Donald Rod: General Debate 
Donald Rod: General Debate 
[Volume:620;Page:15677] 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Yesterday I sought leave to table an article from the Melbourne 
 Age 
 about the Thai Prime Minister. It was headed: “No Room for Losers in the New Thailand” with a subheading: “Woe Betide Those Who Challenge ThaksinShinawatra Asia’s New Political Strongman”. The Deputy Prime Minister and many of his Labour colleagues denied leave for that article to be tabled. Members might ask why; I believe that it was because they do not want the truth about Thailand to be revealed in this Parliament. The Government does not want members of Parliament and the people of New Zealand to know that it is negotiating a free-trade agreement with a corrupt Prime Minister and a corrupt Government. 
Neither it seems do the New Zealand media want the people of New Zealand to know about this trade deal; no New Zealand paper has reprinted that article here especially that apologist for free trade the  
New Zealand Herald.  
I have to admit that it is owned by APN and this article appeared in a Fairfax publication. But at least I would expect the  
Dominion Post 
 and the Christchurch  
Press 
 to run this article as a point of balance to some of the more sycophantic coverage they have been giving to free-trade agreements. 
I want the people of New Zealand to know more about what is at stake because I believe that Kiwis need to know exactly who Labour is doing deals with. As Mark Baker wrote in the Melbourne 
 Age 
 on 3 July: “Prime Minister Thaksin is a tycoon turned politician who runs a large slice of his country’s media and who essentially bought his way into power with the tactics of a hostile corporate takeover. Like Berlusconi’’—the Italian Prime Minister—“he is an obsessive autocrat impatient with the checks and balances of democratic Government a publicity seeker averse to press he does not own or control and a leader with an alarming propensity to shoot from the lip.” He goes on to quote from the Thai Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman who said: “Thai democracy is being eroded. The Election Commission the Anti Graft Commission the Constitutional Council—all these institutions are being stacked with Thaksin supporters and the independent media are being undermined.” 
He highlights one of the most obscene examples of corruption and nepotism in Thailand which is Thaksin’s hard-line approach to the drug trade sitting alongside his cosy political relationship with the Burmese military junta. There is a partnership between a subsidiary of the Shina Corporation which is a Thaksin family corporation and a company owned by the son of the Burmese Prime Minister KhinNyunt which holds a virtual monopoly on Internet and mobile phone services in the country. No wonder he is keen to see free trade with New Zealand! 
I ask this Parliament whether that is the sort of regime New Zealand should be negotiating a preferential trade deal with. Why does the Labour Government want a country that exploits half a million child workers and flouts International Labour Organization conventions on child labour to be New Zealand’s third-favourite trading partner after Australia and Singapore? Why is the Labour Government strengthening the right of New Zealand workers to collective bargaining—which we support because we believe that it is a positive step forward for workers’ rights in New Zealand—but at the same time deliberately destroying the jobs of those workers by turning a blind eye to Thailand’s refusal to ratify International Labour Organization Convention 98—that is the right of workers to organise and bargain collectively? 
I was extremely disappointed with Prime Minister Helen Clark’s answers to my questions about the Thai trade deal yesterday but I am even more disappointed with Lianne Dalziel Mark Peck Taito Phillip Field Mark Gosche Paul Swain Rick Barker Lynne Pillay Helen Duncan and Dave Hereora. Why? Because those members of Parliament all used to be trade union officials. I see Mr Mallard has put his hand up to be added to that list of members. That was the official list from the Parliamentary Library; he had better give the library an update of his former occupations. Those members were all trade unionists according to what they have admitted to the library before they came to Parliament. How could they go along with that deal? Why did they not turn up to hear SritaiNonsee a young Thai worker who is in New Zealand at the moment to talk about the impact of that trade deal and how bad it will be for workers in Thailand?