Clark Helen: Urgent Debates — Collapse of World Trade Talks in Cancun Mexico 
Clark Helen: Urgent Debates — Collapse of World Trade Talks in Cancun Mexico 
[Volume:611;Page:8674] 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 I am happy to accept the member’s invitation. Hope springs eternal. When I saw that the member had put out a press statement stating that he wished to have an urgent debate to decide what stance the Government should take after the collapse of the world trade talks in Cancun firstly I thought that undoubtedly he had beaten the National Party to the post with the letter and that proved to be true but secondly hope sprang eternal because I thought that the member might have some serious reflections to offer on the issues at Cancun which he has not offered to date. I hope the leader of United Future will come back to the House because he was actually there and I think might have some quite interesting things to say about what did happen at Cancun. 
In respect of Richard Prebble all I will say is that it is amazing that 146 countries were participating in the World Trade Organization meeting at Cancun 30 were in the green room yet it all seems to be Jim Sutton’s fault! I do not quite follow the logic. However I can say that I did speak at great length with Jim Sutton yesterday at about lunchtime after he had come out of the failed meeting—and it was a failed meeting and we should all speak very frankly about that and the implications for the trade round—and after he had observed the press conferences and spoken to the media himself. I congratulate the Minister Peter Dunne and all the members of the New Zealand delegation on the effort they put in. That delegation included representatives of Federated Farmers the business community and the Council of Trade Unions; the Hon Peter Dunne as I have mentioned; and New Zealand officials. They worked long and hard and are disappointed with the results as I would think is just about everybody who was at Cancun except for the wreckers—unfortunately at least one went from our country—the ones who have refused to see any benefit in a successful trade round. They do not appear to be interested in the fact that the Uruguay round probably delivered benefits of about a billion dollars a year to the New Zealand economy. “What’s a billion between friends?” seems to be the attitude of Miss Kelsey and co. 
The Minister told me that there were a lot of positives at Cancun. First there did appear to be genuine progress on agriculture. We have not yet heard a lot of the detail of what went on the table in the green room but I recall when I was in Europe earlier this year getting the clear impression that the European Union was going to be able to move its position. The European Union Trade Commissioner and the Agriculture Commissioner eventually did deliver significant progress on change to the Common Agricultural Policy. That enabled them then to go to Cancun to make some real offers. My understanding is that the real offers they made still lie on the table to be picked up at what I hope will be future meetings in this World Trade Organization round. So that is a positive. 
The second positive from New Zealand’s point of view was that significant progress was made on issues around fishing. We have been crusading against subsidised fishing because subsidised fishing has led to the predation of the world’s precious fish stocks. The European Union indicated considerable movement on that. That is positive. That still lies on the table. 
So it was not over key issues of interest to us that the talks failed; the talks failed over what have been called the Singapore issues—issues I understand first raised by the European Union at a Singapore meeting some years ago then also picked up and supported by countries like Japan and Korea. That basket of issues covers investment competition trade facilitation and procurement. It appears to have been put up for the negotiations on the basis that if the wealthy countries are to give something in terms of access to their agricultural markets then they should get something in return. In return they want liberalised investment rules and other progress from their point of view in the areas I have mentioned. That was where the talks came unstuck this week. I am told that eventually the European Union pulled investment and competition off the table. At that point in the view of our Minister officials and delegation it should have been possible to move to a deal. But there did not seem to be the negotiating flexibility from some in the developing world to talk around the two remaining issues of trade facilitation and trade procurement. 
I would say that from New Zealand’s point of view those are worthwhile issues. For example one of them gets to the heart of open and transparent procurement policies for Governments. It gets at the heart of corruption and good governance issues and those are things that should be on the table for discussion if we are talking fair-trade rules. It is the way of the world that if the wealthy countries are to open up their agriculture markets then they are going to want some quid pro quo and the least they could ask for is something in those areas. However I understand that there was not the flexibility among the smaller and lesser-developed countries to move on that and that is very very unfortunate. 
Our Minister also reports that he thinks the emergence of the G22 group was a positive. The major developing countries got together to put a coherent case. I think that if it had been left to them they probably could have concluded some sort of deal with the more affluent countries. I might say for the United States that it was not pushing hard on the investment and competition issues; those were not its core issues and it had already gone a considerable way to creating a good context for these talks by the movement it had made on the HIV Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights issue some weeks ago in Geneva. So I think the United States did its best to contribute to a positive meeting in Cancun. 
It is unfortunate that the talks concluded when they did. The crunch issues came at a point where the meeting was due to end. The chairman closed it down. One then has to ask where it all goes from there because the next formal ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization is not scheduled until December next year in Hong Kong. This round was due to finish on 1 January 2005 so a meeting in December next year cannot deliver unless there is a lot of other meetings before that. It may well be that it is simply inevitable now that the round will be extended. It should be remembered that the Uruguay round took many years to be concluded. I am told that the key officials will have a significant meeting again in December and that it is possible there may be a mid-year ministerial meeting next year. There is also bound to be a series of mini - ministerial meetings. 
