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Ngati Kahungunu chair Ngahiwi Tomoana says the Trans Pacific Partnership signed early this morning is an attack on open society and Maori rights.
The Hawke's Bay iwi is one of the parties to a High Court challenge against the government's refusal to release documents relating to the 12-country agreement on trade and services.
Mr Tomoana sees it as an extension of his tribe's battle in the WAI 262 claim for rights over fauna, flora and intellectual property.
He says it's concerned the the TPP overrides both New Zealand's sovereignty and the tino rangatiratanga of iwi under the Treaty of Waitangi.
"The secret nature of it in the four- year lapse of any information being available to the general public smacks of a secret state, totally against open society in general. We want to examine it in terms of its impact on the Treaty of Waitangi and on our intellectual property and our tikanga," he says.
Ngahiwi Tomoana expects the Government to come out hard selling how good the agreement is, but the risks will be buried in fine print that won't be made public until well after the TPPA becomes binding on New Zealand.
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