Too Little, Too Late: The Opportunity To Stop the CPTPP Has Passed.

Off The Hook: Since early-November 2017, the Labour-NZF-Green Government has been able to sell its message that the CPTPP represents a genuine improvement on the TPPA. So much so, that the street-based protest option has quietly dropped-off the anti-TPP agenda. That’s why the anti-TPP pressure group "It's Our Future" is promoting a “Day of Action” on 4 March 2018, rather than an honest-to-goodness protest march like the one that stunned New Zealand on 4 February 2016.

“TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE.” That’s what I would say to David Parker on the day he released the text of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). With the signing ceremony due to take place in the Chilean capital, Santiago, on 8 March – a mere fortnight from the document’s release – the time available for thorough public scrutiny and debate is simply too short.

I would also say “Too little, too late” to Oliver Hailes, the new spokesperson for the anti-TPP pressure-group, It’s Our Future (IOF). He has announced a “Day of Action” against the CPTPP on Sunday, 4 March. But, at just four days out from the signing ceremony, what is IOF’s “action” supposed to achieve?

It’s hard to tell. In the bulletin released by Hailes, the Day of Action is described as:

“[A] Nationwide Day of Action across New Zealand in opposition to the Government’s plans. The Government intends to sign the treaty in Chile on Thursday 8 March and there will be an organised presence at Parliament on that day - watch this space, details are to come!”

Reading on, it becomes clear that IOF’s strategy in relation to the CPTPP is fundamentally unchanged from the strategy it adopted against its predecessor, the plain old Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).

In Hailes’ own words:

“Signing is not the end of the process! [The CPTPP] must be presented to Parliament for debate, and then it will be referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Select Committee for examination. These are opportunities for all of you to have your say through written or oral submissions. Eventually the Select Committee will make a recommendation to the Government as to whether or not it should ratify the text and adopt implementing legislation to bring New Zealand law into line with its international commitments. And then, if the Government gets its way, New Zealand will undertake binding action. Each one of these steps provides an opportunity for you to intervene and let the Government know why it should turn back. Remember, the whole plan fell to pieces last time.”

Well, yes, it did, but only because President Donald Trump yanked the United States out of the Agreement at the last minute. Submissions to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Select Committee made absolutely to difference to the National Government’s plans to bring the TPPA into effect. It is fanciful to suggest that submitting to the same select committee on the CPTPP will produce anything other than exactly the same outcome.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”? The IOF should turn that quotation into a poster and pin it up on the wall above Oliver Hailes’ desk.

So, what would work? The answer, sadly, is that, right now, a fortnight out from the signing ceremony, it’s hard to see anything working.

Jacinda Ardern, Winston Peters and David Parker were vulnerable to the critics and opponents of what was then being called TPP-11 for only a very brief moment: the period immediately preceding, and immediately after, the Apec Meeting in Danang, Vietnam on 6-11 November 2017.

That was the period during which it became clear to all those who had trusted in Labour’s, NZ First’s and the Greens’ declared opposition to the TPPA, that the new coalition government was preparing to renege on its promises. If the IOF movement had called its 20,000-plus supporters onto the streets in early-November 2017, under the slogan “Hold Them To Their Word!”, then there might have been a chance of spooking Jacinda, Winston and David into resisting the pressure from MFAT, MBIE, MPI, Federated Farmers and Business NZ to treat their pre-election promise to defend New Zealand’s sovereignty as “just one of those things you say in Opposition and then forget about it Government”.

Sadly, the IOF did not activate its data-base of followers and lead them into the streets, with the result that, in the weeks and months that followed, the Government has been able to sell its message that the CPTPP represents a genuine improvement on the TPPA. So much so, that the street-based protest option has quietly dropped-off the anti-TPP agenda. That’s why Oliver Hailes is promoting a “Day of Action”, rather than an honest-to-goodness protest march like the one that stunned New Zealand on 4 February 2016.

Getting a handful of worthy souls to gather in city-centres and parks on 4 March 2018 and hold up a tired display of re-cycled placards and banners, is something IOF can manage. Putting 50,000 angry Kiwis on Queen Street is no longer within its power.

The impact will be negligible. A Government riding-high on 48 percent in the latest Colmar Brunton opinion poll has nothing to fear from a single day of [in]action.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 22 February 2018.

On Government Ground: The TPPA Struggle Shifts To Parliament.

