TPPA petition gets thousands of signatures

8:33 pm on 14 January 2016

A petition against New Zealand signing the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement has gathered over 11,000 signatures in just two days.

The Government is denying a date has been set for the signing of the deal despite an official statement by Chile saying it will be done in New Zealand on 4 February.

Barry Coates from the 'It's Our Future Coalition' set up the petition and said he expected more people to sign it.

"If we continue at that rate we'll be in the hundreds of thousands of signatures. This petition particularly says to the Government 'don't sign the TPPA'. It's a crucial point when our government signs it and we don't think that they have a mandate to sign the agreement and this petition gives people a chance to say no."

Barry Coates said the deal was designed to serve the interests of large corporations rather than those of people or the planet.

Get the RNZ app

for ad-free news and current affairs