Dom Post on TPP arrogance

Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, August 20th, 2015 - 32 comments
Categories: accountability, capitalism, Globalisation, newspapers, trade - Tags: , , ,

An unusually forthright anonymous editorial in the Dom Post yesterday:

Editorial: Arrogance will not win Trans Pacific Partnership debate for Key

OPINION: The Government is starting to look rattled over opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Perhaps its internal polling is showing a genuine groundswell of concern. Or perhaps it is just telling it to meet fire with fire.

Either way, National’s response looks arrogant. Prime Minister John Key’s reaction to a large protest march in Auckland, and a smaller one in Wellington, was dismissive and unpleasant. He said a third of the demonstrators were rent-a-crowd protesters who opposed any free trade deal, and another third were Labour and Green supporters who opposed anything the Government did. Presumably the last third were acceptable opponents.

These personal remarks sound like the high-handed remarks of a Government in power too long. They look badly out of touch. Free trade deals are no longer automatically accepted by a majority of voters. Key should recognise this and start trying to meet the concerns rather than insulting critics. …

Read the full piece for plenty more – or just catch the Grant Robertson summary version:

https://twitter.com/grantrobertson1/status/633785407616868352

32 comments on “Dom Post on TPP arrogance ”

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  1. save NZ 1
    20 August 2015 at 8:01 am

    John Key+TPPA, . “arrogance” “dismissive” “unpleasant” “out of touch” “insulting” “contemptuous” – it’s not just TPPA – it is everything this government does.

    They forgot bullying, inept and silencing.

    • dukeofurl 1.1
      20 August 2015 at 8:45 am

      please, lets not degrade the word bullying with ridiculous claims. Its a real word that has real consequences for many people, not some catch all political word of the day.

      • save NZ 1.1.1
        20 August 2015 at 9:01 am

        The bullying scandals and put downs are endless from this government. Just watch question time, where putting down others rather than debating issues is the norm. The exchange between commentators and Government MP’s, the disappearing of journalists who question the government from their roles..

        I’d say bullying is a mild word for what is really happening.

        • RedLogix 1.1.1.1
          20 August 2015 at 9:37 am

          No – I’m inclined to agree with dol here. Too often words with real and hard meanings get co-opted for use on softer flabbier targets – and in doing so erases the original intent.

        • Chooky 1.1.1.2
          20 August 2015 at 9:41 am

          +100 save NZ….listening to jonkey Nact in parliament is very revealing

          …he jeers…he twists …he insults …he never answers a question straightforwardly…and he sounds as if he is a schoolboy bully on something….

          …he certainly is NOT concerned with democracy and the well-being of New Zealand and New Zealanders

          …and he wants to change the New Zealand flag….I would suggest a great big yellow and brown banana

          For those who find the corruption of NZ and the USA hard to understand this article by Dr Wayne Hope is interesting

          http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/08/18/capitalism-and-cocaine/

      • Draco T Bastard 1.1.2
        20 August 2015 at 9:24 am

        And when the government does it, which this government does, it has real world consequences for everyone.

    • save NZ 1.2
      20 August 2015 at 8:57 am

      From an earlier post – more dirty deeds –

      Labour MP Phil Twyford said the legislation gave Government ministers “extraordinary powers” to sell State houses, personally negotiate contracts on any terms and conditions and take any action to facilitate the sales process, without any reference to the Housing New Zealand board of chief executive.

      It also exempted them from social, environmental and financial oversight obligations, Twyford said. “These provisions given this Government’s track record should be ringing alarm bells loud and clear,” he said. “It wants the freedom to do dirty deals flogging off billions of dollars of publicly owned land and housing.

      “We know that the Government is currently having secret meetings with merchant bankers, PPP [public private partnership] investors and property developers who want their hands on valuable public assets.”

      The Government was refusing to release details about who they were meeting, however. …

  2. vto 2
    20 August 2015 at 8:12 am

    Under the TPPA a foreign corporate has the ability to recover future profits from the government if it changes rules which affect that profit.

    Does that apply to domestic local investors also?

    We are in business and investment. The government frequently changes the rules for us which affect our future profit.

    Do the TPPA rules apply to everyone, or just foreign corporates?

    If it is just foreign corporates then guess what…… we will be decamping to foreign lands and coming back to NZ from there….

    So what gives? One rule for foreigners and another for locals? Or same rules for everyone?

    Does anyone know? It is a very genuine and serious question. We have already looked into how we will decamp and return via this TPPA if the answer is not as it should be…..

  3. Draco T Bastard 3
    20 August 2015 at 9:23 am

    Free trade deals are no longer automatically accepted by a majority of voters.