The New Battleground: As the struggle over the TPPA shifts from the streets to Parliament the political rules-of-engagement will change. If Jane Kelsey and her followers are to avoid the fate of Queen Boudicca and hers, then she must never accept a battle fought on her enemies' terms. That means reigniting the extra-parliamentary struggle. If the Anti-TPPA movement attempts to fight John Key on his own turf - it will lose.

 

AND SO IT BEGINS. The Government’s counter-offensive against the opponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is slowly, but surely, gathering pace. It’s weight and relentless aggression will test the TPPA’s opponents’ fighting skills to the limit. Already, they have been found wanting. The massive protest demonstration of 4 February may have caught the TPPA’s protagonists off-guard, but it has not been followed-up. The pressure on the Government has eased. It is now John Key’s turn to demonstrate his power.

 

The best historical analogy I can think of is the Boudican Revolt of AD 60-61. Like Boudicca, the warrior queen of the Iceni tribe, Professor Jane Kelsey has been highly successful at rousing and mobilising her followers against the TPPA. Also like Boudicca, she has taken full advantage of the strategic opportunity her distracted opponents were foolish enough to give her.

 

The Roman Governor of Britain, Suetonius, having called in the Empire’s loans to the Iceni royal family and annexed their kingdom, added insult to injury by allowing his legionaries to first flog the loudly protesting Boudicca, and then rape her daughters. Convinced that the subjugation of the Iceni was now an accomplished fact, he carelessly led his legions West, to the island of Anglesey, where he exterminated what remained of the Druids.

 

Bad move.

 

While he was busy putting Druids to the sword and cutting down their sacred oaks, Boudicca was laying waste to the key Roman cities of Camulodunum and Londonium, and slaughtering upwards of 70,000 Romans and Romano-Britons.

 

Not good.

 

The Emperor Nero momentarily considered abandoning his new province to its murderous inhabitants. But then, at the Battle of Watling Street, his loyal Governor, Suetonius, reminded the Mediterranean World why Rome was its master.

 

Because, truthfully, it’s not that hard to get a lot of people all rarked-up about their beloved homeland being turned into a colony of the unbelievably powerful masters of the world. The same is true of slaughtering people by the thousand. That’s not hard, either. Especially when the legions normally dedicated to their protection are on the other side of the country putting an entire religious tradition to the sword.

 

It’s important to face facts. While Jane Kelsey’s crusade, like Boudicca’s rebellion, has tasted victories, these have all been won on battlefields of her own choosing. What happens when her rebels are forced to fight on their enemies’ chosen ground?

 

Fighting On Rome's Terms: Rigorously trained and highly disciplined, Suetonius's legionaries made short work of Boudicca's wild warriors.

 

In Boudicca’s case the answer was a bloody massacre. Suetonius’s two legions (roughly 10,000 men) may have been faced by upwards of 100,000 Britons, but they were undaunted. Roman legionaries were professional soldiers, highly trained and superbly disciplined. Against Rome’s well-oiled war-machine, Boudicca’s ill-disciplined warriors didn’t stand a chance. They were butchered with parade-ground precision.

 

John Key’s MFAT officials are no less professional than those Roman legionaries. Supported by the National Party’s most seasoned MPs, they know well how to exploit the rules of engagement of committee room and parliamentary chamber, where the TPPA conflict is now being played out.

 

If Professor Kelsey and the anti-TPPA “It’s Our Future” movement were able to pack the galleries and corridors of Parliament Buildings in the same way they packed Queen Street on 4 February, then they might have some hope of winning this battle. Instead, like Boudicca’s outmanoeuvred warriors, they are being driven into the saw-toothed shield-wall of the Government’s legions, where, their bravery and brilliance notwithstanding, the bureaucrats and politicians will stab them to death.

 

Their defeat will not be made any easier to watch by the sight of Phil Goff (and possibly David Shearer) striding across the parliamentary aisle to join National, Act and United Future in voting for the TPPA.

 

With the legislation giving effect to the content of the TPPA enacted in New Zealand, the hopes of its opponents will shift to the United States Congress. If President Trump, or  President Sanders, takes office on 20 January 2017, then the agreement will be a dead duck. Why, then, would President Obama not put the deal in front of his lame duck Congress for ratification? And why would those congressmen and women not, for once, oblige him?

