Leaked papers expose New Zealand's "extreme" trade stance: law expert

The New Zealand government is pushing an "extreme neoliberal" agenda that will harm poor nations in secret negotiations on an international trade agreement covering government services, a leading New Zealand law expert said Thursday.

Auckland University Professor Jane Kelsey said leaked documents of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) negotiations being conducted by the United States, the European Union and 23 other parties had exposed the government's true intentions.

The documents were leaked by WikiLeaks earlier Thursday and sparked calls for the government to end the secrecy surrounding the TISA negotiations, which are being conducted under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

New Zealand's role stood starkly exposed, most notably by the domestic regulation text, Kelsey said in a statement.

"Having failed to get WTO members to agree to extreme neoliberal 'disciplines' that require them to adopt light-handed and risk-tolerant approaches to regulation, it is pushing this aggressively through TISA," said Kelsey.

That failed model had brought New Zealand finance company collapses, poorly constructed homes that leaked, and the 2010 Pike River mine disaster, in which 29 men died, as well as elder-abuse in New Zealand rest homes.

"Now it wants to bind all the other TISA governments to do the same, said Kelsey, adding if the government has its way, this extreme position will ultimately end up being imposed on all members of the WTO, including some of the world's most vulnerable countries.

The raft of leaked texts and documents covered topics ranging from finance, post and transport to professional services and domestic regulation.

The leaks showed that the world's most powerful services exporters, acting on behalf of their corporations, refused to learn any lessons from the Global Financial Crisis and wanted instead to intensify the risks from barely regulated cross-border finance, she said.

Documents were to remain secret until five years after the agreement came into force or negotiations were formally terminated.

Kelsey called on the parties to revoke the secrecy pact at a stocktaking meeting in Geneva in early July.

Critics argue the secrecy mirrors that around the negotiations for the controversial 12-nation Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks.

The New Zealand government was one of a small minority of WTO members pushing the TISA and TPP negotiations, said Council of Trade Unions Secretary Sam Huggard.

"The powers that these negotiations are giving to private corporations severely undermine the ability of governments to protect workers, the environment and the stability of our financial system," Huggard said in a statement Thursday.

"Workers in this country deserve to know what is being agreed to as these negotiations will directly impact on peoples lives." Endi