Locke Keith: InquiryInquiries — Inquiry into New Zealand's Relationship with Latin America Consideration of Report of Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee 
Locke Keith: InquiryInquiries — Inquiry into New Zealand's Relationship with Latin America Consideration of Report of Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee 
[Volume:629;Page:1866] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 It is good that we are having this debate tonight because sometimes inquiries such as the one we are debating have a lot of work put into them by the select committees but do not get discussed in the House. Tonight we have a chance to do that. The report we are debating was tabled in the House at the same time as two other reports from the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee which I was on: the report on the inquiry into New Zealand’s relationship with the Kingdom of Tonga and the report on the inquiry into the role of international human rights in foreign policy. They were tabled in August last year just as the election campaign was heating up so the media’s attention was diverted elsewhere. It is therefore good that we have a chance to debate at least one or two of those reports. 
It is important for New Zealand to engage with Latin America. I think that the history of the lack of engagement of our society with Latin American society was shown as we went along with the inquiry. There was not very much engagement with the Latin American community in New Zealand partly because that community is not very large. The attention of the Immigration Service and others has been directed more to other areas of the world than to Latin America. At the moment things are going very much in favour of European immigration and we do not have a very large Latin American community. It would have helped us I think if we did. Tim Groser talked about parallels with Asia and the Asia 2000 Foundation. We have not been able to develop that sort of relationship with Latin America partly because we do not have a big Latin American community here. We had good relations in the preparation of this report with the New Zealand Centre for Latin American Studies in Auckland and the Latin America / New Zealand Business Council. They helped us quite a bit. 
It is good that the Prime Minister of New Zealand has just been to Chile at the inauguration of the Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. As Tim Groser has indicated in the free-trade agreement that we have signed through the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement the trade with Chile is very small. It is not significant in that sense. 
As John Hayes said we have other significant trade relationships such as that with Venezuela which we have not perhaps fully capitalised on in terms of other relations. It is interesting to look at the politics of Venezuela and at the role it plays in Latin America now. There has been quite a sea change in Latin America politically economically and socially over the past few years starting off with the election of Lula as the President of Brazil a few years back. I think that was associated with a much more confident approach of Latin America in the world including—as Tim Groser mentioned—in the trade area. It is true that Brazil started to lead many of the Third World nations the agricultural exporting nations in trying to get a better deal in world trade agreements. It is good that New Zealand has engaged with Brazil in that respect. 
Those nations have not just accepted the unequal trade agreements that the United States in particular was trying to force on them. The United States was trying to extend the North America Free Trade Agreement through to Latin America in the form of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Over 10 years that whole process slowed down and stalled. The trade relations that have developed in Latin America have been more south-south relations: relations between Latin American countries that have been successful in their various ways rather than a rather unequal relationship with the North American bloc. 
Hugo Chávez is an interesting character. He has got up the noses of George Bush and Condoleezza Rice by being very outspoken about the interests of his people and defending the progressive changes that he has instigated in Venezuela. He is an elected president. He is coming up for election again shortly and everyone expects he will be re-elected because he has developed domestic and trade policies that have gained the support of the poorer sector of the community raised the living standards of the poor and given them more of a role in the day-to-day process of political life. 
There has been quite a turn-round in Latin America if one adds to that the coming to power of Néstor Kirchner in Argentina a couple of years ago. There has been a close relationship between Venezuela and Argentina. In fact Venezuela helped to pay off quite a bit of Argentina’s debt. Members will remember that Argentina was in a big economic crisis before Kirchner came to power. Then last December we had the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia. That was a tremendous step forward for the Bolivian people. His election was part of the big campaign of the Bolivian people against the selling-off of their gas resources to multinationals following a mass campaign in earlier years against the privatisation of their water. 
There is now a link-up between Kirchner Morales and Chávez in trade agreements between the countries. In particular Venezuela which is benefiting from the higher oil prices has helped out a lot in both countries and has been more confident in asserting itself in foreign policy and not just accepting the Bush agenda in the world. One commendable thing was that Venezuela was one of the few countries in the International Atomic Energy Agency that stood out against the demand of the United States that Iran be taken to the United Nations Security Council over what was happening in the International Atomic Energy Agency. It is good that people like the agency’s director Mr ElBaradei have tried to resist that move and asked to settle the dispute within the agency itself. 
Venezuela has been fairly staunch in saying that countries should not just go along with the Bush approach of trying to enforce military or economic measures against Iran but should use the diplomatic approach and operate in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and not just throw the matter to the United Nations Security Council where the United States will dominate the proceedings. So what is happening in Latin America is quite important to us and in international terms too. As a nuclear-free country that promotes nuclear disarmament New Zealand should have more associations with the Lulas the Hugo Chávezes the Néstor Kirchners and the Evo Morales to promote peaceful policies. 
Another element of that of course which is referred to in the select committee’s report is the whole question of indigenous links. Evo Morales comes from the indigenous people of Bolivia and that is quite a breakthrough. I think what is stated in the report about developing indigenous links—and the Government in its response to the report has endorsed that—is very positive. 
In the disarmament area we have worked fairly closely with Mexico and Brazil in the New Agenda Coalition. I think that should be extended to developing a nuclear-free southern hemisphere and Mexico is a key player in seeking to merge the nuclear-free zones in the southern hemisphere into one common nuclear-free southern hemisphere. 
I disagree with John Hayes on aid. The outline of the aid given to the committee in the process of this inquiry showed that it was going very much towards poverty reduction. The aid was going into various sustainable rural livelihood projects through non-governmental organisations and it was being used very effectively by them. 
We need to realise that this report is a step forward in terms of New Zealand trying to engage with Latin America much more than we have done. There is very little news on Latin America in our newspapers. There is not that kind of consciousness of the region. Hopefully this report will help to develop that consciousness among New Zealanders.