No TPP Deal Please

They Keep It A Secret Because They Know It Will Piss Us Off

Pleaides sent in this article couple of days ago.

A key section of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement has been leaked to the public. The New York Times has a major story on the contents of the leaked chapter and it’s as bad as many of us feared. 

Now we know why the corporations and the Obama administration want TPP, a huge “trade” agreement being negotiated between the United States and 11 other countries, kept secret from the public until it’s too late to stop it.

And so it begins. This TPP Business has been lurking fora while and in most part it's been able to lurk because it's shrouded in secrecy. Making things worse, it's the roll-over-for-the-USA Abbott government doing the negotiations, headed up by Andrew Robb, who is probably going to give everything America wants and not even come back with magic beans from the trade.

The New York Times is taking a leaf out of the Wikileaks article, and running with the story (as it should!).

The Trans-Pacific Partnership — a cornerstone of Mr. Obama’s remaining economic agenda — would grant broad powers to multinational companies operating in North America, South America and Asia. Under the accord, still under negotiation but nearing completion, companies and investors would be empowered to challenge regulations, rules, government actions and court rulings — federal, state or local — before tribunals organized under the World Bank or the United Nations. 

Backers of the emerging trade accord, which is supported by a wide variety of business groups and favored by most Republicans, say that it is in line with previous agreements that contain similar provisions. But critics, including many Democrats in Congress, argue that the planned deal widens the opening for multinationals to sue in the United States and elsewhere, giving greater priority to protecting corporate interests than promoting free trade and competition that benefits consumers.

If they don't like it in America, you can count on the fact that we won't like it any one bit when corporations can sue governments. 

Basically, it's a crap deal for everybody except the corporations. It's an agreement to suspend whatever laws we might have in our country or their country favour what the corporations want. That might mean outing minimum wage to overtime penalty rates to Medicare to WH&S regulations or environmental protections. In short, it seems like an agreement for all the signatory governments to give up their sovereignty and short change their citizens for a few dollars more so that corporations can have legal framework to get by with murder. 

The most disturbing thing about the TPP from our end in Australia is that the ALP isn't kicking up a stink; it's largely been collusive with the Abbott government in ushering this stuff through. Otherwise we would be hearing about this every day. It seems entirely out of character that the party that fought so hard against Work Choices would be allowing this crappy deal to go through without public scrutiny. Just what the hell is going on there?