 

Fighting Rome was easy. Beating Rome was not – as Boudicca discovered. Victory came only to those who fought Rome on their terms – not hers. If the anti-TPPA struggle is waged in Parliament, it will lose.

 

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 26 February 2016.

Making It Stop: Taking Stock Of 4 February 2016, With Some Thoughts About The Way Forward.

A Huge Response: The Anti-TPPA protest of 4 February 2016 packed out Auckland's Queen Street from end to end. The last big protest to do that was Greenpeace's Anti-Mining in National Parks demonstration of 10 May 2010 - when the NZ Herald estimated the number of marchers at 40,000. The 4 February protests were also notable for the numbers of Maori and young people on the streets. Is the "Missing Million" waking up?

 

SOME TRIBUTES FIRST, then an apology. To Jane Kelsey and Barry Coates I can only say thank you. Demonstrations like the one I marched in on Thursday don’t just happen. They are the product of hours and days and years of hard work, during which people fight not only against loneliness and fatigue, but against the insidious thought that their unceasing efforts might all be in vain. Observing the glowing faces of Jane and Barry, as they rode down Queen Street on the afternoon of 4 February 2016, it was their selfless commitment to battling on, heedless of setbacks and against all odds, that brought tears to my eyes. Once again, thank you.

 

Tribute is also due to Real Choice. By their extraordinary actions throughout the morning and afternoon of 4 February they proved just how sterile theoretical debates about tactics and strategy can be. Somehow, in growing older, I had forgotten the words of the young student activist, Mario Savio, spoken 50 years ago on the steps of Sproull Hall at the University of California’s Berkeley campus. In my teens and twenties I had sworn by them, and, to my older self, they certainly bear repeating:

 

There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.

 

On 4 February, Real Choice put their bodies on the asphalt of Auckland’s inner-city carriageways, and for several hours they made things stop. In doing so they sent a much-needed reminder to the people who run, to the people who own, this country that it can, if the provocation is great enough, be prevented from working. No one has indicated that to them for a very long time.

 

So, to Real Choice I say: Respect. No one was seriously hurt and no one was arrested. In the words of the little man in the grey suit who was right there in the thick of things, that was: “Bloody marvellous!”

 

I also say: Sorry. For my throw-away, and clearly unfounded, suggestion that Real Choice might be a “false flag” operation, I apologise – and my statement is withdrawn unreservedly. No false-flag operation could possibly have out-thought, out-run and out-manoeuvred the Police like Real Choice did on Thursday. The Springbok Tour protesters of 1981 could not have done it better.

 

BUT, NOW WHAT? In which direction should the energy generated by the 4 February protest actions be turned?

 

Happily, there is no shortage of targets.

 

Parliament resumes sitting on Tuesday, 9 February. The slow wending of the TPPA document through numerous select committee hearings; followed by the Government’s enabling bill’s passage through the four stages of parliamentary debate; both will provide excellent opportunities for carefully targeted protest action. Likewise, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trades’ (MFAT’s) travelling road-show of public presentations intended to “sell” the Government’s pro-TPPA position to the electorate. All should be seen as educative political events, reinforcing the anti-TPPA’s core messages of diminished national sovereignty and a deepening democratic deficit.

 

The extent to which these core messages have already entered the public’s consciousness has unpleasantly surprised the TPPA’s supporters. They were taken aback at the size and vehemence of the Auckland protests and will already be working on ways to unpick the picture Jane Kelsey and her comrades have embroidered so vividly on the public mind. The Government’s and big businesses’ counter-offensive will have to be met, held, and rolled back.

 

This will be made considerably easier by the simultaneous fightback against the TPPA occurring all around the Pacific rim – but especially in the United States. Strategically, the struggle is between the progressive/patriotic forces operating within the twelve signatory states, and the defenders of the transnational corporations. Obviously, this puts the “Pro” forces at a serious disadvantage. Far from being able to pass themselves off as promoters of the public good, they will emerge from the contest as the big corporations’ fifth columnists, committed to defeating the patriots fighting to prevent the agreement’s ratification.

 

John Key and his Government thus risk entering election year as a collection of figurative “Quislings”, guilty of conspiring against the national interest on behalf of entities without countries, morals or scruples. If this perception can be driven deep into the electorate’s mind, then National’s chances of re-election will be nil. More importantly, the victorious coalition of Labour, the Greens and NZ First will be swept into office with a broad mandate to take on a corporate plutocracy that has ruled without challenge for far too long.

