Hidden Agendas

'Forget the label “free trade agreement”. The TPPA, under negotiation between New Zealand, the USA and ten other countries, is a direct assault on our right to decide our own future.

In this hard-hitting BWB Text, Professor Jane Kelsey picks apart the current negotiations surrounding the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) and comes to some disturbing conclusions.

Such a treaty, she says in this new work, has little credible economic rationale but could have potentially dangerous effects on our ability to decide for ourselves how we address the economic, environmental, social and Treaty challenges of the twenty-first century. At a time of constitutional review, the secrecy surrounding the TPPA negotiations raises hard questions about the future shape of New Zealand.

BWB Texts offer a new form of reading for New Zealanders. Commissioned as short digital-only works, BWB Texts unlock diverse stories, insights and analysis from the best of our past, present and future New Zealand writing.