Turei Metiria: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Turei Metiria: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:22018] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak on behalf of the Green Party and particularly of our human rights and foreign affairs spokesperson Keith Locke. The Greens want the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade and of course the ministry to be focused on promoting human rights around the world in a more systematic and bold way than they are now. Labour has gone considerably further than the preceding National Government on human rights issues but sometimes it baulks at the final hurdle. 
We have seen that over the last month on Zimbabwe. The Government has taken a strong stand against the Zimbabwean cricket team coming here in December this year because of the inhumane repressive actions of the Mugabe regime and the Government will not be giving visas to a visiting Zimbabwean cricket team. The Prime Minister also moved a strong motion today condemning the Black Caps’ cricket tour of Zimbabwe. However if that does not shift New Zealand Cricket and get it to go to the International Cricket Council to get out of its Zimbabwe contract then stronger action is needed. 
Only the Green Party is pushing for that stronger action in the form of a draft bill that would make the Zimbabwe tour technically illegal and provide a token fine on New Zealand Cricket of up to $50000. That would definitely get New Zealand Cricket out of its International Cricket Council contract. Our bill would not infringe on any person’s right to travel but would just put a token sanction on New Zealand Cricket for going ahead with an official tour in the same way that economic sanctions which New Zealand has enforced in the past on several countries put some legal restraints on businesses trading overseas. 
On China the Government has spoken out against some of the actions of the one-party Chinese regime more than the previous National Government did. However Labour has been fairly timid about pushing for the right of the Tibetan people to self-determination and it does not acknowledge Taiwan’s right to self-determination. In both cases the Green Party is not advocating independence but is just promoting the right of the people themselves to determine their own constitutional structures. Our co-leader Rod Donald sparked a wave of support across New Zealand when he held up a Tibetan flag outside Parliament Buildings during the visit by the head of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China. The Green Party strongly upholds the rights of all Chinese people who stand up for their rights of free speech and organisation and the right to religious freedom. The Falun Gong meditation group for example is severely put down in China today. Many thousands of their group have been arrested and even killed. One of the reasons our Government’s human rights promotion is a bit weak is that trade interests are often seen as pre-eminent. The Labour Government is very keen on getting a free-trade agreement signed up with China and although that does not mean it goes completely quiet on human rights it does mean that it is treading too softly. 
In Burma MPs representing the democratic party were forced into exile when the military junta cancelled the result of the 1990 election won overwhelmingly by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy. The visiting MPs were pushed for an economic boycott of Burma. I recognise that this Government has sanctions on visits here by members of that regime but the Government should go further. This is one of those areas where the Greens think that the Bush administration is actually doing better than New Zealand—wash my mouth out! It bans imports from Burma and it bans investment in Burma. Standing up for democracy in our region is particularly important and is perhaps the real test. It is relatively easy to speak out against the repression in Darfur which is so far away and when we do not have much in the way of political or economic relations with the Sudan. 
The test in our region and in the Pacific today is how strongly we speak out for democracy in Tonga. There is a big divide in Tonga between the monarchy which runs the show and the people who vote in each election mainly for candidates of the human rights and democracy movement. Over the last couple of months we have seen big protests in Tonga over corruption and for higher wages for civil servants. The Green Party backs the people of Tonga in their struggle to achieve democratic government economic justice and an end to corruption. It will require a strong Green presence in the next Parliament and perhaps in the Government to get Labour to speak out much more strongly for human rights in Tonga and elsewhere.