Campaigners against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations want the negotiating texts made public to help ensure the process fails, says Trade Minister Tim Groser.
Think about that for a moment. What Groser is implicitly saying is that if the public knew what the government was signing away, we would never agree to it. That is government is acting against the interests of the public. That they are betraying us.
And this is precisely why we need transparency: to stop that from happening. The only thing secrecy enables is betrayal.