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A define lack of testicular fortitude

Just hours after our "hard nosed negotiators" started patting themselves on the back over the results they achieved in respect to the TPPA, giant cracks are opening.

NZ's key dairy exports will be largely unimproved by this deal -- in fact quite the opposite looks set to occur.

Just this morning the Canadian government announced that in the wake of these negotiations, their farmers would be receiving $4.3 billion in subsidies.

So will NZ's beef and dairy exports benefit from this?

No, we're actually going to be even more disadvantaged!

Yes, some tariffs will be reduced, making the "supermarket price" lower than before TPPA but with the addition of *billions* in subsidies, locally produced product will be even cheaper still, thus making our products even less appealing to Canadians.

Did our negotiators not realise that there are two ways for overseas markets to create artificial trade barriers to imported products?

If you're forced to drop tariffs then all you need do to restore such barriers is to subsidise local producers -- and that looks to be exactly what's happening -- first in Canada and almost certainly within other members of the TPPA signatories.

Duh!

To quantify -- apparently the NZ economy will benefit by $2.7b a year through the reduction in tariffs by countries like Canada -- so the $4.3b increase in subsidies by that country shows just how little effect this tariff removal will have on NZ's ability to compete for Canadian customers.

Then we have the issue of copyright.

Showing utter contempt for the original intent of copyright law, NZ has now agreed to extend the period of protection from 50 years to 70 years as a condition of the TPPA.

So, if you download a book or other "creative work" today that is presently just out of copyright protection you'll be 100% legal and have committed no crime. Once the TPPA is ratified however, you'll be turned into a copyright criminal with the stroke of a pen. Heaven help you if the work was penned by an American -- you might find your home invaded by armed police and yourself on a plane to "the big house" in the USA.

Next time you decide to save yourself a few bucks by importing an All Blacks jersey from the UK or USA (where, for some reason, they're much cheaper than on the shelves of your local retailer) -- you might find it seized by customs as an "illegal import" because, under the changes brought by TPPA, you didn't buy it from the NZ-authorised distributor (at whatever price *they* decide to charge).

It's also looking as if we've lost the right to restrict the sale of NZ to overseas purchasers so that path to becoming tenant serfs in our own country has just got wider and smoother.

What Groser and Key have failed to understand, having been caught up in the exciting world of international trade negotiations -- is that sometimes, the best deal is no deal at all.

New Zealand may well be best advised to simply say "No TPPA for us" and go it alone.

We still buy heaps of products from countries with which we have no formal trade agreements.

We still sell lots of exports to countries with which we have no formal trade agreements.

Trade agreements are not mandatory and sometimes (as is the case with the TPPA) the net result is a huge negative (as is becoming apparent with the Canada situation).

Unfortunately, our politicians lack the testicular fortitude to let New Zealand stand on its own two feet and negotiate its own deals, based on the quality and price of its products and services.

How tragic that our leaders have so little faith in this country that they deny us the freedom to do this.

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