Clik here to view.
“Trade for All” in the EU NZ FTA Offers No New Direction
As negotiations begin on the first free trade agreement that this Government has not inherited from National, Trade Minister David Parker will count his blessings that he can share the stage with the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Trade For All” consultation lacks credibility while negotiations on old...
‘The “Trade for All” consultation announced by the Prime Minister today is predictably underwhelming and lacks credibility’. It has taken almost a year for the government to announce a decision to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
MUST READ: Trade for All is a lie
The Prime Minister’s first press conference after her return launched a three-tiered consultation on ‘Trade for All’, which is supposed to ‘modernise’ New Zealand’s trade policy. She acknowledged the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Unions and NGOs announce Two-day hui on “What an Alternative & Progressive...
The call for real alternatives to controversial trade and investment treaties like the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is being heard around the world. A number of prominent New Zealand...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Converting resistance to TPPA into a new agenda for change
Last week I was in New York at a conference on Rethinking International Investment Governance – the investor-state dispute system (ISDS) that lets transnational corporations enforce special rights...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lessons for the Left from NAFTA Mark-II
We underestimate Trump’s people. We don’t have to support their visceral racism and sexism and cynical manipulation of populist sentiment to recognise that something significant is happening. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Post-TPPA, we have to make the changes happen
Our unprecedented protests against the TPPA, from small rural towns to the main cities, moved the political ground on secretly negotiated international treaties that entrench corporate rights,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rethinking the trade and investment agenda in turbulent times ‘What an...
These days I feel depressed, cautiously optimistic, and frustrated at the same time. Depressed because the harm caused by four decades of capitalism unleashed, fostered by a neoliberal regime expanded...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Labour-New Zealand First government should be ashamed of hollow TPPA promises
The Labour-New Zealand First government will be hoping that New Zealanders have got short memories as it celebrates the entry into force of the rebranded Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, minus the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Launch of JusTrade.nz heralds a new campaign for a 21st century trade agenda
The website JusTrade.nz, launched this week, heralds a new forward-looking campaign for a progressive 21st century trade agenda. The JusTrade project builds on a two-day hui in late October that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Food for thought as we work to re-set NZ’s trade and investment agenda
In the past week Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been a cheerleader for free trade negotiations with the United Kingdom and European Union, aiming the finish the EU one within the year. Last...
View ArticleClik here to view.
NZ Joins Breakaway Push for WTO E-Commerce Rules that Protect Google etc from...
New Zealand has joined a breakaway group of around 70 countries who affirmed their intention to launch plurilateral negotiations on electronic commerce at the World Trade Organization (WTO), despite...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Big Tech & Free Trade
On the ‘knowledge’ panel at the hui in October 2018 on What an Alternative and Progressive Trade Strategy for New Zealand, Professor Jane Kelsey explained how trade rules on ‘e-commerce’ would cement...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why NZ must get rid of ISDS now
Australia’s costs for tobacco case it won show why NZ must get rid of ISDS now Australia’s plain packaging tobacco laws recently faced a raft of international legal challenges by Big Tobacco. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Farewell and Thanks to a Rangatira
Last Thursday at Mangamuka we buried Rua Rakena, a quiet revolutionary who had an extraordinary, but largely unsung, influence on Maori and Tiriti politics from the 1960s to the 1990s. That’s how Rua...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Add ‘Trade for All’ to the list of government sell-outs
Some have asked why my radio silence over recent months. Simple. Once it became clear that I could have zero influence on this government’s trade and investment policy, I have been working where I can...
View ArticleIs NZ about to break its promise again by accepting investment disputes in RCEP?
Newly elected Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in international trade and investment agreements ‘a dog’, and promised no ISDS in future agreements. The...
View ArticleOpen Letter To Maori MPs Please Vote Against Covid-19 Public Response Bill
Tena koutou. I am writing to you as Maori MPs with a plea to vote against the Covid-19 Public Response Bill, and at the very least refer it to select committee for scrutiny. There are so many problems...
View ArticleRCEP – A Wake Up Call To Rethink The Failed Hyperglobalisation Model
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that was signed virtually yesterday is a wake up call for the cheerleaders of hyperglobalisation: countries and their peoples have become wary and...
View ArticleNZ UK FTA “Inclusive Trade” Agenda Does Nothing To Redress Failed Free Trade...
“The Inclusive Trade agenda in the New Zealand United Kingdom free trade agreement (FTA) attempts to recover some of the credibility the Labour Government lost when it signed the unpopular CPTPP to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Best and worst case scenarios for Labour’s ‘inclusive and progressive’ trade...
Labour’s David Parker has heralded a new era in New Zealand’s trade policy to rein in the excesses of global capitalism and make rules work for the 99% not the 1%. What would a best-case scenario for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The zombie TPPA is back!
OK, it’s (almost) official. The zombie TPPA has been restored to life and Winston Peters will support it. Both Labour and New Zealand First will sell out the principles that led them to reject the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Labour’s first post-Waitangi challenge: will it allow the Waitangi Tribunal...
There were lots of positives at Waitangi this week. There was also a lot of gloss, driven by hope (and perhaps primed by Shane Jones hospitality). Labour promised that it will be accountable to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why we must rally to stop this new TPPA Frankenstein
The TPPA rubber hits the road over the next three months. After an about-face on their opposition to the original deal, the Labour and NZ First have spun as hard as they can without even sounding...
View ArticleClik here to view.
