauses around ISDS, for instance, show the government can still be sued. The only change is it can’t be sued for contractual disagreement."