Marchers vocal over trade talks

Kate Christiansen, 23, leads more than 30 people on a march through Kerikeri on Friday afternoon to voice their concerns about the TPPA secret trade deal. PHOTO / PETER DE GRAAF

More action against controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) trade talks could follow a protest in Kerikeri, organisers say.

More than 30 people marched through town on Friday carrying placards and chanting "TPPA no way" before meeting NZ First leader Winston Peters.

Organiser Sid Rosenthal said it was a "fortuitous coincidence" that Mr Peters, who only days earlier had spoken out against some aspects of the trade deal, was in town at the time.

Mr Peters told the group the TPPA proposal went well beyond a trade agreement and could affect New Zealand's ability to make its own laws.

Mr Rosenthal said he was not opposed to the trade agreement per se, but he was concerned about its secrecy and investor-state dispute clauses that could allow companies to sue the New Zealand government if they believed its laws had affected their profits. Future taxpayers would be left to pick up the tab, he said.

"All we know about is what's been leaked, and that's not good enough. Something as important as this needs to be debated openly in a democratic forum."

Mr Rosenthal was pleased with the turnout given he had only started organising the march a few days earlier. The participants were passionate about the issue so it was likely there would be more protests in future, he said.

NZ First MP Fletcher Tabuteau has sponsored a private member's bill called The Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill, which, if passed, would stop the Government signing international agreements which included investor-state dispute settlement clauses.

Prime Minister John Key has argued that the bill would "strike a dagger through the heart" of free-trade agreements such as the long-awaited deal signed last week with South Korea. Northland exporters would suffer if the bill was passed, he said.

Mr Key and National's Northland candidate Mark Osborne were also in Kerikeri on Friday but did not cross paths with the protest.

The TPPA is a proposed free-trade deal between a dozen Asia-Pacific countries including New Zealand, the US and Japan.