Deal could ‘cripple’ health system

The New Zealand health system could be ‘‘crippled’’ by the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, analysts say in documents posted online by whistleblower group Wikileaks.

Wikileaks yesterday published on its website what is said to be the leaked healthcare annex to the draft ‘‘transparency’’ chapter of the deal, along with each country’s position.

The document seeks to regulate state schemes for medicines and medical devices, forcing healthcare authorities to give big pharmaceutical companies more information about national decisions on public access to medicine. The healthcare annex would also grant corporations greater powers to challenge decisions perceived as harmful to their interests.

Wikileaks analysts said the annex ‘‘appears to be designed to cripple New Zealand’s strong public healthcare programme and to inhibit the adoption of similar pro grammes in developing countries’’.

Pharmac is New Zealand’s Crown agency which works with district health boards to decide which medical products are subsidised for the public.

Auckland University Professor Jane Kelsey, a long-time critic of the TPP, said Pharmac was the ‘‘most exposed’’ of any programme in a negotiating country.

Trade Minister Tim Groser had repeatedly assured New Zealand- ers that Pharmac was not up for negotiation in the TPP, Kelsey said.

In 2011, Groser returned from the Apec annual summit where the TPP had been discussed, and said New Zealand had laid down a position which said the public health system was not up for negotiation or part of any trade negotiation.

Pharmac was ‘‘an incredibly valuable institution that provides high quality medicines to New Zealanders at very very highly subsidised reasonable prices.’’

The fundamentals of that model were not up for negotiation, Groser said in 2011.

Prime Minister John Key yesterday cautioned against taking the leak seriously as he said it reflected one person’s view and wasn’t necessarily something the Government would sign up to.

‘‘We won’t sign anything that undercuts Pharmac in a way that would have a dramatic impact,’’ Key said.

‘‘Whatever happens as a result of the TPP New Zealanders are going to carry on paying $5 for their prescriptions.’’

Key said whether New Zealand signed the deal would depend on if the benefits outweighed the costs. Gaining access to the US and Japanese markets was worth a lot to exporters.

Kelsey said the real motivation behind the documents was for changes in Pharmac to reduce its effectiveness as a precedent for other countries.