Hayes John: InquiryInquiries — Inquiry into New Zealand's Relationship with Latin America Consideration of Report of Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee 
Hayes John: InquiryInquiries — Inquiry into New Zealand's Relationship with Latin America Consideration of Report of Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee 
[Volume:629;Page:1863] 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 Well might members on the Government benches applaud their colleague this evening because that is the only thing they have to applaud in the wake of the two votes they have lost in the House today. One vote was on the probationary employment legislation and the other was on the legislation to reduce the number of MPs in the House. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: How many have you won in the last 6½ years? 
JOHN HAYES 
: I tell that member that her wheels are dropping off. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: When did that member last see his wheels? 
JOHN HAYES 
: That member clearly knows nothing about foreign affairs and I do not believe that he has read this report. The chair of the committee was Mr Dunne and I understand that he is a Minister in that member’s Government. He does not know much about Latin America either. 
I do not want to come across tonight as being anti - Latin American. In fact I suspect I am the only person in this House who has the Bernardo O’Higgins award for strengthening relationships between New Zealand and Chile. I congratulate the new President of Chile Michelle Bachelet on her recent accession. I note that our Prime Minister has been over in Chile currying favour so that she can have some support from that country in her bid for the UN Secretary-General’s job. 
I come from the perspective of making sensible choices. The reality is that New Zealand is a small country of 4 million people. I have said that in this House before. We are smaller than Sydney— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: You’re joking! 
JOHN HAYES 
:—and I tell that member we are bigger than Christchurch thank goodness! This committee has been badly led by a Labour Government that has no vision. It has been ably assisted by people like Tim Barnett Dail Jones Keith Locke and Matt Robson and the community have dealt to them. 
 This is an appalling report and it bears no relationship at all to what New Zealand’s needs are. It recommends that we set up an embassy in Peru. Why would we do that? Why should we set up an embassy in Peru when in Venezuela our trade statistics are the highest of all countries in Latin America? And how is it that we have opened an office in Argentina? I will tell members why we did that— 
Anne Tolley 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I think the Standing Orders actually prevent members from moving to seats closer to the member speaking in order to barrack. 
Darren Hughes 
: Generally what the member said is quite right. But the member speaking has also moved from his seat. If both members moved to their respective seats then the interjecting preferences that both would have are exactly the same as they are now. So I cannot quite see what the point of order is about. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: That is not a point of order. Please continue Mr Hayes. 
JOHN HAYES 
: I would like to point out that our trade to Venezuela is about $123 million but that our trade to Argentina has dropped from $27 million to $17 million. Why have we opened an embassy in Argentina? Because it is nice to tango on the streets of Buenos Aires. That is the only reason we are there. It is nice and comfortable for the bureaucrats who will go there. This report was written by bureaucrats. “Oh yes” it says “we’re going to have to do a double tax agreement with Mexico and we’re going to have it finished by 2005.” Is that agreement in place? No! What has this Government been doing? It has no vision. It makes promises that it does not deliver on. 
Appendix D of the report talks about the double taxation agreement. It says to increase the role of education in our relationships. But what has it done? It has done nothing. It says to increase the role of tourism by bringing in more visitors. What has it done? It has done nothing. The number of tourists to New Zealand has increased from about 700 people per country in 2001 to about 1400 people per country now. That report is a total and utter nonsense. It is absolutely without vision. 
The report says to spend more money on official development assistance to Latin America. So what have we done? In 1999 we were spending $1.14 million of our hard-earned taxpayers’ funds in Latin America. What are we doing now? We are spending $5 million a year—magnificent!—but for what purpose? Our total trade to Latin American countries has dropped by about $14 million in the last 5 years. Why are we trying to eradicate poverty in places like Andean Bolivia Ecuador Brazil and the southern cone of Argentina and Chile? That is a nonsense. We have no interest in those countries and we should not be spending hard-earned taxpayers’ money there when in the Wairarapa—I can report to the House today—where the Government is building a new hospital the transformer blew up before the blimin hospital opened. Yet we have money to burn and spend in Latin America. That is a nonsense. 
Where is our Minister of Foreign Affairs today? He is in Tonga promising sports cooperation. That is really good! That shows how much he is interested in this arrangement. Where is our Prime Minister? She is in the Philippines. What are the people in that country saying about her presence there? They are saying: “For goodness’ sake take her home.” She is speaking in Cebu at an inter-faith meeting. A press release today from the Philippines’ community here in Aotearoa New Zealand states: “Helen Clark is currently in the Philippines making high-minded speeches about eradicating the cause of terrorism.” It goes on to say: “She should be addressing her remarks to her host President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The Philippines under her leadership exhibits all the attributes of state terrorism—death squads whose crimes are never investigated let alone punished military and police who have abused human rights with impunity systematic political murders disappearance torture and terrorism of whole civilian populations.” That is what Helen Clark is doing today. And why is she doing it? She is doing it because she is looking for support to be the next Secretary-General of the United Nations. What a nonsense! 
We have also had the Minister of Foreign Affairs purportedly interested in Latin America running around trying to arrange an agreement in Tokelau on self-Government. I have papers I would like to table in the House today that show clearly that Tokelau is part of America and New Zealand has no right to give it away anyway. It is absolute nonsense. Government members opposite are not focused on their foreign policy objectives. [ 
Interruption 
] The Government is not focused on its foreign policy goals I tell Mr Hughes. No it is not. I think we need to take our focus off areas of the world in which we have a very limited interest and focus on our immediate backyard in the Pacific where China and Taiwan are competing with each other for favours in countries of weak government that cannot stand up to that pressure. They are creating corruption—and what are we doing about it? Nothing! Our Prime Minister is messing around in the Philippines instead of focusing on the things that are important to my country and to my voters. 
We need to review the whole question of aid to Latin America because with this money huge bureaucracies are being financed and those huge bureaucracies are in our own country. They are the non-governmental organisations which are operating like commercial agencies by spending Government money on aid. And what are they doing? They are promoting corruption and complacency. Our aid programme is teaching Latin American countries to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition development aid in those countries is depressing local markets and dampening the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. Absurd as it may sound development aid is one of the reasons for Latin America’s problems. 
If the West were to cancel aid payments ordinary South Americans would not even notice. If we think about it $5 million of our hard-earned money here—from people in my electorate who are desperate—is being wasted and squandered by this Government in Latin America. If payments were cancelled only the politicians would be hard hit and their bureaucrats. That is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without its development aid. What nonsense! Latin American countries must take the first steps towards modernity on their own. They must change their mentality. They have to stop perceiving themselves as beggars. The problem is that today they perceive themselves as victims. 
In order to change the current situation between New Zealand and Latin American countries I think it would be really helpful if our aid organisations were to be pulled out by cutting our $5 million of aid because it is of no consequence. Our non-governmental organisations—and I can hear them crying like children when the baby-sitter goes out—will say: “We need to encourage all these countries to have our aid.” But I do not think so; I think we need to encourage all countries to stand on their own feet. 
We need to encourage this Government to focus on its priorities and the priorities are to put New Zealanders and their interests first and to stop messing about in parts of the world in which we have limited interest. We actually have the same level of diplomatic representation in Latin America as the Australians. Yet we are a country that is smaller in size than Sydney. What is this Government doing? It has lost its vision; it has lost its way; and it needs to go.