Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Yes it was in late February this year just two weeks before this agreement was set to be signed without any further input or amendments possible that I last rose to speak about it in this House. I said on that occasion that this agreement undermines our democracy in a multitude of ways not least of all in the complete lack of input—meaningful input—or consultation possible by the public on the secret text until very recently before that debate. The select committee process that we've just gone through echoed those words. Submitters came one after the other and expressed total disillusionment. They had come before the last Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee chaired by the Hon Mark Mitchell as he's just alluded to. They had said the same things and as the text of this agreement had become public and they had scrambled to look at these changes that were promised—this revolutionary change that the coalition told us had come about to justify its sudden turnabout on position—these changes just weren't there. The submitters were forced to repeat themselves were forced to keep talking about the lack of democracy the secrecy and lament the lack of consultation. Most of all—worst of all—we found that the heart of the opposition in this agreement was still there. Our democracy was mostly under threat not just by the process but by the fact that the investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses remained essentially the same. Foreign investors multinational corporations can still sue our Government for future change that would regulate in the public interest in a system that sits above ours. It sits above our courts and above our Parliament. This House is being bound to look out for their profits above the interests of ordinary Kiwis—above our human rights environmental protection our workers' rights and the founding constitutional document of this country the Treaty of Waitangi. Those concerns were repeated over and over again by submitters.So we heard about this and we learnt that actually there's good reason that we don't allow Kiwi businesses to sue Parliament or our Government for their profits. Why are we giving this away to foreign investors? This Government has talked about stopping foreign investment in terms of residential housing but we're about to give away far more rights to foreign corporates to do this in a multitude of other areas. In fact we learned as the submitters pointed out again and again the 6000 pages of this document aren't all that much about trade at all. Of the overwhelming majority of submitters who opposed this deal nobody came along to say that they opposed trade. Nobody opposes free trade or international trade. We are a small nation and they all recognised as does the Green Party that we need trade. We're not against trade but this agreement is blatantly not all that much about trade. It is in fact about corporate privilege—privileges that are set out in great detail in every single area of our lives: privacy rights rights to technology that ordinary people don't have but that we are about to give away to foreign investors. Hon Gerry Brownlee: Explain that!GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: I will explain that. So in terms of privacy in this data-driven economy in this data-driven world where Facebook privacy breaches are determining the outcomes of elections in the leading nation of the free world we're about to allow foreign corporates to keep their data offshore to avoid our Privacy Act protections. We have promised to refrain from regulating all future unknown technologies. Who does that benefit and what does it have to do with trade?We asked again and again—and I'll quote actually from Dr Robin Gwynn a submitter who said We already know the disproportionate fighting power of Apple Google Facebook and the like. Do we really want to give them more power? Do we want to take away the power of our own Government our future Governments to regulate them?" Apparently. How much is that worth? Well apparently not all that much as the select committee report points out. We're not actually guaranteed all that much.The doctors came along—there were quite a few of them. We've got the New Zealand Medical Association talking about two basic examples that they wanted to give of the types of regulation that they've been lobbying for that won't come about under the TPP. The two regulations that they are prioritising that they know will be threatened by the TPP that they noted was warning labels on alcohol packaging to warn pregnant mothers against foetal alcohol syndrome. Now that won't be possible. It'll be possible on New Zealand wine bottles they said but not on foreign imported ones. We've excluded cigarette labelling and regulation from this deal rightly because we recognised that that would be terrible—imagine if our Government couldn't regulate for public health in terms of warnings on packaging. "Well what about alcohol?" the doctors asked.The other thing that they noted was that they are fighting for an introduction of a sugar tax. Now our Government I think we can all agree should assess public health issues like that based on merit based on science based on what is in the best interests of us all of New Zealand and not based on some agreement that was sold to us as a trade deal but that actually just gives away those types of rights those democratic rights of this House. Even just the threat of that litigation hanging over this House is obscene. It's a perversion of our democracy and submitters pointed that out over and over again. It is tying us to an old world order that has failed that was the cause of the very recent global financial crisis.Another submitter with great wit Genevieve de Spa called the TPP—or "CPTPP" she said or whatever you call it—"neoliberalism in globalism's clothing." We're not against globalism but we are against the old economic order that we all suffered under that gave away everybody else's rights to the 1 percent and nothing trickled down and this is more of the same. So we are disappointed. We are disappointed that spin was sold to us and that nothing much has in fact changed and I am sad to be agreeing with this side of the House on that one. It is the same deal. We have signed on to it without consultation and without effective input. We have heard from our Waitangi Tribunal that actually the treaty protections don't really go far enough to protect the full Treaty relationship. They don't in fact protect future law or regulation being passed to comply with the Treaty of Waitangi. And we put that aside—our own expert body on this issue. We put that opinion aside we didn't order an independent analysis and this was the overwhelming vein of submissions. Where is the independent analysis on health on environmental issues? There isn't even mention of climate change. Why set out with all the force of law all the detail in the world the privileges and rights of foreign corporates but not mention—not a single mention—our obligations pursuant to treaties like the Paris Agreement on climate change? If this is our generation's nuclear-free moment then where is that in this agreement in this future-looking agreement that's going to govern every aspect of our lives every aspect of issues that this House will consider in future on healthcare on environmental issues on human rights? There is not a mention of those in any kind of binding language in the investment chapter that not only sets out those obligations not only binds this House but makes us susceptible to litigation and a body that sits above our own law. So as I said on that first occasion I am sad to say that with this free-trade agreement—that's not all that much about trade—we haven't just signed on to a treaty; we have ceased sovereignty. Thank you."