Anger over TPP deal as New Zealand still awaits full details

New Zealand's main opposition political party said Wednesday it will not be bound by the controversial 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) if it comes to legislating on property ownership.

The Labour Party said it would reserve the right to legislate in the best interests of New Zealanders, as opposition politicians and critics of the newly-signed deal tried to assess its impacts.

The TPP prohibits current and future governments from blocking foreign investment in most forms of property by citizens of signatory states.

At present, foreigners can buy any property in New Zealand unless it is sensitive land or some other category that comes under the control of the Overseas Investment Office.

Labour Party finance spokesman Grant Robertson told Radio New Zealand he would not be bound by this provision.

"We think it is in the best interests of New Zealanders to give all of us a fair go at buying our own home and if that requires passing legislation to limit overseas buyers from purchasing land and housing, then we want to be able to go ahead," he said.

Robertson said in a statement Wednesday that New Zealand had sold itself down the river by failing to even try to protect New Zealand land and homes from offshore interests in the TPP negotiations.

"Under the carve-outs they negotiated, Australia can still restrict foreign buyers of its homes. Malaysia will still ban foreign ownership of affordable housing, Singapore and Vietnam will still restrict foreign investment," said Robertson.

"But it seems that in the government's failed attempt to gain better access to dairy markets around the world we have given away the right to protect our land."

Auckland -- New Zealand's biggest city and home to a third of the population -- had an overheated housing market in which "too many Kiwis are shut out by high prices and speculators who are paying far less for their loans overseas are given an unfair advantage over those who fully commit to our country."

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce dismissed the concern and said negotiating out of the provision would not have achieved a great deal.

"Let's say somebody buys an existing house, they buy it off a New Zealander, a New Zealander goes off and builds a new house -- what's the crime?" Joyce told Radio New Zealand.

The opposition New Zealand First party said the TPP opened New Zealand up "even more to dubious investment practices" and the country would pay for its inability to scrutinize the deal.

Under the TPP, the threshold to check character and business experience doubled from 100 million NZ dollars (65.88 million U.S. dollars) to 200 million NZ dollars (131.76 million U.S. dollars).

The new threshold proved just how much international corporates, through puppet negotiators, have been able to circumvent the will of sovereign nations, New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters said in a statement.

"At a time when huge sums of ill-gotten money are transferred around the world, and our checks through the Overseas Investment Office are already weak, we should be raising the bar against unscrupulous money merchants, not lowering it," he said.

Auckland University Law Professor Jane Kelsey, who is leading an ongoing legal battle for publication of the TPP text, said the government now must release them.

"We face a situation where the government has access to the full text, and those of us who have been critical of the agreement have to rely on information we can secure from offshore to cross- check the government's spin," Kelsey said in a statement.

"The idea we must wait for at least another month before we can fully test the government's claims makes informed democratic debate impossible." Endi