Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Mr Chair. As has been alluded to repeatedly and I think everyone here and hopefully out there in New Zealand knows the Green Party has always opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA) continues to oppose the newly named—and I'll say a rose by any other name—Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and will not be supporting any legislation that implements it here. We share the deep concerns of two-thirds of the submitters—and these are hundreds of submitters we're talking about—who found unacceptable the chilling risks that arise with the investor-State disputes settlement (ISDS) clauses that are still included in this agreement.So we come back to this issue that the bill is an amendment bill. It is referring back largely to the TPPA and implementing legislation to that dirty deal as some would call it and the ISDS clauses are at the heart of that. This means that this bill requires us—and with it this Parliament this House of Representatives—to sign on to a system that will sit above our law and above our sovereignty and it binds us to protect the profits of foreign multinational investors over the interests of ordinary Kiwis and our environment.So as an example—and as a Green—I have to note that in about 85 percent of cases where this type of provision has been relied upon to stop Government policy being implemented it has been in environmental protection cases. But as an example of the chilling effect of this I would note that when Indonesia tried to adopt laws that would protect against particularly damaging mining practices the very threat of being sued using this type of ISDS provision was enough to stop them. Their Minister for the environment said They will sue us for billions to compensate their losses and we can't afford to pay." That's the situation that we're walking into and that isn't what Kiwis voted for this election.So to mitigate some of that damage some of that risk I've tabled two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) the first of which relates directly to the ISDS clauses. Part of the reason this deal was sold by the coalition parties as a changed deal was that a number of the signatory States—CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Can I just remind the member that those SOPs are on Part 2 of the bill. We're on Part 1 so—GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: Oh sorry they're in Part 1 in front of me.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): —if you could reference your speech to Part 1.GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: Sorry Mr Chair. I have them noted as being for Part 1 but I could be mistaken. I'm happy to keep speaking to the ways in which this bill is similar to the TPPA.Hon Willie Jackson: Chuck it in—time's up.GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: Time is not up. So all the ways in which this bill remains the same as implementing the old agreement the TPPA: I would say that this was sold to us as a changed deal and it was only because there were some State parties that signed on to agreements that they would not in fact avail themselves of the ISDS clauses.The other big change that we were sold on was that there are these suspended provisions now in this agreement. Some of the damaging provisions in the TPPA were now suspended—things like protections around Pharmac's ability to set fair prices and to make high-quality medicine available in New Zealand.We now have found out through official advice that all of that could go were the USA for example to join the agreement and revive the TPPA. Any member State could join and not sign on to the suspended provisions we're told. Chillingly the very changes that were sold to us could go and they go through this bill without further parliamentary oversight. So it is important to note that this is an amendment bill because in fact what we're implementing is so very close to the old TPPA and not only that but the old TPPA is actually up for grabs. We're signing on to give away our parliamentary oversight of those provisions coming back of the old agreement coming back through this bill."