We Get the Politicians We Deserve, They Say

What Have We Done?

Suddenly the NZ Labour Party has discovered the idea of national sovereignty.  It is somewhat of a late conversion.  Faced with the prospect of the present government signing the Trans Pacific Partnership ("TPP") free trade agreement--a political and policy objective formerly prosecuted and advanced by the Labour Party with great gusto and some notable successes--the Labour leader has now decided that TPP is a bridge too far.  

What is on that bridge? we wonder.  Labour leader, Andrew Little has been very clear in recent days.  The reason he (and his party) now opposes free trade agreements is that they end up diminishing national sovereignty.  They obligate New Zealand not-to-do nasty things with international trade.

This is a right pickle for the Labour Party.  The dizzying intellect of Mr Little has led the Party into a position which rapidly collapses into a quagmire with a scintilla of reflection.
 On the basis of his argument, every treaty, every agreement with another nation must be jettisoned because it restricts our sovereignty.  Take the open borders travel agreement with Australia.  Last time we checked a New Zealander can board an aircraft and jet into Sydney or Melbourne and breeze through immigration without a visa.  Australians can just turn up at our airports and experience the same latitude.  But hold on--that represents a massive "give away" of national sovereignty.

It is in the very nature of all international agreements to restrict (give away) some aspect of national sovereignty.  But then again, NZ is free at any time to rip up all its international agreements, and even become a rogue state on a par with ISIS, remaining sovereignly free to face all the consequences of such actions.

Of course Mr Little would defend to his dying breath some international agreements, regardless of how restricting they may be to national sovereignty.  Take, for example, the commitments New Zealand has made to the plethora of UN treaties over the years.  Every year our national sovereignty is traduced by being subjected to scolding from various UN bodies about our education system, our institutional racism, our bankrupt record on feminist causes, gender bending, child poverty, homosexual rights and so forth.  Not a peep from Mr Littlebrain.  Why?  Well, those are causes and agreements he just happens to approve of.  No problem, then, in giving away bits of sovereignty here and there.  It would appear that not all aspects of national sovereignty--or international agreements--have been created equal.

Ah, the vacuousness of it all.  But at least two of his caucus members have called him out.  Their hypocrisy meters were evidently still working.

Two senior Labour MPs have broken ranks with the party line and declared their support for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), amid rumours that at least one, Phil Goff, could cross the floor of Parliament to vote with National if Labour opposes enabling legislation. . . . Mr Goff, a former leader and former Trade Minister and now an Auckland mayoral candidate, and David Shearer, also a former Labour leader, last night told the Herald they both still supported the TPP.  Mr Goff said the deal should be signed.  [NZ Herald]

Quite.  But then Goff went on to skewer the Party's ignorance and hypocrisy:

"Every time you sign any international agreement you give away a degree of your sovereignty." He cited the China free trade deal negotiated when he was Trade Minister.  "We gave up the sovereign right to impose tariffs against China when we signed up to the China free trade agreement. But it came with quid pro quos. China gave up its right to impose huge tariffs on us.

"That's what an international agreement is; it's an agreement to follow a particular course of action and a limitation on your ability to take action against the other country.  You have the ultimate right of sovereignty that you can back out of an agreement - with all the cost that that incurs." [Emphasis, ours]

Goff hits the bullseye.  It is not true that signing any international agreement reduces our national sovereignty.  It is true that it obligates the government and nation to certain commitments and courses of action.  But at any point, we can declare our international obligations null and void.  We presume that Little knows this.  He could not be that ignorant, surely.   But what he is indirectly conceding is that the TPP will prove so beneficial to New Zealand, the costs and destructive consequences of subsequently removing ourselves from it will be politically impossible to do.  But political impossibilities represent not a diminution of national sovereignty, but its very essence.  Last time we checked, national sovereignty proceeds forth from the people.

But to acknowledge that would be to concede that the TPP will substantially benefit our nation.  And that would hardly buttress Little's argument.  Better to mount a bogey-man argument and make misdirected appeals to national sovereignty.

What have we done to deserve such rubbish being tipped out upon us?  Plenty, it would seem.