2 June 2015: Leonore Taylor writes in The Guardian Australian Edition that Australian politicians have been told they can view the current confidential negotiating text for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, but only if they agree not to divulge anything they see for four years, despite expectations the deal could be finalised within months.
May 30, 2015: Chas E Freeman writes in the Boston Globe that US attempts to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership to counter rising Chinese influence in the Asia-Pacific region are nonsense. Persuading Asians to adopt the intellectual property practices favored by Hollywood, Big Pharma, and patent-trolling American lawyers will not reduce Chinese influence.
May 27, 2015: One thousand union delegates at the ACTU Congress endorsed a resolution calling on the Australian government to release the TPP text or withdraw from the TPP negotiations, criticising the impacts of the TPP on access to affordable medicines,environmental protections, food safety standards, workers’ rights, and the inclusion of investor rights to sue governments as an attack on democracy and sovereignty.
May 25, 2015
100 people attended the successful launch of a TPP cross-party working group by Melissa Parke MP (ALP), Senator Peter Whish-Wilson (Greens), and Senator Nick Xenophon (Independent). All three parliamentarians voiced concerns about the secrecy of the TPP negotiations and its potential impacts on many areas of public policy including medicine prices, copyright, Internet regulation and environment and food regulation. They also criticised the inclusion in the TPP of special rights for foreign investors to sue governments over domestic legislation, known as Investor-State Dispute Settlement, (ISDS), which could undermine democratic legislation and national sovereignty, and called for the release of the TPP text for public scrutiny before it is signed ,
Media Release
Sunday May 24, 2015
“Both Japan and Chile have said they will not finalise the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal until Fast Track legislation has passed both houses of the U.S. Congress,” Dr Patricia Ranald Coordinator of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTINET) said today.“This means the TPP Trade Ministers meeting due on May 26 will not be able to seal the deal, and has been cancelled, yet another missed deadline.”
“Meanwhile Australian parliamentarians will tomorrow launch across party group critical of the TPP at 12:30 PM in Committee Room 1R1 at Parliament House in Canberra. This is a response to growing community concern about the TPP in Australia,” said Dr Ranald.
May 19, 2015:Nobel prize-winning economist Jeffrey Sachs Argues that the TPP is a dangerous gift to corporate lobbies and Michael Wessel, a US cleared advisor who has seen the TPP text condemns the secrecy and says critics are right to be concerned, while a Japanese Minister says there will be no deal at the TPP Ministers' meeting next week without fast track.
Media Release 13 May, 2015
“The conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal is now in doubt following the defeat in the US Senate of a proposal to advance the FastTrack Bill.The Fast Track Bill would prevent the U.S. Congress from amending the TPP, and instead allow only a yes or no vote,” Dr Patricia Ranald Coordinator of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTINET) said today.
April 29 2015: Professor Ron Labonte on trade and health equity, Professor Joel Lexchin on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada, and Dr Deborah Gleeson on the health impacts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in Australia and other TPP countries. See the video here.
Sunday, May 3, 2015: Dr Patricia Ranald's article in the Sydney Morning Herald, Canberra Times and Melbourne Age supports release of trade agreement texts before they are signed and a Parliamentary vote on the whole text of trade agreements.