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Home / New Zealand

Wairarapa MPs torn over TPP

By Hayley Gastmeier
Wairarapa Times-Age·
12 Oct, 2015 06:25 PM5 mins to read

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A protest in Featherston against the TPPA, with David Coates leading with the megaphone. 15 August 2015 Wairarapa Times-Age Photograph by Andrew Bonallack

A protest in Featherston against the TPPA, with David Coates leading with the megaphone. 15 August 2015 Wairarapa Times-Age Photograph by Andrew Bonallack

Wairarapa MPs are divided on whether the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal will be good for New Zealand and the region.

While NZ First deputy leader Ron Mark and Maori Party co-leader Marama Fox have their doubts about the agreement, Wairarapa MP Alastair Scott said it would open New Zealand up to new opportunities.

Last week, following years of closed-door negotiations, an agreement was reached and the TPP was signed by 12 countries, including New Zealand.

Full details of the free trade deal are due to be released within a month.

The National Party's Mr Scott said reducing tariffs across all trading nations would be mutually beneficial.

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"There are now huge gains and opportunities that were not available prior to the agreement.

"Once the TPP is fully phased in, tariffs will be eliminated on 93 per cent of New Zealand's exports to the free trade agreement partners.

"Dropping the tariffs makes our products much more competitive, so we will be able to sell heaps more stuff."

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Mr Scott said the Japanese had 38 per cent tariffs added to the cost of New Zealand beef.

"The tariffs for the Japanese have gone down to 9 per cent, other countries have gone down to zero.

"So now New Zealand products going overseas are going to be cheaper," he said.

"Because corporations are purchasing products for less, it will be more affordable for the consumer."

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TPP seen as great deal for farmers

12 Oct 06:20 PM

The TPP would not be actioned until all the countries had signed up and ratified the agreement, which could take a year or two, Mr Scott said.

He was unsure when the agreement would go to Parliament but said MPs would be casting a "take it or leave it" vote based on their party's stance on the deal.

"These negotiations do not have winners and losers. Reducing tariffs to increase free trade across borders enables all parties to be winners," he said.

Mr Mark, a list MP and former Carterton mayor, said from what he knew of the free trade deal so far, the gains for New Zealand would be "minuscule".

"Some areas where the Government is boasting of gains and where there are benefits such as in forestry were already on track, with many nations in other agreements to a zero tariff over the next five years. With all due respect to our negotiators, the prospect of selling wood products into Canada and the United States, especially, is akin to selling snow to an Eskimo."

He said the TPP would make it easier for foreign money to take over businesses in New Zealand.

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"Raising investor threshold proves the deal is about corporate influence and will result in more dodgy investors entering New Zealand to launder money."

Mr Mark said the threshold of $100 million was already too high for New Zealand.

"And the doubling of it proves just how much international corporates, through puppet negotiators, have been able to circumvent the will of sovereign nations."

He said the TPP had not produced the promised windfall for dairy or red meat, as Prime Minister John Key had promised it would.

"The gains are marginal, making the TPPA a dismal failure to the point of not being worth signing," he said.

"[Tim] Groser owes the New Zealand people the facts now and a comprehensive briefing now, not some time after Christmas when everyone is on holiday."

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Mr Mark said the TPP was a "largely irreversible" step towards the loss of New Zealand's economic sovereignty.

Ms Fox, a list MP who lives in Masterton, said the TPP would "benefit the few and not the many".

"With all trade agreements, the Government is focused on the economic benefits for the country," she said.

"We have got homelessness and poverty in this country, despite fair trade agreements we have had in the past."

Ms Fox said that the TPP would most likely only benefit "those at the top of the rung. Meanwhile, those at the bottom of the rung continue to sit below the poverty line."

She said she was sceptical the agreement would make the changes necessary to lift New Zealand as a whole.

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"There's no doubt that there are benefits for New Zealand but the fish-hooks are what I'm worried about.

"What have we given away?"

Featherston's Claire Bleakley, president of GE Free New Zealand and an organic farmer, said the agreement could quash the country's GE-free status.

"We have traded our sovereignty, our land," she said.

"Where does the Treaty stand? Where do our indigenous rights stand?"

Mrs Bleakley, who is also an alternative-health practitioner, held concerns the trade deal could push New Zealand into a privatised health care system.

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She said the pharmaceutical industry in America was moving away from chemical drugs and into biological drugs, which were more expensive to buy.

"We will be forced, as they are our trading nation, to buy them."

"The cost of the health provision will be forcing us to privatise our health care system, because the drugs are going to be too expensive to access without the patient having to pay something."

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