Donald Rod: Urgent Debates — Collapse of World Trade Talks in Cancun Mexico 
Donald Rod: Urgent Debates — Collapse of World Trade Talks in Cancun Mexico 
[Volume:611;Page:8681] 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Labour Government must accept its share of responsibility for the collapse of the Cancun World Trade Organization meeting yesterday. Labour could have rediscovered its internationalist roots Labour could have acted on its claimed commitment to social justice and democracy but it did not. Instead Jim Sutton was seduced into playing with the high rollers in the green room. The Government said it was a great thing that we had one of the 26 trade Ministers who were allowed on the inside—never mind the 100 countries that were shut out from the green room process. The Minister who was answering on behalf of Jim Sutton today could not even tell us what had happened in the green room and of course he is not alone; most of the World Trade Organization countries do not know what happened in the green room. That is because the process is anti-democratic and that is because there is no transparency in the World Trade Organization. 
But Mr Sutton wanted to be on the inside did he not? Instead of standing with the world’s developing countries instead of standing with the G21 instead of even being a member of the G21 and backing its calls for an end to the rich-world production subsidies and for the removal of investment and other so-called new issues that came out of the Singapore meeting he went on the inside. He sided with the rich countries by supporting the final text which not only gave the Europeans the Americans and the Japanese the soft option on subsidies but also tried to extend unfair trade rules into investment and new issues. Labour was at the crossroads at Cancun and it took the low road. And for what? We have to ask that. Surely it was not just so that Jim Sutton got a ticket to the green room to be with the inner circle of Ministers. There has to be more to it than that. How much of Labour’s trade strategy is influenced by it wanting to be friends with the United States of America? 
Certainly Labour chose not to listen to the developing countries—and they have been shouting for a long time. Mr Jim Sutton claimed to be deaf to their calls. Those countries are not wreckers as Helen Clark claims. They have put their collective feet down because they can see the reality. They have suffered the reality of the World Trade Organization working for the rich against the poor. That is the truth of the World Trade Organization. Jane Kelsey a very eminent commentator who has been at the meetings describes them as a turning point because “the perception that economic globalisation is inevitable and irresistible” is now no longer a perception. It certainly never was a reality. That perception has been shattered. There is no inevitability about globalisation because we have just witnessed a historic moment; we have just witnessed least-developed countries and developing countries—from Africa from the Caribbean from the Pacific and Malaysia—all refusing to give way to the bullying and the threats that have marred every meeting since the World Trade Organization was established in 1995. They have said enough is enough. They have said they are not prepared to succumb to the pressure from the big countries that want everyone else to do as they say and not do as they do. 
The Labour Government could have been on the right side. It could have said that it wants to support the developing countries in their calls for greater fairness for greater transparency and for more democracy. What did the Labour Government do? What did Jim Sutton do? He went along with the big boys. He accepted their whole approach of bullying of coercion and of demanding that the smaller nations of this world do as they are told or else. There were quite a few “or elses” at this World Trade Organization meeting; at least one country left the new bloc because it was threatened by the United States. 
Ultimately the countries that walked away had no choice. The draft ministerial text was so provocative that it strengthened their resolve. I quote from the impassioned speech of one Minister Sir Ronald Sanders from Antigua and Barbuda: “My Government has a duty to care for its people. Were we to accept this document we would deserve our people’s condemnation for we would not only have gained no relief for them; we would have condemned them to a life of perpetual underdevelopment and that my delegation will not do. I have to advise that this draft does not enjoy the support of my Government.” That is not the statement of a wrecker; that is the statement of a man who has expressed with considerable sadness that an international body could not do the right thing despite it having plenty of opportunity to do exactly that. 
But the problems of the World Trade Organization go way beyond this particular meeting; they go back to a whole string of failures. This year World Trade Organization members failed to meet the deadline for the General Agreement on Trade in Services round failed to meet the deadline for the industrials round and failed to meet the deadline for the non-industrials round. If ever the writing were on the wall it has been on the wall since March when only a few zealous Governments like the Labour Government in New Zealand were prepared to buy into the World Trade Organization agenda and everyone else was holding back. 
On top of the outcome problems there is the whole issue of process. This Labour Government could have earned some credibility if it had sided with the developing world and the major international organisations that are concerned about the need to improve internal transparency and participation in the World Trade Organization. Did the Government sign up to that call? To be honest I do not know because of the lack of transparency and the lack of democracy but I would suspect by the statements that the Minister has been making that New Zealand did not. Therefore we as in the Government—because I do not accept responsibility for its behaviour—has to accept some responsibility for the basic challenges that were not addressed at this meeting in relation to the need to tackle the lack of internal transparency the lack of participation and the lack of democracy at the World Trade Organization. Those calls were not coming from fringe groups or from protesters on the outside; they were coming from recognised international organisations on the inside of the meeting—Oxfam International Public Service International World Wide Fund for Nature International and a number of other very credible organisations—which clearly were not listened to by the likes of the New Zealand Government and that is why this round has failed. If anyone has wrecked the round it is New Zealand and the countries it associates with because New Zealand was happy to go along with a process that effectively perpetuates a democracy deficit. 
To bring that deficit home to this Parliament might I share with the House how a World Trade Organization - style rules-based decision-making process would operate in this Parliament. The Speaker of the House and the chairs of the committees—and any friends whom they might choose—would draft all the bills. Then the Speaker and the committee chairs would chair the discussions on their own proposals but the documents to be discussed would not be provided in sufficient time for adequate prior consideration. So many meetings would be scheduled at once that not everyone could get to them and in any case they would all be in Queenstown so very few MPs could afford to go anyway. And on it goes. Is that a decent process for making rules that govern the way the world works? It is not. 
I do want to say before I finish in case anyone in this House has any doubts that the Green Party is not anti-trade. I used to be an importer; I was a New Zealand manager of Trade Aid for 6 years. So I support imports—appropriate imports imports that have been made in conditions where the workers are well paid where they work under decent labour standards and where the environment is looked after. That is why we respect fair safe and sustainable trade. That is why we are opposed to what the World Trade Organization is doing. It is undemocratic. It is dominated by corporations. It forces countries to trade when they do not want to. It undermines national sovereignty. It puts trade ahead of human rights ahead of labour standards and fair wages and ahead of environmental protection. It stops countries from protecting their own people—both workers and business people—from unfair trade. 
I have to say that even within the rules that exist this Labour Government always has to go one further. I understand that it wants to get rid of the last of the tariffs that exist to protect the clothing sector—and I am glad Darren Hughes is in the House to hear me say this. I wish MPs like him would do more to protect the jobs of workers in his own electorate people who have lost their jobs because the Government wants to axe the last tariffs that are keeping going 18000 jobs in New Zealand in the clothing sector. I say to this Government it should not be so callous and it should not destroy those jobs.