TPPA-11 Don’t Do It! Petition
Despite the government saying that they would refuse to support ratification of the TPPA and demanding independent economic and health analyses, and promising a new inclusive approach to trade and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Open letter to Trade Minister David Parker
Thank you for your invitation to join you in Chile on 8th March, at my own expense, for the signing of the resurrected Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement that your own party in Opposition said was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Capitulation in TPPA-11 raises fears of more to come – Professor Jane Kelsey
‘The so-called Joint Declaration on Inclusive and Progressive Trade, released by New Zealand, Canada and Chile alongside the signing of the resurrected Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA-11),...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Govt must tell NZers if the TPPA-11 is its bottom line
Trump talks of re-joining TPPA, Government must tell NZers if the TPPA-11 is its bottom line US President Donald Trump instructed his National Economic Council Director and the United States Trade...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Which of Labour’s trade policies will the PM pursue?
‘As the Prime Minister heads to Europe, with the proposed trade deals with the European Union and Britain at the top of her agenda, which of Labour’s trade policies she is going to pursue?’. ‘Is it...
View ArticleUS-DRIVEN IPEF – “what is this thing?”
When officials who have been sitting at the negotiating table for a potentially far-reaching international agreement with the United States are asking “what is this thing?”, serious questions need to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nowhere for Labour to hide on TPPA in election year
As Prime Minister Bill English heads off to Japan with trade minister Todd McClay in their quest to revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) minus the USA, ‘the silence from Labour is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The TPPA is now a 2017 election issue
Ground control to Major Tom? Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong. Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom? Apologies to the late lamented David Bowie. But the bullshit from the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The broad definition of GCSB security
The broad definition of security is long-standing, introduced around the same time as the SIS botched break in of Aziz Choudry’s house in Christchurch at the time of an APEC meeting there. We have...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Zombie TPPA: what the opposition parties say
The National government has got its wish – the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is off the front pages and back into the shadows of secret negotiations. Big dangers lurk in those shadows!...
View ArticleClik here to view.
National’s TPPA-11 leaves four questions unanswered – Professor Jane Kelsey
The National government announced on the last day of Parliament that Cabinet has endorsed terms for a major new trade and investment deal – the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement minus the US, or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Labour and the TPPA – not bloody minded enough!
It is now certain that any decisions on the future of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) minus the US will take place after the election. Last week’s meeting of the negotiators from the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The TPPA and this election
In Tokyo on 21 and 22 September, two days before the election, MFAT officials will argue the National Government’s position that the remaining eleven countries should proceed with the Trans-Pacific...
View ArticleClik here to view.
New Government’s TPPA Problems Start Next Week
‘The new government of Labour, New Zealand First and the Greens will have to move fast if they are going to influence the outcomes of trade and investment agreements being negotiated under the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A reminder to Labour about the TPPA
Many will, like me, be disappointed that there is no commitment on the TPPA in Labour’s agreements with New Zealand First and the Greens. To date, Labour has confirmed that it will seek to amend New...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Labour risks being bulldozed on TPPA-11
Labour risks being bulldozed on TPPA-11, ignoring own view that the deal lacks merit ‘There is an imminent risk that trade ministry officials and the agriculture lobby will bulldoze of the new...
View ArticleClik here to view.
EXCLUSIVE: Urging people to tweet Clare Curran – Let’s not do e-commerce in...
TPPA’s impact on democracy Let’s not do e-commerce in the TPPA-11! Just when you thought you knew all the reasons why the Labour-led government needs to walk away from the TPPA-11, let me add another...
View ArticleClik here to view.
National’s TPPA is not OK. We voted for change!
On 8 November David Parker will sit down with fellow trade ministers from the TPPA-11 countries in Da Nang, Vietnam, and decide what to do with the deal. The officials have just finished three days of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Jacinda says ISDS is a dog. So let’s put it down
Let me start with the glass that’s half full. At last a New Zealand government has recognised that, to quote Jacinda Ardern on Radio NZ, the system of investor-state dispute settlement in the TPPA is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
BREAKING: Help kill TPPA today by tweeting PM Trudeau
It’s not over yet. I don’t want to jump the gun. There will be more attempts to pull it off today. The most helpful thing for now is to encourage people to tweet to the Canadians. Message from the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Labour largely endorses National’s TPPA, but it’s not all over. What now?
The bad news is that the Labour government has endorsed the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, with the suspension of a limited range of items, at the ministerial and leaders’ meetings in Da Nang,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The latest on resisting the TPPA
The rebranded TPPA-11 is a high stakes gamble for Labour (I refuse to call it the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership – there is nothing progressive about it!)....
View ArticleClik here to view.
The bizarre de-registration of anti-WTO NGOs
Yesterday I wrote to Trade Minister David Parker asking him to intervene urgently over the sudden and bizarre de-registration of representatives of prominent NGOs who had been accredited to attend the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
URGENT ATTENTION ALL ANTI-TPPA ACTIVISTS
We discovered less than a week ago that MFAT is hosting ‘consultations’ around the country, with David Parker, this week on the TPPA-11. It appeared to be a last-minute decision to do something before...
View ArticleClik here to view.
If Labour wants to ‘tame globalised capital’ why is it supporting investment...
Last week Trade Minister David Parker said “it’s not fair that we subjugate ourselves to the interests of the one per cent” and promised to tame the “excesses of globalised capital”. ‘Today, we...
View ArticleClik here to view.
GUEST BLOG: Professor Jane Kelsey – Trump’s tariffs are nothing new – NZ’s...
Headlines following Donald Trump’s election victory focused largely on the influence of personalities, such as Elon Musk or Robert Kennedy junior, and single issues, such as how US tariff hikes would...
View Article