    Thing is, I don’t think the majority of people have ever automatically accepted free-trade deals. I think they’ve grudgingly accepted them because they believed that they couldn’t do anything about them especially after the protests of the 1980s and 1990s were ignored. But now that the majority of people are becoming worse off because of them they’re starting to act.

    Concern about the deal, and what it might cost New Zealand, means that voters are much more bothered by the secrecy than they ever were before.

    I’m thinking that a lot of people didn’t realise that they were secret before. They do now because they’ve just been told. It’s an example of the government getting away with shit it shouldn’t have been getting away with simply because they hadn’t let on about what they were doing.

    • AmaKiwi 3.1
      20 August 2015 at 11:03 am

      TPPA is NOT a trade deal.

      It is a binding charter to increase global corporate control.

      Human rights organizations, peace activists, environmental protectors, public health experts, and social idealists did NOT write TPPA.

      It is written in secret by the greed addicted multi-national monopolies who poison us and the earth to increase their unholy profits. TPPA is the cancer of the climate change deniers, chemical polluters, genocidal killers.

      Key & Co. are so naive as to believe these same multi-national monopolists have written TPPA to shower us with health, prosperity, and peace.

      By their deeds you shall know them.

      • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1
        20 August 2015 at 11:15 am

        +1

        That said, many of the ‘trade deals’ had clauses and chapters in them that strengthened corporate control. The FTA with Korea has ISDS in it.

        • Tracey 3.1.1.1
          20 August 2015 at 1:18 pm

          Yup, as have most other FTA’s we entered but it is the further wide reaching stuff, such as Pharmac related and other stuff… AND that the TPP includes those nations whose corprs have proven the MOST litigious other similar provisions in other FTA’s we are not party to.

      • Tracey 3.1.2
        20 August 2015 at 1:17 pm

        …and those who continue to make that comparison surely know better (Mr Groser, Mr Key, Mr Mapp (on TS) ) OR are so stupid they havent realised the distinction yet…

  4. Stuart Munro 4
    20 August 2015 at 11:03 am

    Arrogant and out-of-touch goes with the territory to some extent – stupid and irresponsible are not sure vote winners however.

  5. Tracey 5
    20 August 2015 at 12:08 pm

    “Prime Minister John Key’s reaction to a large protest march in Auckland, and a smaller one in Wellington, was dismissive and unpleasant. He said a third of the demonstrators were rent-a-crowd protesters who opposed any free trade deal, and another third were Labour and Green supporters who opposed anything the Government did. ”

    He’s actually been saying this for EVERY TPP protest it’s just that the Dom Post editor has moved his/her position from then (support) to now( oppose). That is what has changed, not Key.

  6. Rolf 6
    20 August 2015 at 12:58 pm

    Lest we forget, the TPP and other “security” and other “agreements” are just a way for the USA to annex little New Zealand as their serf ,vassal state, and satellite state to their empire. The system is not new. Japan did the same thing to Korea 1910, let the Koreans appoint their own government and controlled it by agreement. Koreans were made into second class Japanese kowtowing and serving Japans interests. New Zealand is already a lackey for NSA spying on our neighbours and on China on behalf of the USA. TPP take the final step to bring it under US control, and propaganda demands to hate China and Russia soon will follow.

    • AmaKiwi 6.1
      20 August 2015 at 2:12 pm

      Japan called it the East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. Kinda got that “trans pacific” ring to it.

      We are not Arab Muslims so presumably we will not suffer the same fate as Nanjing or Iraq.

      God bless America. No one else will (and I hope She has her doubts).

  7. Simon Johnston 7
    20 August 2015 at 2:00 pm

    I wish people would stop automatically referring to it as a ‘fee trade deal’ – it’s nothing of the sort.

  8. timbo 8
    20 August 2015 at 3:14 pm

    When are the next round of polls released? Might the comment in the editorial about Nats’ internal polling be based on advance viewing of other polls?

    • timbo 8.1
      20 August 2015 at 4:37 pm

      Bad news – just got my own answer, from the Roy Morgan poll released this afternoon. I really can’t believe it. How do these clowns pull the wool over the public’s eyes so consistently? The politics of fear, I guess. And it seems to work.

