IMPORTANT HUI NEXT MONTH

September 29, 2018 Leave a comment

A number of groups have decided it is time to convene a hui to set out what an alternative and progressive trade strategy should look like.

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Our watershed event for imagining a truly progressive trade strategy: 19 and 20 October, University of Auckland

Kia ora tatou

You are all invited to attend an inclusive hui at the Fale Pasifika, University of Auckland, on "What an Alternative and Progressive Trade Strategy Should Look Like". The hui will be held on Friday 19 and Saturday 20 October. Those of you who cannot attend are encouraged to participate via Twitter and watch the live stream of sessions on The Daily Blog website.

Our call for real alternatives to controversial trade and investment treaties like the TPPA is being heard around the world, so a number of prominent New Zealand groups (including trade unions and NGOs) have decided it is time to convene a hui to set out what a truly progressive trade strategy for Aotearoa New Zealand should look like.

More information, including the programme and speaker details, can be accessed here.

The hui has a forward-looking focus and features 10 impressive panels in conversation on the pressing issues of the future, from the international economy, geopolitics and livelihoods to Tiriti-based relationships, sustainable worlds, health, knowledge and how to reinvigorate the local.

Speakers include journalists Rod Oram and Bernard Hickey, law professor Jane Kelsey, former diplomat Terence O’Brien, Médecins Sans Frontières, Maori lawyer Annette Sykes and iwi chair Margaret Mutu, NZCTU’s Sam Huggard and Bill Rosenberg, Greenpeace Director Russel Norman, and many more.

Hui organiser Professor Kelsey explains: "The TPPA was a wake-up call for many New Zealanders about the far-reaching implications such treaties for the government’s right to regulate in the national interest, including the Treaty of Waitangi, health, environment, workers, and local businesses. Now we need to shift the focus from critique of the status quo toward creating a new paradigm for progressive trade."

Co-sponsors include the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, It’s Our Future, Doctors for Healthy Trade, Oxfam New Zealand, Greenpeace, New Zealand Nurses Organisation, First Union, Public Services Association, New Zealand Educational Institute, Post Primary Teachers’ Association, Tertiary Education Union, and OraTaiao, the New Zealand Climate and Health Council.

Attendance is free, but space at the venue is limited.

We hope you can make it.