Peters: TPP will mean more foreign buy-ups

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters Photo: Peter de Graaf

The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal is all about corporate influence rather than trade, Northland MP Winston Peters says.

Mr Peters, the NZ First Party leader, said the TPP - signed by 12 countries this week, including New Zealand - had just made it a whole lot easier for foreign money to take over businesses in New Zealand.

Business leaders say the TPP deal is a positive outcome for exporters and commerce. The tariff elimination scheduled would save exporters $259 million a year once fully implemented.

New Zealand, in turn, would have to remove $20 million a year in tariffs on imports from TPP countries. Officials estimate the benefit of TPP to New Zealand to be at least $2.7 billion a year after 15 years.

The elimination of Japanese tariffs on the region's kiwifruit could have the potential to see Northland's growers keep more money in their pockets each year.

But Mr Peters said the Government had foolishly agreed to the lifting of the background check threshold, opening the country up even more to dubious investment practices. "Under the TPP, the threshold to check character and business experience goes up substantially, from $100 million to $200 million," he said.

"That threshold of $100 million was already far too high and the doubling of it proves just how much international corporates, through puppet negotiators, have been able to circumvent the will of sovereign nations. At a time when huge sums of ill-gotten money are transferred around the world, and our checks through the Overseas Investment Office are already weak, we should be raising the bar against unscrupulous money merchants, not lowering it.

"The country will pay a price for lack of scrutiny in the future."

Mr Peters said the language from Prime Minister John Key and Trade Minister Tim Groser told the full story about how much New Zealand was giving away and how little the country was gaining by signing the TPP.

"They had plucked grotesque sums from thin air and delivered them endlessly, trying to lull the public into a false sense of victory. But given National's failure to deliver a promised surplus in seven years, we knew they had no credibility," he said.