  9. Wayne 9
    20 August 2015 at 5:30 pm

    Everywhere here has long since made up their mind on TPP, that is opposed from day 1. That is why John Key is so dismissive. You already have your anti free trade parties, go vote for them.
    As for National, well supporting FTA’s (and TPP is a modern FTA) is part of its DNA. For John Key to listen to the protestors, he might as well resign right there and then. He would no longer be a National Party Prime Minister. New Zealanders know Nationsl is deeply committed to FTA’s and at this stage in particular the TPP. No-one who voted National would have thought otherwise.
    So sure, oppose all you like. But you don’t get your next shot at government till 2017. In the meantime National will continue to carry out the mandate it has from the voters.
    After all, you should all remember Dr Cullens memorable words on the significance of winning elections.

    • vto 9.1
      20 August 2015 at 5:35 pm

      oh sniff sniff wayne….

      as for this “After all, you should all remember Dr Cullens memorable words on the significance of winning elections.”

      Absolutely I do and I give you and your scummy lot the same “go fuck yourself” finger that was given to Cullen.

      Arsehole. The lot of you. Thanks for reminding us all why you and your kind are c*%ts.

    • One Anonymous Bloke 9.2
      20 August 2015 at 5:38 pm

      Speaking as someone who’s kept an open mind about the TPPA, I have to say you’re talking shit, law commissioner.

      Now it’s become clear that this is a restraint of trade agreement, damn straight I’m against it, since it will restrain trade. Can you stop telling lies about the arguments in opposition or are you just another mendacious twat in a nice suit?

    • les 9.3
      20 August 2015 at 5:43 pm

      NZ’ers are not opposed to transparent FTA’s.The secrecy surrounding the TPPA and the track record of the U.S.A tends to reinforce if its good for the corporations( who as Romney reminded the U.S public are ‘people’ in law),then its bad for everyone else.The whole world is in a financial clusterfuck thanks to another ‘secret meeting’ that took place in 1913.

    • Tautoko Mangō Mata 9.4
      20 August 2015 at 8:53 pm

      Have you found a copy of the cost-benefit analysis for NZ if the tppa is signed yet?

  10. Wayne 10
    20 August 2015 at 9:26 pm

    Tautoko Mango Mata
    It will depend entirely on the level of concessions by the U.S. and Japan on agricultural exports.
    Tim Groser has publicly said that NZ is already in a net positive position, largely on the basis of the beef concessions. Any diary will be on top.
    Have I seen a Treasury analysis? No I have not, but I know enough about the subject generally to know that these types of deals generally benefit NZ. However, in this instance there will be a increased cost to NZ from the extended drug patents (this aspect seems to be agreed between the 12 states), so a net benefit calculation is required. Otherwise it would be all a gain to NZ. The drug cost is estimated to be $30 to 50 million. The beef concession is said to be $50 million. Other agricultural gains are on top of this (dairy, kiwi fruit, wine etc). So on the basis of what Tim Groser has said to date publicly TPP is a net gain to NZ.

    • vto 10.1
      20 August 2015 at 10:00 pm

      Wayne, you will have seen my unpleasant response to your own unpleasant point above …. hopefully you can see past that, as did also Cullen actually when some comms were swapped with him when I was most definitely not a supporter of his (was a supporter of your lot then actually – don’t think that will likely ever happen again though). I say that because I have a question, which was posed at the top of this thread …… goes like this …..

      “Under the TPPA a foreign corporate has the ability to recover future profits from the government if it changes rules which affect that profit.

      Does that apply to domestic local investors also?

      We are in business and investment. The government frequently changes the rules for us which affect our future profit.

      Do the TPPA rules apply to everyone, or just foreign corporates?

      If it is just foreign corporates then guess what…… we will be decamping to foreign lands and coming back to NZ from there….

      So what gives? One rule for foreigners and another for locals? Or same rules for everyone?

      Does anyone know? It is a very genuine and serious question. We have already looked into how we will decamp and return via this TPPA if the answer is not as it should be…..”

      Can you please answer Wayne?

    • les 10.2
      20 August 2015 at 10:05 pm

      30 to 50 million is peanuts in the big picture!Selling NZ down the river to corporations is the obvious agenda of the Key govt.Oh the irony one of the footsoldiers who caused the GFC now sacrificing NZ’s sovereignty to enrich his puppetmasters.Warning his ministers about arrogance in the 3rd term…Key is a comedian…tenants in our own country….!Love to see how much the 50mil nest egg has grown when this viking departs.

  11. Smilin 11
    20 August 2015 at 10:19 pm

    The world is far more complex than the PM would have us believe, why does he think we are going to accept the fact that we are being asked to play follow the leader on this TPPA, somebody got a 4×2 because that what Key is hitting us over the head with
    Sign a secret agreement on our behalf ?
    Laugh that one off Key and spin it dry in your Textor machine
    We’ll send you the bill for our democracy restoration