Our 2011 election manifesto - Labour Party

We will continue to pursue trade agreements already in train with the Gulf
Cooperation Council, India and Russia.
We will continue to participate in Trans-Pacific Partnership talks but reiterate our
commitment to retaining Pharmac in particular as a bottom line item which must not
be traded away. We feel similarly strongly about intellectual property provisions.
Labour will not accede to conditions which undermine our sovereign status, subject
New Zealand to litigation by multinational corporations, or compromise our ability to
make determinations in the interests of New Zealand's future.
Labour is opposed to the sale of land, state-owned enterprises and infrastructure
being permitted through trade agreements.
We maintain that other opportunities for foreign direct investment can be encouraged without
undermining our sovereignty. We will defend these issues in any trade talks.
Greater engagement with civil society over trade talks
A broader civil society debate around our trading relationships needs to be built if we are to
avoid unnecessary social conflict, both within New Zealand and beyond.
Labour can build this engagement on principles of openness, greater transparency, and the
virtue of contestable advice. We will also strengthen the quantitative analysis contained in
the National Interest Analyses required for Parliamentary Treaty ratification to ensure that
best estimates of positive and negative impacts of any trade agreements are made.
Labour will establish a Trade Advisory Commission, with the following purposes:
To provide independent advice on the implications of any free trade
agreement under negotiation for any particular sector of the NZ economy
To take into account the nature of labour and environment clauses and
assess them against NZ‟s international reputation, climate change
commitments and other treaty obligations
To conduct public hearings in the preparation of this independent advice and
produce publicly available reports on the results of those hearings
To consider the advancement of ethical trade criteria and the impact of such
criteria on NZ‟s trading position
To consider any human rights implications of FTAs
To conduct its own enquiries into sectors of the economy and their
performance under existing and potential FTAs
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