One of the cathartic things about leaving the public service is I do not have to be deferential to politicians anymore. I can treat them like ordinary people and tell them where to go when they annoy me. In consequence, I am not in any way nervous about appearing before a parliamentary committee.
This Parliamentary committee was very unlike the last. Staying on after giving my submission was a pain rather than a learning experience.
A parade of conspiracy theories about the investor state dispute settlement process followed my testimony, which was first of the day. I left after about 45 minutes.
In my testimony, I got a standard question from David Clark, a Labour MP, about whether more time should be that given to make submissions because the complexities of the intellectual property chapter.
Kennedy Graham, the Green MP, then asked a bizarre question about how could New Zealand sign a trade agreement that would compromise environmental standards. His example was a trade agreement where it is agreed to start using coal as a power source again in New Zealand.
So weird with this question that I did not give the obvious answer which was this parade of horribles is so unlikely that it is not a serious question. What I did say was it is very unlikely New Zealand would ever sign such an agreement.
If a parade of horribles and weird hypotheticals is the best you can do, you do not have much of an argument against the TPPA.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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