Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In the last few minutes left of my speech, I'd like to summarise for the chamber that the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, an agreement that has taken nearly 13 years to get to this parliament, has come to symbolise just about everything that is wrong with a globalised, neoliberal, trickle-down approach to our economies, to our societies and to our communities. It was triggered by the GFC and the collapse of the multilateral Doha rounds. It was initiated by big corporations, nearly 300 of them, who pushed politicians in different countries around the world, many of them in political parties that they donate to, to start a new round of negotiations to create a megadeal that essentially gives them whatever they want. Remember that these companies operate in different countries all around the world. Civil society and parliaments didn't have access to these secret meetings. They were all deemed commercial-in-confidence. Finally, we got thousands of pages of documents on deals on trade, services and investments right across just about every facet of our society—from digital rights through to education, health care and the environment. What we have before us today is a set of rules and regulations synchronised amongst 11 countries written by big corporations.

This is exactly the wrong direction for this parliament and this planet to be going in. This TPP will drive privatisation. It will continue to ratchet up the effects of smaller government on our lives, giving more power, not less, directly to big business, especially the toxic Trojan horse clauses—the investor-state dispute settlement clauses—that give corporations special new rights to sue sovereign governments for the decisions we make. This is the wrong path for us to be going down. We have an opportunity here today to say no to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, to say yes to free trade and to say yes to a new treaty-making process that actually gives parliaments and all stakeholders—unions, workers, environment groups and social equity groups—a say in any deals if they're going to be signed and ratified by a parliament. It is absolutely critical that, after 13 years, we say no to this push to revitalise globalisation— (Time expired)