Breaking: TPP text released – and it’s every bit as bad as we feared. Opposition surfaces.

A Citizen’s Trade Campaign email was waiting for me this morning, with the breaking news that the TPP text has finally been released:

Text for the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was finally released in the wee hours of this morning, and after years of waiting, we now know why negotiators insisted on keeping it a secret for so long. This pact is a disaster for the economy, the environment and public health.

See the full TPP text http://www.mfat.govt.nz/Treaties-and-International-Law/01-Treaties-for-which-NZ-is-Depositary/0-Trans-Pacific-Partnership.php

Follow Twitter coverage as journalists and activists read and respond.

Full #TPP "confirms 'worst nightmares' of environmental groups" https://t.co/CgmgDFfodG More: https://t.co/FUaflHXX5z

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 5, 2015

Opposition to the TPP has been loud in the United States, with New Zealand opponents also quite vocal. The New Zealand Stuff quotes TPP opponent Jane Kelsey:

TPP opponent Professor Jane Kelsey said Thursday’s release of the TPP text ended a “farcical situation … Governments were touting the benefits for the nation with no prospect of any independent assessment to contradict them,” Kelsey said.

“It is not clear whether this will also start the 90-day countdown before President Obama is allowed to sign the agreement under US law, or whether any of the other countries would sign unilaterally before the US does.”

But Kelsey said ‘the legal text was not enough on its own.

“We need to see the background documents that help make sense of the text, but the parties have vowed to keep secret for effectively another six years.’

‘We also need the various analyses the New Zealand government has relied on when talking up the benefits and playing down the costs. They have been coy about who has done this work, especially the projections of $2.7b benefits for the economy, and stalled on Official Information Act requests to release them, despite the High Court’s rebuke last month’.

Sign the petition urging Congress to oppose the TPP.