Genter Julie AnneJULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I want to start my contribution to this debate by talking about values what I in particular value and what the Green Party values and why I stood for the Green Party. What we value is a world where our climate and our environment is protected for the long term where people are able to have meaningful work and able to live happy healthy lives—a world where there is peace. This is not unrealistic. This is something that we could create. With all of our knowledge and our technology human civilisation should be able to achieve this.Trade could and should be part of achieving this of protecting our environment and protecting people and achieving a peaceful civilisation but it currently is not. Why is that? It is because along with trade has been exploitation of natural environments and the exploitation of poor people all for the benefit of some very wealthy investors. It will continue to happen this way if we do not stand up and say that we want a better world. I know that most New Zealanders agree with this and would like to live in a peaceful world would like to protect our natural environment and would like to live in a society where everyone has a fair go and we do not have increasing inequality.But the National Government is letting us down not only because its policies are not achieving this but because it is not even facilitating an open and frank debate about its policies. The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA)—we have not had a proper debate about this and any time anyone raises significant concerns about the provisions in the TPPA and how they are going to make it more difficult for us to protect our natural environment to protect the public health of our people and even to protect the interests of taxpayers when it comes to the cost of medicines we are accused of being anti-trade. Well let me say right here right now: I have no problem with trade. We believe in trade. We want trade agreements that protect the things that matter most to us in this world and that is our children's future that is the water that they should be able to swim in and drink that is the air that they breathe and that is the climate that we need to be looking after.I know that those National Government members understand this because their Government signed up and ratified the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement says we cannot keep doing business as usual. We have to change how we are doing things. Yet the TPPA is very much about protecting business as usual.Our three main concerns about the provisions in the TPPA are: the ISDS clauses—that is the investor-State dispute settlement provisions which give investors the right and ability to sue Governments simply because they have legislated in the interests of protecting the environment or public health. That is the truth of how these ISDS clauses work—70 percent of all the ISDS cases that have been taken have been about environmental regulation and there are countless examples of these. For example when the German Government tried to phase out nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster in Japan it got sued for NZ$6.2 billion by a Swedish nuclear energy company. When the state of Quebec decided it did not want any more gas fracking Chevron Oil Co. sued the Canadian Government for almost $400 million. Chevron Oil Co. also used ISDS to sue Ecuador because Chevron was trying to get out of a previous ruling that said it owed billions of dollars to Ecuador for polluting the Ecuadorian environment.Anyone who cares about protecting the environment in the long term will have concerns about the provisions in the TPPA that are effectively giving foreign investors the right to potentially sue future New Zealand Governments for regulating in the interests of protecting our environment. I have not heard a single National member stand up and give any defence of this. It is not just the environment. If we care about public health and the ability of future Governments to pay for medicines then we should be concerned about the copyright provisions in the TPPA that could affect the ability of Pharmac to negotiate affordable prices for medicines. In fact National has already admitted—John Key has already admitted—that it will cost us more. Maybe it will not cost New Zealanders more when they go to pay for it at the pharmacy but it will cost New Zealand taxpayers more because we are going to have to pay more for those medicines.How is that in the interests of New Zealand? It is definitely in the interests of the big pharmaceutical companies in the United States. They are some of the most profitable companies in the world; their margins are incredible. I am not saying that we should not be looking to get a better deal for our exporters—we absolutely should—but what we have got in the TPPA is simply not worth the cost the way this trade agreement has been written.It is not just the Green Party that is raising concerns about this. The EU Trade Commissioner—who is in the middle of negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) which is an Atlantic version of the TPPA—said We want the rule of law not the rule of lawyers." and is calling for ISDS reform. The Australian Productivity Commission set up by John Howard recently came out strongly against investor-State dispute clauses because of the unquantifiable financial risks to Governments. It said ISDS creates "potentially large unfunded contingent liabilities dependent on decisions by international arbitration tribunals." "substantive appeal rights available to foreigners not available to domestic firms risk impeding domestic regulatory reform … lack transparency and have inadequate parliamentary scrutiny."So the concerns that the Green Party has are not about trade—let that be clear—we are concerned about the ability of New Zealanders to use their democratic right to regulate to protect in the interests of the environment and in the interests of public health. I think that is a perfectly legitimate concern to raise and it is a debate that should have been had here in New Zealand. We should have been talking about that. Not everyone who raises concerns about the way this has been drafted should be castigated as being completely anti-trade or against jobs in New Zealand. I mean honestly. In the Government's own analysis it shows that the TPPA is likely to lead to a loss of jobs in New Zealand.So again what we see here is a pattern. That pattern is that law is being made in the interests of the few in the interests of the powerful and in the interests of those who are already benefiting from the status quo. We know we want something different and something better and we have every ability to create that for ourselves. So for all the young people out there in Aotearoa who want a peaceful world with a stable climate and a fair society I say to you: you can make a difference. Get involved in politics. Get involved and help us create this fairer society and better world because these people in power are not going to do it for us."