Proponents of the agreement have sought to downplay objections to secrecy by pointing to its necessity in negotiations to promote candour and rigour in the process.
That may be justification sufficient for the period of the actual negotiation - now almost 10 years on - but as the time for the ratification by each country draws near, such secrecy only serves to heighten the belief that were the exact terms of the trade deal known to the citizens potentially affected by it prior to ratification, they would mobilise against it and demand either to have their objections incorporated or turn the whole thing down.
The usual rationale for trade treaties is that they embody reduction of tariffs and that the consequent increase in trade will mean increase in profit and increase in jobs.
Critics point to earlier trade pacts such as Nafta between the US, Mexico and Canada which President Bill Clinton promoted and signed into law in 2002. The result of Nafta has been salutary for some large corporations, notably agri-businesses, and has meant a loss of farm jobs in the US. Small Mexican farmers were no better off and many constitute the flow of immigrants to the US, sometimes illegally, looking for better paid work.
The argument of opponents of the TPPA, from the perspective of American workers, is simple. The agreement may well provide profit to the multinational corporations whose lawyers and lobbyists have written it, but that profit comes at the expense of workers whose jobs increasingly move offshore, with manufacturers chasing ever less costly labour.
The New Zealand Government seems committed to signing the agreement before our citizens have the slightest opportunity to debate it.
Yes, there has been opposition, including a committed group in Wanganui, but we have seen the colder than lukewarm welcome those concerns were given at the district council. And MP Chester Borrows is on record dispelling the notion that there is anything to worry about.
Farmers here may, if the TPPA passes, have a good deal to worry about. Large corporations would be able to demand changes to farming practice, to the incorporation of GMO and eunichoid seeds.
The leaked TPPA provision called ISDS (Investor-State-Dispute-Resolution) allows companies to sue an entire industry in a partner country for damages against practice that decreases anticipated profit.
Patients who require medicines for maintaining health are at hazard. A recently leaked provision in the agreement allows a practice called "evergreening" which permits prescription pharmaceutical companies to extend the lives of their patents by slightly modifying their products, thus enabling them to continue charging up to 100 times what similar generic drugs cost.
In practice, pharmaceutical companies could sue to overturn Pharmac's current safeguarding of our pocketbooks and our health with generic versions of those expensive medicines.
We need to let our local MPs know how we view such incursions to our sovereignty by corporations with their loyalty solely to the bottom line. At this late date, the literal fragments of democracy may be our last defence against a corporate-sponsored profit tsunami.
