Delahunty CatherineCATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. Tēnā koutou katoa ko tēnei pō. I will just take a short call. I just want to lay down a couple of issues around this bill because as others have said it is technically obscure. I am sure the people tonight listening to it would like us to talk in a way that is comprehensible just because the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA) itself has been obscure for many people. I went to a number of briefings where I came away none the wiser—because there is a lot of rhetoric and there is a lot of promotion and there is a lot of jargon but actually there is not a lot of common sense and clarity.I want to focus on one particular aspect of this which I think is most disturbing and which we have an experience of in other countries that we should learn from. It also irritates me when everyone says that we are pro - free trade"—as if there is no such thing as fair trade. The Green Party believes that trading is an inevitable and important human activity that has always and will always take place. Communities of all sizes have always traded. That is one of the critical ways in which we interact. It is not rocket science and it can be fair. Free trade is the myth. There is nothing free about privileging corporations over community rights—it is not free. It is a misnomer just like the TPPA is not a trade deal; it is an investment deal. It would do the public a service if we actually talked about things in an honest way and actually talked about the need for fairness. I do not know whether anyone in this Committee wants to deny it but some corporations own more than the economy of this entire country and have enormous powers. Why would we privilege them over the needs and rights of citizens?Marama Fox: Any more than they already are.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Any more than they already are as Marama Fox says. It is already an unequal playing field. One of the ways in which this is played out in this bill—and I am going to talk about the bill; fear not—is investor-State dispute settlement which Barry Coates began to talk about. I want to talk about one example of why we are opposed to the TPPA and this provision which our Government has been adamant in including. That is the experience of other trade deals in other countries.Take for example the company known as OceanaGold which owns the Waihī mines—the Martha Hill pit and the mines underneath people's homes in Waihī. It has owned other mines particularly in Reefton in Aotearoa New Zealand. It tried to sue El Salvador for $301 million recently in a trade court. It lost but guess what? It took 7 years: 7 years when the El Salvador Government—not the wealthiest Government in the world—had to defend its people's right to object to gold mining polluting their water. It cost their Government $12 million. It will be compensated for some of it but it cost it more than the money: it cost it a whole lot of energy time and sovereignty rights in defending in a trade court. And what is a trade court? Who are these people? They are not lawyers. They are not people's representatives. They are not citizens. They are trade courts. I am fascinated by how they can invent these things these mechanisms through the World Trade Organization etc. to suit the purposes of the corporates. It just happens to be this time that El Salvador won and OceanaGold—not my favourite company because it is ruining my area and has ruined other areas—actually managed to lose this case.There was something that has been described by for example Marcos Orellana of the Centre for International Environmental Law. I think it is important to quote because this is what investor-State dispute settlement does. It is not a game. It is not a picnic. It is not something that countries need to waste their energy on but these deals impose it. He said: "Regardless of the outcome the arbitration has had a chilling effect on the development and implementation of public policy necessary to protect the environment and the human right to water." That is how basic this is: the human right to water. Fair trade would protect the human right to water. Free trade which is free only for the corporates does the exact opposite. What matters in this world—[Bell rung] Mr Chair?The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Catherine Delahunty.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: I will not take a full call but I will finish my sentence. What matters in this world is water. If the corporates get control of these things even more than they already have this country will become yet another casualty as El Salvador may well still be despite winning in this obscure trade court.I just want to briefly touch on the ideology behind the TPPA in this bill—I acknowledge that there have been some useful Supplementary Order Papers put up to help modify the impact—and one ideology is the fantasy world that the economy is more important than people. Free trade is riddled with this fantasy. The economy is more than a person! It is a giant person who sometimes has a bad day—the economy had a bad day! The economy was struggling; the economy needed help! We give the economy this enormous power over people and give it more validity than people because otherwise the economy might become unstable. We do not control the economy; it does not work for us. We need these trade deals because the economy is so important and powerful and huge that we cannot break it down and recognise that it is about people and their rights to trade fairly.That is what I object to about the TPPA. It pretends that these investments are going to benefit people who cannot and have not been able to maintain their rights to trade fairly. The economy my friends is just a subset and a tool of human beings' right to live sustainably on the planet with each other and with the environment. These deals undermine that right and put the economy as if it were a super-god—a superhuman force that cannot be allowed to have a bad day. We are opposing this bill because we believe that the economy should work for the people and trade deals should be fair. We believe that it is more than possible to design rules and regulations that are fair that acknowledge Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a fundamental issue of sovereignty and that will acknowledge the rights of citizens to determine their own relationship with the environment to protect your own services and goods and to maintain the privilege of living in your own country and saying that you will be considered first rather than some multinational. But I can understand why we are not considered first because the economy is God and so the economy must be free! But the people do not get fairness when the economy is God and that is the problem. We are modelling ourselves supposedly on a model that is failing people all over the world. Why do you think—sorry Mr Chair. Why do people think—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): I do think.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: —that there are massive protests in every country? Because we are all stupid all of us who protested? Some of us have been doing this since the Multilateral Agreement on Investment which failed and fell over because of confusion public objection and brilliant campaigning by some people. We will persist. The TPPA has not been won yet no matter what game the New Zealand Government thinks it is playing. Globally including in the United States of America as I speak people are opposing this. Many many people have doubts that their own ability to trade fairly will be upheld by this deal. So talk as much as they like we do not trust it and why do we not trust it? It is because we have had this fantasy game going on for quite a few years now and we are still living in a world of gross inequality gross environmental degradation and increasing unrest. The plan is not working the economy is not God and the TPPA is not what we need. Kia ora tātou katoa."