500 trade negotiators are in Auckland for the 15th round of TPP talks

Negotiators from 11 countries gather in Auckland today at Sky City Convention Centre for the 15th round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks.

Outside the door are activists of all persuasion – human rights campaigners, anti-free traders, and consumer protection campaigners – who don’t like what is happening what happening behind closed doors.

TV3 reports the NZ government has been a big promoter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying it could provide a billion-dollar boost to our economy.“It’s going to be big,” says Trade Negotiations Minister Tim Groser. “It’s going to be significant, and it’s going to help New Zealanders find well paid jobs.”

Critics like  Lori Wallach, a consumer rights campaigner who has travelled here from the United States told TV3, “It has been so secret and there is now a speedy deadline set,” she says. “We could have an agreement that’s been branded for all of us as about expanding exports, new jobs, new threats, and we never see the details, that are devastating, until it’s too late.”

“They’re not fools,” say  Groser. “They realise this is their best chance to wreck this agreement.”

The Trade Negotiations Minister says the talks require discretion, pointing to the tricky negotiations over abolishing farm subsidies.“Trying to get the US dairy industry to move on something of great importance to us is a very difficult process, and if you expose the drafts to which this process takes place to full public scrutiny, you are going to massively complicate the American negotiators’ tasks – So we need some discretion.”

http://www.3news.co.nz/Trans-Pacific-Partnership-secrecy-draws-critics/tabid/370/articleID/278886/Default.aspx?ref=vid_2012-11-22

 

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