When a campaign needs to step into a new phase, is time to look at the language they are using. When the language changed from anti-smoking to smoke-free, the campaign stepped up a notch and a much larger section of the public was won over.

The current language against signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is the language of protest. It needs to change to the language of freedom.

What is this freedom? Freedom for the government to make its own decisions without fear of being sued by a corporate.

So symbols of freedom must be used.

Oh and we might get round to answering the nonsense about how our companies will have a free market in other countries too. So we want our corporates to be able to write the laws of other countries do we? We want our corporates to invade other countries and ride roughshod over their freedom to make their own laws? Of course not. This argument is like saying you are justified in robbing us because we also rob you.

So far the battle of language has been won by the corporates. They have controlled the language, and captured the freedom imagery with their appeal to “free trade”. It is time to grab the word ‘freedom’ from the corporates.

If TPPA had been in place when our smokefree legislation was introduced we would have been sued for millions. The Labour Party is currently advocating favouring local business when awarding government contracts. That could never eventuate either with TPP.

It is time to get smart. Otherwise many great policies can simply never be implemented for fear of being sued in a foreign secret tribunal and paying huge fines.