The dodgy Trans-Pacific Partnerhip agreement

The Australian Government says that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is 'a viable pathway for realising the vision of a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific.'

It says that the Asia-Pacific region is a driver of global economic growth with close to half of all global trade.

The secretive TPP negotiations include five of Australia’s top 10 trading partners, Japan, United States, Singapore, New Zealand and Malaysia. The Government claims that Australia’s participation in the TPP negotiations will strengthen our trade relationship with these key trading partners. The TPP also includes Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Peru, and Vietnam – and others have been invited to join.

But if it is all it's cracked up to be, why are the negotiations not public? There are huge global businesses pushing the agenda and it seems that they don't want us to know what is going on.

Information which has been leaked about the negotiations causes many concerns over things like the trashing of national food safety regulations and draconian enforcement measures over intellectual property rights.

If the TPP is implemented it will take 'free trade' to a completely different level and we can kiss goodbye to food safety standards. Our own industry will be under attack as there will no way to prevent the importation of eggs from any of the participating countries.

Have a look at:

https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp