Dear Sir/Ms: There are flaws in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (“TPP ratification is far from certain”, Canberra Times, October 30, p19). The biggest flaw reverses centuries of self-rule in which sovereign nations make laws and corporations comply. Under the TPP, corporations make laws and a secret corporate court enforces them. The corporate court exists to punish nations that interfere with corporate profits. Fair Work Australia must go (as it interferes with profits) or face the wrath of the corporate court. Gone will be laws that deter corporations from dumping toxic waste or oil that pollutes rivers and seas.
There are other national laws that the TPP’s (profit-protecting) corporate court will punish or outlaw. These include our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. And schemes that subsidise Australian movies. The only movies we can see will be made by Hollywood profiteers. To ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership is to commit cultural suicide. Put simply: Do we want to live in a democracy or a corporate-ocracy?
Ethiopian proverb: Evil enters like a needle and spreads like an oak. Our MPs should spray the TPP with herbicide before it’s too late.
– Graham Macafee, CLA member, Latham ACT