The Prime Minister’s claims to the Infrastructure
Investment Summit in Auckland today, that his Government is
committed to a rules-based multilateral trading system, are
undermined by his Government’s repeated breaches of the
environment chapters of recent free trade agreements, says
Greenpeace.
“The Prime Minister today is making his
pitch to international investors that his Government is
committed to a rules-based international trading system
while simultaneously undermining that system by breaching
New Zealand’s free trade agreements with the European
Union and the United Kingdom,” says Dr Russel Norman,
Greenpeace Aotearoa Executive Director.
“The
environment chapters of the free trade agreements between
New Zealand and the European Union and the United Kingdom
create binding obligations on New Zealand.
“However,
the New Zealand Government has been systematically breaching
these agreements by weakening environmental protections in
order to gain trade advantage.
“New Zealand Ministers
have made it clear that they do not intend to meet the
commitments made by New Zealand under the Paris Climate
Agreement. But meeting those Paris commitments is explicitly
required under the terms of the free trade
agreements.
“Likewise, New Zealand Ministers have made
statements that they plan to weaken freshwater protection
rules to create trade advantages for New Zealand
agribusiness. This has alarmed our trading partners as
weakening environmental protections to gain trade advantage
is specifically ruled out under the free trade agreements,”
says Norman.
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Questions on New Zealand’s commitment
to the environmental chapters have already been raised in
the UK and EU Parliaments.
Norman says, “Luxon can’t
have his cake and eat it too. Either his government is
committed to the free trade agreements, which include
binding environmental chapters, or it is not.
“The
European Union and the United Kingdom have made it clear
that trade commitments are predicated on environmental
commitments.
“If Luxon wants to present himself as
committed to a rules-based multilateral international system
then he needs to also be committed to New Zealand’s
international environmental agreements,” says
Norman.
