UPDATED 9.44AM: Trade Ministers from around the world may be flying into the country next week to sign the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, but opponents are assuring the public this is far from a done deal.

LISTEN: Trade Minister brushes aside TPP critics

MORE: Govt releases analysis backing TPP

MORE: TPP opponents 'misguided or paranoid' - ACT

A meeting was held at the Auckland Town Hall last nigh, the first in a series of public congregations ahead of the signing of the deal next week. A diverse crowd heard from global trade activist Lori Wallach from the United States, Auckland University law academic Jane Kelsey, and members from the Labour, Maori, Green, and New Zealand First parties.

All opposed the deal for its secrecy and impact on the rights of New Zealanders, claiming that it undermined the sovereignty of the country.

Lori Wallach, the Washington-based Director of Public Citizen Global Trade Watch, is in the country campaigning against the deal being signed, and told the crowd the TPP is likely to be undone by a lack of support from US Congress.

Wallach claimed the TPP holds more negatives than positives for New Zealand - including including increasing prices for PHARMAC - and warns against Parliament passing relevant legislation.

"I thought it was really important to dig out of the snow and come here and say 'Guys, this far from a done deal'," she stated.

"You've now changed your laws to meet all this bullshit in the agreement [but] it's an agreement that may never get signed and you'll have screwed yourselves over by passing that law."

"It does not matter if the President of the United States, whoever he or she may be, signs a trade agreement in blood, in gold, or in ink."

"If the US Congress does not approve under our Constitution, it is nothing but a five-thousand page doorstop."

Prominent TPP opponent Professor Jane Kelsey took to the stage with a prop: a stuffed toy "dead rat" which she named Tim after Trade Minister Tim Groser discussed the idea of having to swallow dead rats during the negotiations. She echoed Wallach's message, saying the agreement won't come into force until all countries have completed their domestic processes.

The US will not say New Zealand has complied with the deal until we've implemented our laws and policies according to US interpretation of the agreement, Kelsey said.

The Labour Party's Finance Spokesperson Grant Robertson told the audience there are economic benefits in the agreement, but even they growing more modest by the day.

"You cannot put a price on our democratic and constitutional freedoms to make our own laws," he said to applause.

Robertson urged the debating tent to be as wide as possible: "Not every New Zealander has read and understood the things that have been written about this agreement. Bring them in, the people who are worried but confused."

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei, fresh from her State of the Nation speech in Wellington that afternoon, told those gathered that the whole point of the deal is to take power away from democratically elected governments, and give it to multi-national corporations.

"It's not about trade - it's about power," she said.

"Where their interests clash with what's best for New Zealand, it's pretty clear from all the evidence that the investors will come out on top."

Turei noted that the TPP would lump costs with taxpayers who can't afford it when there is raging inequality and massive levels of child poverty in this country.

"If we're going to be spending money like this, it is going to go on our kids' and their needs, not international corporations so they can make more profit."

Earlier in the day, the government released its own 'National Interest Analysis' of the deal, claiming that to stand aside from the TPP risks marginalisation and decline in the region.

Despite serious concerns raised by Opposition parties and iwi groups, the Analysis insists the TPP contains a Treaty of Waitangi exception, similar to one used in other free trade agreements.

The reports says as a result, nothing in the TPP prevents the Crown from meeting its obligations to Maori, including under the Treaty of Waitangi.

The report notes the TPP will require changes to tariff and overseas investment laws, as well as amendments to the Copyright, Trade Marks, and Patents Acts.