Conservation Comment: McClay's amazing TPP circus

CRYING OVER SPILT OIL: The TPP agreement will make conservation harder due to the power of multinational companies.

ROLL up, roll up, to Todd McClay's flying circus, the amazing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) roadshow!

I began writing this article as a spoof. I had corporate clowns performing their money-trading tricks, laissez-faire lions roaring their approval. From the heights of arrogance at the top of the big tent, chief negotiator David "Tight Rope" Walker proclaimed the TPP's billion-dollar benefits without so much as a wobble. On the ground, new ringmaster and illusionist, Trade Minister Todd McClay sawed New Zealand in half and offered her up to the world's greatest sorcerer, Uncle Sam and his One Per Cent.

Outside the big top all was not well. The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Small Business was hacking at the guy ropes, dromedaries of discontent were spitting and ...

But then I had to stop. I got too angry to laugh and kept thinking of a man I met today.

I've been helping at the TPP Action Dunedin stall in the Octagon.

We're providing information that the ministry folks at the TPP roadshow, coming soon to a town near you, will omit. Information like that given by expert economists Barry Coates, Rod Oram, Dr Geoff Bertram and Professor Tim Hazledine that the purported $2.7 billion windfall by 2030 amounts to a negligible 0.9 per cent of GDP, and that other costs, like the increased cost of medicines already conceded by the Prime Minister, will be far higher than any gains.

The TPP agreement will make conservation harder. Under a clause similar to the one in the TPP agreement, TransCanada is suing US taxpayers for $15 billion for putting a stop to the climate-destroying tar sands XL pipeline. See more facts at http://itsourfuture.org.nz/what-is-the-tppa/

There was plenty of interest at our stall with lots of people wanting to talk and sign petitions.

A line of Australians waiting to go back to their cruise ship at Port Chalmers had never heard of the TPP agreement, but a short explanation was enough to get their eyes rolling and the stories coming.

"Yes, we've been done over in Australia too," they pined. "The foreign companies run everything in Australia, including the Government."

Then a man about my age approached me. He was thin, a bit hunched over and looked tired. "You're wasting your time," he said. "Don't get me wrong; I admire what you're doing. But you're wasting your time."

In his eyes I saw defeat, years of hard work, low pay and disillusionment. I saw a man used to being at the bottom of the heap. Thinking of him now, I feel angry.

Angry that we have to fight so hard for simple dignity, and that our elected government is complicit in taking that dignity from us. A safe, warm home, a decent job, a clean environment, a stable future for our children. That's all we need, yet under the TPP we face a future designed to limit all of those human rights and instead lock in the corporate greed that has driven that man and others like him to the point of despair.

When Todd McClay's flying circus comes to my town I won't be fooled by the tightrope walkers and high-flying illusionists.

I will be on the street, demanding the dignity we all deserve from our elected representatives.

- Rosemary Penwarden is a grandmother who grew up in Whanganui. She now lives in Dunedin, where she works for fairness and a better world.