 

For the first time in over 30 years, there will be a mass political movement dedicated to putting itself “upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus” of the neoliberal machine – and making it stop.

 

This essay has been jointly posted on the Bowalley Road and The Daily Blog of Saturday, 6 February 2016.

The 0.004% Mandate: Why Opponents Of The TPPA Should Boycott Real Choice’s “Blockade” On 4 February.

Thumbs Down To Extremism: With the registered support of just 0.004% of the voting public, the activist group Real Choice claims a mandate to shut down central Auckland! If there wasn’t so much at stake it would be funny. The broader anti-TPPA movement can be assured, however, that there’s at least one person who is laughing his head off. John Key.

 

A GROUP calling itself “Real Choice” has announced its intention to “blockade” the Sky City complex on Thursday, 4 February 2016. It’s chances of doing this are, of course, zero. Unless several thousand Real Choice supporters have been knocking themselves out in a network of hidden “Non-Violent Direct Action (NVDA) training camps (at the same time as the riot squads have been doing their “Public Order Response Training”) the group’s planned blockade will not progress beyond the first Police skirmish-line.

 

Real Choice’s stated intention of “shutting down the surrounding area and stopping entry by blocking some surrounding roads – effectively creating a TPPA free zone” completely ignores the fact that the signing of the TPPA, featuring the representatives of twelve nations, is already the subject of a major security operation. The idea that anyone is going to be permitted to block roads or stop entry is simply delusional.

 

Forewarned of Real Choice’s intentions, preventative measures will already be underway. Police Intelligence will have supplied the security operation’s commander with the names and photographs of Real Choice’s principal operatives and their movements will be closely monitored from now until next Thursday.

 

Real Choice’s very public threats will also, very likely, have prompted the acquisition of interception warrants by the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) who will, doubtless, be liaising with their colleagues at the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to set up comprehensive real-time surveillance of Real Choice’s members.

 

This will be done not because the group represents an actual threat to the signing ceremony, but simply because, through its actions, Real Choice has provided New Zealand’s security apparatus with a golden opportunity to “test drive” its new powers and resources. (Always assuming that Real Choice is not what’s known as a “false flag” operation: a group set up by the security services themselves - often to establish a case for government to give them even more powers and resources!)

 

Real or fake, Real Choice has delivered to John Key exactly what he was hoping for by staging the TPPA signing ceremony at Sky City. In doing so it has placed at jeopardy all of the work done by Jane Kelsey and Barry Coates at “It’s Our Future”. Entirely parasitic to the mass movement others have created, this tiny group has embarked on a course of action that threatens to undermine what tens-of-thousands of New Zealanders have researched, argued, organised and marched for.

 

Real Action, which began its life as the equally ineffectual “Show Us Ya Text”, claims to be acting in the name of democracy. It’s website describes itself as “a group of citizens who believe in democracy and think everyday Kiwis should have a say on the TPPA.” Quite what it thought “everyday Kiwis” were doing last night [the evening of Tuesday, 26 January - C.T.] in the Auckland Town Hall; or last August, when close to 30,000 of them participated in nationwide demonstrations; one can only imagine.

 

To most people, what It’s Our Future has been doing for the past four years is the very essence of democracy. The fact that, last night, it had assembled representatives of the Parliamentary Opposition on the Town Hall stage, and that, together, those politicians had signalled the prospect of a new coalition government putting an end to New Zealand’s participation in the TPPA in 2017, surely indicates that democracy is in absolutely no need of Real Choice’s “assistance”.

 

Real Choice, however, could use a lesson or two in exactly what democracy is and isn’t. Last November, for example, the group set up an online “referendum” to determine whether or not New Zealand should ratify the TPPA. The voting period extended from 23-30 November and, according to the website, 12,070 voted. Of these 11,731 (97%) voted against ratification. That was enough for the boys and girls at Real Choice – the people had spoken!

 

The people? Really? No. What they attracted were 12,070 votes out of an electorate numbering (at the 2014 General Election) 2,416,479 electors. In other words, Real Choice’s referendum (of which most of the country was entirely unaware) canvassed the opinion of just 0.004% of the voting public. And from this infinitesimal sample it now claims a mandate to shut down central Auckland! If there wasn’t so much at stake it would be funny.

 

The broader anti-TPPA movement can be assured, however, that there’s at least one person who is laughing his head off.

 

John Key.

 

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 28 January 2016.