Mixed feelings on promise of trade deal

To its critics, it's a secretive trade deal that threatens consumer rights and could let foreign companies sue Australia for decisions they don't like.

But supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), including Australia's peak farming body, claim the 12-nation regional deal will be a boon for jobs and trade in the agriculture sector.

The TPP began as an obscure 2006 deal between Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore.

But since then Australia, the US, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru and Vietnam have joined negotiations for an ambitious expanded deal.

The Australia Institute claims the TPP risks an explosion in the cost of medicines, less Australian television content and relaxed labelling of genetically modified foods.

"The TPP trade deal could have significant, wide-ranging implications for Australian consumers, yet we are being kept in the dark by the government," the institute's executive director Dr Richard Denniss said in a statement on Wednesday.

In a new survey the public policy think tank said only 11 per cent of people "definitely knew" about the TPP, but most were opposed to it once they found out the details.

Particular concerns were expressed about investor-state dispute settlement clauses - a provision that could give businesses from one country power to take international legal action against the government of another over agreement breaches.

But the National Farmers Federation sees opportunity in the TPP, which could completely remove tariffs across all agricultural products.

NFF president Brent Finlay said this was vital to Australian farmers, who exported around two-third of what they produced.

"We need governments to work harder, and stronger, to finalise such deals as the TPP," Mr Finlay said.

But he warned that allowing tariff exceptions for certain products would set a dangerous precedent and farmers wouldn't support a deal unless all participating countries agreed to the same terms.