In terms of the domestic political dynamics around this week’s TPP deal it’s the Labour Party that will be the focus of interest.

Will it back the multilateral trade deal and give the Government a semblance of cross party unity?

Or will it cold shoulder the TPP leaving National to rely on its support partners to get any legislation associated with the TPP over the line?

Back in July Labour issued five bottom lines that it said had to be met if it was to support the TPP:
1)Pharmac had to be protected.
2)Corporations wouldn't be able to sue the Government for regulating in the public interest.
3)Governments would retain the right to restrict sales of farm land and housing to non-resident foreign buyers.
4)The Treaty of Waitangi had to be upheld.
5)Meaningful gains had to be made for farmers in tariff reductions and market access.

It is the land sale issue that could be a poser for the party as the TPP agreement reached would explicitly prevent the government from banning TPP nationals from buying property here.

Labour’s not yet explicitly saying this contradicts a bottom line and Finance Spokesman Grant Robertson says the need to see the full detail of the TPP text before making a final call. And with the Party’s Leader Andrew Little currently away on holiday it’d be a very brave Labour MP indeed that made a call either way on the issue.

On the face of it Labour’s language does leave it some wiggle room. There are ways to restrict property sales to foreigners that don’t involve outright bans on land or housing transactions. The crux will be how the issue sits with those within the caucus that don’t support the TPP and those, to the right, who are advocates of free trade. There is some tension here.

On one side you have MPs such as Phil Goff who are well known free trade advocates, yet others , amongst them MPs Ruth Dyson, Megan Woods, and Clare Curran, all participated in anti-TPP rallies in August.

Andrew Little is also in an interesting position. When he ran for the party’s leadership after the 2014 election disaster he made a deliberate point of criticising the TPP and making arguments against it.

He publicly stated he had concerns about parts of the TPP and identified investor-state resolution clauses as a particular area.

The questions he will now face is; is the TPP acceptable to him, is it in the country’s best interests, and have the bottom lines his party publicly announced in July been breached?

More importantly, has Labour got itself cornered on the TPP?