But I think after what has happened everyone needs to go back to his or her capital and reflect on why the talks fell over. I think that from the World Trade Organization’s point of view there needs to be much more proactive diplomacy out bridging and brokering the issues. I can say of our former colleague Mike Moore that no one was better than him at bringing people together to crunch through key issues. I think that made an enormous difference at the Doha meeting. I think the message now from all interested and concerned countries to Dr Supachai is for him to get out on the road endeavour to bridge the gap and see where the flexibility is. It really is not good enough for some countries to go to the meeting at Cancun then say at the final analysis that they cannot move from their view that trade procurement and facilitation cannot be discussed. It is just too inflexible a position. We will never get a multilateral round if that is the way it is going to be. 
As I have said the Uruguay round delivered significant benefits for New Zealand but it did not come easily. I think that round ran over about 9 years. It had a critical ministerial meeting in Brussels in 1990 which everyone had high hopes for and that one fell over just like this one fell over. But that does not mean the end of a round. 
I think that from the point of view of a small country—which New Zealand is—the most gains we can make are always through multilateral trade negotiations. That is why under any Government in New Zealand the multilateral round will always be the highest trade priority. I should say that this is an area where there has been considerable bipartisanship across both sides of the House. I would be concerned if the ACT leader’s speech today signals that that kind of bipartisanship is off the agenda because I think one of the strengths of the New Zealand position has been that whether it is a Labour-led or National-led Government there is a very strong commitment to the multilateral round. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: What a silly speech! Why not answer the question? Where is the Government’s trade policy? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The member wants to know about the Government’s trade policy. It starts with stressing the importance of multilateralism and trade. I know that the leader of ACT does not seem to like multilateralism but I thought even he might have made an exception for trade. Multilateralism at the level of the World Trade Organization has been the paramount objective for us and continues to be. We will work to make this round a success because that is in the interests of the whole world community. 
We will also continue to work within APEC on the regional trade goals. I think the failure of the Cancun talks actually makes the APEC meeting a pretty critical one because countries will now go back to meet in their regional economic groupings—whether the European Union APEC the African Union or whatever—and we need to think regionally about what messages and pressures we can send to the World Trade Organization from the APEC leaders’ summit coming up in October in Bangkok. 
We have also at the regional level continued to pursue the work that the previous Government began on the AFTA/CER link. Mr Sutton has been at a meeting about that only recently. Bill Birch did good work on that and continued to do it under our Government. We continue to work. We did conclude a far-reaching closer economic partnership with Singapore and we are now endeavouring to link that up with Chile because of the strategic advantages of having a trans-Pacific trade agreement. We have launched a study on negotiations with Mexico and also with Thailand. New Zealand is showing in many ways that it is interested in opening up trade at all three levels—the multilateral the regional and the bilateral. 
I come to the issues that the member raised about the United States. I want to say to him just this. He referred to the two old parties. The reality is that for 19 years Governments from both sides of the House have supported a nuclear-free New Zealand. One of the great ironies of this House is that some of us remember when a nuclear-free bill promoted by the then member for Auckland Central now the leader of ACT brought the Muldoon Government to its knees because Marilyn Waring wanted to cross the floor and vote for it. For 19 years that policy has held sway in New Zealand. It has become a central feature of New Zealand foreign policy and many would say a central part of the New Zealand identity—that we are proud to be nuclear-free. Our friends in the United States understand the importance of that to us. I believe that we also understand that they consider it to be unfinished business but for 19 years we have been able to put that issue aside and I say we should continue to put it aside. 
Our Government will look for opportunities—and there are many—to work with the United States. No country could have been stronger in its support than what this small country has done on terrorism: members of the SAS putting their lives on the line; frigates in the Gulf of Oman and Orions there now; a Hercules in Kyrgyzstan; a provincial reconstruction team going to a province of Afghanistan; and engineers now going to Iraq. These are substantial contributions for a small country and they are valued by the United Sates. We know that as a result of policies previously advocated by the then member for Auckland Central this country took a path on the nuclear-free issue that led to the ANZUS alliance being non-operational for us. What I say without fear of contradiction is that the fact that we are not operational in ANZUS has not stopped us from doing the right thing to help our friends and we will keep doing that. 
I say that we do have a friend in Ambassador Zoellick who has looked to make room for this country at some point to come into a list for negotiation. This Government—this country—has always wished the Australians well in their negotiations because we believe that they do open up a path for New Zealand. I point out that when Ambassador Zoellick sent the letter to Congress about Australia going on the list he specifically noted the links between the economies of Australia and New Zealand and hence the importance that New Zealand paid to those negotiations. We will keep working at that. 
I invite the Opposition to be supportive of the New Zealand national stance and not to undermine it. In my view there is nothing more treacherous than poor-mouthing one’s country off shore to its material disadvantage. We know that we have gone the extra mile to be a friend to the US at a time of need. We know that is appreciated and we will keep working for a trade relationship that reflects two things: first the overall very strong historic friendship between this country and the United States of America; and secondly the fact that we are strong allies on trade. No one has worked more closely with Trade Representative Zoellick than our Minister or with that administration than our Government and I am proud of that.