Rob Salmond makes a bit of a silly argument about New Zealand’s participation in the TPP, but it’s one that I often hear from the left. I’d described it as follows when I saw it from Brian Easton a couple weeks back (this is my paraphrase):
Because New Zealand unilaterally did away with just about all its tariffs some time ago, the only negotiating chips it has left on dairy access are copyright and IP provisions. So because we did away with tariffs, we’re stuck having to take on IP provisions we don’t like in the TPP.
Now that argument never made much sense to me:
I could understand this argument if we were talking about bilateral trade deals. But, New Zealand is only one of many countries in the TPP. Whatever deal comes in applies to all of them. If one gets crazily long copyright duration, they all…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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