Key Facts About the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA)
We’re not against trade. But the purpose of trade should be to make peoples’ lives better. We don’t think the TPPA will do this for New Zealanders. Here’s why:
- The deal was negotiated in secret, preventing an honest discussion about the costs and benefits to New Zealand.
- A small number of businesses will benefit, but ordinary people will pay the costs.
- The only economic analysis of the TPPA’s effects on employment says New Zealand will actually lose 5000 jobs.
- The TPPA shifts power away from democratically elected governments, and into the arms of a small group of corporate CEOs.
- The deal will make it harder for the Government to protect our environment, when it clashes with the interests of overseas companies.
- It will increase Pharmac’s operating costs by millions of dollars a year, threatening every New Zealander’s right to affordable healthcare.
- Libraries and universities will suffer new costs due to changes to the copyright system.
- The TPPA is opposed by lawyers, doctors, nurses, conservation organisations, consumer groups and economists.