Labour signs another lame duck agreement

16 November 2020

by Chris Leitch, Leader

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Just as it did after the 2017 general election Labour has signed another lame duck
agreement following years of behind closed doors negotiation.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a lame duck agreement for several important reasons.
It was negotiated and signed without any debate with New Zealanders who, just like with the TPPA, will have no influence on the shape of the agreement or the final legislation that puts it in place. Most people had no idea it was even being negotiated.
Just like with the TPPA, the major player that might have given New Zealand at least a modicum of benefit has withdrawn from the deal.
Just like the TPPA the benefits to New Zealand will be vastly outweighed by the benefits conferred on overseas corporations to take a greater stranglehold on New Zealand's economy.
Just like the TPPA this agreement seeks to place the governments of participating
countries under a kind of legal discipline that has nothing to do with the rights of citizens and everything to do with the ability of powerful corporations to become even stronger.
Negotiating and signing a deal that on the most optimistic projections might increase GDP by about $2 billion dollars annually in several years time has to be the largest waste of taxpayer money in years.
The money spent on the plethora of public servants who over 8 years have been involved in negotiating and producing reports on the agreement would have been better employed working out how the government could have honoured its commitments from way back in 2017 on a major house building programme or dramatically improving the incomes of those in society the Prime Minister promised to lift from poverty.
If the government simply stopped borrowing from the Australian commercial banks and used its own Reserve Bank instead the interest saving would be vastly greater immediately than the optimistic $2 billion dollars this agreement is projected to produce.
Social Credit opposed the TPPA, it is totally opposed to the RCEP as well, and we would work to scrap both when we get back into parliament.
Social Credit’s policy for establishing international counter trade agreements between countries would produce significantly greater benefits for both New Zealand and the countries it seeks to trade with, and maintain New Zealand’s ability to make decisions that benefit Kiwis.