His remark must surely qualify as sarcasm. NZ purports to be a democracy, a bastion of open government and a shining beacon of citizen participation in a world where many countries are run by tyrants and dictators who expend vast amounts of resources to hide things from their citizens.
I guess his statement could be a very subtle but clever piece of satirical theatre: We are not being secretive about this to prevent people knowing what we are doing because we think they may not like it. It is an opportunity to simply not tell them and make it a surprise.
The secrecy is a worry. From what little is known, it appears that multinationals are going to be given the means to override the sovereignty of states to increase and control trade and profits.
For example, there is concern that under the TPPA medicines will become more expensive for Kiwis. This would make the big pharmaceutical companies very happy. They would prefer that countries not have the kind of state purchasing power provided by agencies such as Pharmac as this stands in the way of greater profits.
It is unclear what other aspects of sovereignty, such as the place of the Treaty of Waitangi, might be traded away under the deal. The secrecy incubates the suspicion that, as citizens, we are being denied our democratic right to participate and will only find out once the deal is done.
Maybe the Government has read the NZ Herald article about research into business practice that found "those involved in a sarcastic exchange were up to three times more creative in a range of tests". The notion being advanced here is that sarcasm requires abstract thinking which can be readily turned to improving creativity. Yeah, right.
Do you find those annoying sarcastic people in your workplace inspiring? Yeah/Nah. (Did you see what I did there - I was sarcastic about the whole concept).
It is often said that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, signalling when intelligence is scraping the bottom of the barrel in search of a sharp object to poke someone with. Sarcasm is never nice and is particularly hurtful to children and can also make adults feel diminished in size.
Perhaps that was Todd McClay's ploy. By telling us we do not need to know what is in the TPPA, he is dismissing, with sarcasm, our right to be involved in something that may affect us as a nation for many generations to come.
-Terry Sarten is a writer, musician and social worker - feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz
