This weekend, ministers from 12 countries around the Pacific Rim, including New Zealand, will meet in Singapore for their last opportunity to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership this year.
The “multi-lateral trade agreement” sounds dry, but the TPP could have a huge impact on your life, whether it stops you downloading Game of Thrones – or dramatically improves the fortunes of the industry you work in.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade aims for the agreement, which has been in negotiation for three years, to “deepen economic ties between its diverse members by opening up trade in goods and services, boosting investment flows, and promoting closer links across a range of economic policy and regry issues.”
Put simply, it’s a way of opening up trade between countries; for example, New Zealand will be able to send its beef and lamb to the United States, Mexico and Chile, and those places can sell more products here.
Ultimately, a lot of items should become cheaper, and our exporters should make more money, which is important to an economy as reliant on exports as ours. And a trade agreement with the US has been on successive New Zealand governments’ wishlists for years.
We’re a country at the end of the earth – we don’t like to think so, but we’re the last stop for everything. So the things we buy tend to be costlier, because there’s really nowhere else for us to go.
But, of course, it’s not that straightforward.
The negotiations have been criticised for their lack of transparency: if it weren’t for a leaked document, we wouldn’t know what is being proposed under the agreement at all.
The US’ stance on key issues like copyright and patent protection is also a point of contention, and this is where your DVD player comes in.
Hadyn Green, a tech writer for Consumer magazine and the NZ coordinator for the Fair Deal Coalition, says parts of the TPP – like the chapter on Intellectual Property – “goes completely against free trade”.
Those leaked documents suggest that the agreement as it stands now would extend copyright terms and patent.
Hadyn says the TPP could also make it illegal to download television programmes from other countries, which would have massive implications for a country as remote as ours.
“We’re a country at the end of the earth – we don’t like to think so, but we’re the last stop for everything,” he says. “So the things we buy – our media, our electronics, all of our copyrighted goods – tend to be costlier, because there’s really nowhere else for us to go.”
As a nation, we tend to steal a lot, he says: “I mean that in a nice way. We want the content, we’ll pay for it, but we want to get around these walls that are put up in front of us.”
At the moment, circumventing geoblocks (such as regional coding on DVDs, and video-streaming sites that limit their audiences by mapping IP addresses to countries) is legal – but that would all change with the introduction of the TPP, says Hadyn.
“Under the TPP, those blocks become illegal to get around. That includes your multi-zone DVD player – so as soon as you throw in your region one DVD and hit play, you’ve broken the law.”
He says that will mean consumers pay more – and not just for TV shows, but consumer goods, because of the TPP’s provisions for restrictions on parallel importing.
The negotiations have been highly confidential. That doesn’t mean that they’re not happening in our best interests.
Hadyn doesn’t understand why the TPP has managed to fly this far under the radar. He says it’s ripe for a Buzzfeed-style headline: ‘Why does the government want to make your DVD player illegal?’
Young Farmers board member Jason te Brake, who is in favour of the boost to New Zealand’s export industry promised by the TPP, understands the criticisms of the apparent secrecy surrounding the agreement – but says New Zealanders elect officials to negotiate and enter into such arrangements on their behalf.
“We’ve given them the mandate to go and do this on behalf of our country,” he says. “For them to be as effective as possible, they need to be able to operate during these negotiations… and part of that is that the negotiations have been highly confidential. That doesn’t mean that they’re not happening in our best interests.”
Jason says the important thing is to make sure NZ gets the best deal possible – and he doesn’t believe any sacrifices are being made for the benefit of the agriculture sector. In any case, part of building on the country’s ability to trade is to get better value for our products overseas, he says, and points to NZ’s free trade deal with China as an example.
In a country as reliant on exports as ours, “it is very obvious that the terms of trade have a huge impact on doing business and being profitable,” he says. “We are going to get more bang for our buck if we’ve got better trade agreements with these countries.”
Jason points out that some of the countries involved in TPP negotiations currently have high tariffs on imports or exports, and removing those and other restrictions will benefit exporters in NZ, and in turn the national economy.
If we’re going to be getting better returns, we have to realise that we have to give up some things.
Though he says NZ needs to be careful not to give up too much, “if we’re going to be getting better returns, we have to realise that we have to give up some things, whether that’s allowing foreign investment or entering into other kinds of partnerships.”
One of the most controversial aspects of the agreement is the impact is could have on the Government’s drug-buying agency, Pharmac. Once a patent on a drug lapses, other companies can make generic copies of it, which Pharmac buys and subsidises.
Hadyn Green says, as it currently stands, the TPP destroys Pharmac’s buying power, which will benefit US pharmaceutical companies, and increase the cost of drugs for us here in NZ.
“It’s ridiculous to say nothing will change with Pharmac,” he says. “Will the Government give it more money to be able to do its job?”
Surgeries can also be patented in the US, meaning that, with the added cost of drugs, health insurance premiums will likely increase in New Zealand.
Trade Minister Tim Groser told TVNZ in September that negotiators are defending Pharmac’s role, and the TPP will have a marginal impact on the agency. Equally, an MFAT spokesperson has clearly stated that NZ is not prepared to negotiate on the fundamentals of the Pharmac model.
Jason te Brake is optimistic about the potential outcomes of this weekend’s negotiations, the last opportunity to secure an agreement before the end of the year. “I feel like there’s great deals we can get across the board. It’s not just about ‘let’s get a great deal, because it’s going to make our agriculture returns even better’. It’s about making sure we go out and sign a deal that makes us a stronger country.”
On Sunday, Radio New Zealand National’s Insight programme will have more on the talks this weekend, and whether an agreement is likely to be reached before this year is out.