Posted on 09/19/2001 9:16:32 AM PDT by Doug Loss
A few days ago I posted an article from the New Zealand Press in which the NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark was quoted as saying NZ was withdrawing from the ANZUS pact and wouldn't support the US in its time of need. This engendered quite a response, mainly from outraged Americans.
However, I've also heard from Kiwis who said that the newspaper report wasn't accurate, the PM doesn't speak for them, and that the NZ people heartily support the US. Most of the Kiwis were polite in their messages :-), too.
Now that things have cooled down a bit I'd like to thank everyone from NZ who replied for their thoughts. We welcome your support, both moral and material. However, I hope you can soon put your house in order. Your PM is an international embarrassment to you.
How ever, when I researched 15 NZ regional newspapers for 09/23/01 I found almost neither pro or con in the news or opinions. In fact I found almost nothing, nada, but what seemed to be indifference.
Seemed to YOU to be indifference - because you were so desperate to find it. Haha - But then we have come to expect this from you.
The 'regional papers' you 'researched' contain reports pertaining to events in that region. You really should have known better - because these papers pages you link to contain very scarce mention of any world events at all. This is because the actual printed-and-sold copies of the papers have front and world news pages that are full of reports concerning the terrorist attacks. Not a speck of indifference, these papers actually carry many of the exact same news stories from the site you described as gravitated overwhelmly to sympathy and support for the US. Why would you expect them to duplicate the same news on the same site?
Try your luck finding your precious indifference at nzoom.com or at the NZherald site here where you will find a general rundown of different levels of support from around the world (including a few other nations vague replies), and here where you find a little of the political debate - which of course, you'll pick through, trying to find anything that suits you, that you can misconstrue, then you might make a few remarks about ANZUS, then you'll make a few more unbalanced postings over the next few days, and you'll probably remain convinced New Zealand has a stance of non-involvement, while in the real world, NZSAS members travel to the middle east, as far larger nations than New Zealand continue to sit on the fence.
If you are really serious about the topic, write to the New Zealand Embassy yourself and complain – they’ll put you right.
Let's relocate the UN to New Zealand
What with the anti-nuclear, green stance of your government and your general blame America first attitude you guys are a natural
That way you'd get to see first hand (as I have) the waste, extravagance and downright graft of how the UN does business.
Foreign diplomats (and their thousands of hangers on)come to the UN to do good and end up doing very well indeed.
We're just sick of paying through the nose to line corrupt foreign diplomat's pockets and get pissed on in the bargain
Take it away please. You're welcome to it.
Free-minded New Zealander,
I'll apologize for my fellow American (?) since we're all a bit wound up here after recent events. I trust you'll understand.
I know based on personal experience...I've even been called a "liberal" on this board! (My family and friends are rolling on the floor at that...!)
As for indifference in NZ, I think that if that is the impression conveyed by our media then it is sorely mistaken. At least, if the noise on Parliament lawn last week was anything to go by. The "give peace a chance" marchers managed to make a minor disturbance in my day, and they obviously had something to protest about: that the majority in this country is behind the decision to support the US in a war against terrorism. That indicates that our attitude is not indifference but action. And for Helen Clark to have got so far along the "action" line is truly remarkable. Of course, I think that assertions such as these have been pretty much done to death by the NZers on this site.
I thought I would also comment in support of the US, which seems to be getting slated for its human rights history. You are right, NZ does not have a particularly rosy history on all of this. There is about a century of stuff we would rather forget (which, considering we've only been a nation for only a little longer than that is something to be a little ashamed of). We are working to put that right now. If I remember my 2nd or 3rd form (7th or 8th grade) history correctly, NZ gave women the vote in 1893. It was the first country to do so. However, there was at least one, possibly more, US states that gave women the vote before that. And I think the worst display of political ignorance I have ever come across was not from an American but from Canadians. I made a comment once to a Canadian about apartheid. "What's that?".
Finally, while I enjoy reading informed political debate, the constant attacks on Damian5 and others, and their various sexual preferences/capabilities, are rather tiring!!
Well, that's my ramble for the day, time to do some real work.
With respect to the CIA's involvement in New Zealand, there is no evidence of any attempt by the CIA to assassinate former Labour Prime Minister Norman Kirk. It is an amusing concept, though, which does have a degree of currency among some of the more far-fetched conspiracy theorists, along with the idea that the Erebus disaster was no accident, and that Australian PM Harold Holt faked his own drowning to escape to China, to whom he had been selling state secrets...
We don't have many (sub)-urban myths here in the Antipodes, and it's not nearly as wide-spread as the JFK stories in the US, but it is colourful, nonetheless.
The NZ-Australia relationship is similar to the Canada-US relationship. We all tell jokes about our near neighbours, occasionally engage in anti-neighbour sentiment, while the larger neighbour often ignores the smaller. There's often a lot of envy by the smaller with regards to the larger, while the smaller often fails to register on the larger country's radar screen.
You asked who New Zealand's nearest economic competitor is. I don't think the answer is a specific country. Just as within the context of NAFTA, Canada and the US cannot really be seen as competitors, within the Australia-New Zealand CER relationship, we cooperate in a common market for most goods.
New Zealand's major exports are dairy commodities, and meat and wool exports. Australia's dairy and meat production is relatively much smaller, against their relatively very large grain and wheat production. Australia has a substantial mineral export base, whereas New Zealand has virtually none. In terms of economic production, we do both rely on land-based industries, but the relative spread is quite different.
The real threats to our economic advancement in New Zealand is market access. While our economy is extremely open to goods and services, many other markets are not open to us. We face major tariff and non-tariff barriers in accessing many markets; and while the goods and services that we sell are totally unsubsidised, we find ourselves competing, particularly in agricultural commodities, with countries that have no qualms about subsidising agricultural production.
You mentioned in another post that New Zealand's reputation at the WTO has diminished. I'm not entirely sure where this view comes from. The current WTO Director-General is a former NZ Prime Minister, and until recently a senior NZ diplomat was a member of the Appelate Board. We have been vigorous proponents of market liberalisation at all of the Ministerial meetings. We have never lost a dispute that we have taken to the WTO (which include such mighty economic powers as the United States, the EU, Brazil, Korea, and Canada).
It is not correct that our international trade policy team has been gutted since the Seattle ministerial meeting. With the exception of a change of Minister, almost all the delegation that participated in Seattle will be present at Doha next month.
Since Seattle, we have concluded a free trade agreement with Singapore (which is more extensive than CER with Australia), and made significant progress on a bilateral with Hong Kong. We have just begun discussions with Australia and ASEAN over joining CER with the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement.
Following APEC in New Zealand in 1999, there was a view that APEC had "run its course". That view was shared by then-Opposition leader Helen Clark. Political rhetoric aside, New Zealand has continued to make major advancements in trade liberalisation, particularly at the bilateral level, under Helen Clark's government, since the APEC meeting in Auckland. Multi-lateral agreements are a whole lot harder; APEC is a microcosm of the WTO in this respect. If the WTO can reach agreement to include agricultural products, then it would be relatively simple to advance things within APEC. Of course, one of the drivers within the establishment of APEC was to form a clear Asia-Pacific position first, as a means of influencing APEC, rather than the other way around. But progress is still being made.
Now, Australia decided several months ago that it would try to pursue a free trade agreement with the US on its own, excluding New Zealand. As you rightly point out, there are specific reasons why the US might be more willing to pursue an agreement with NZ than Australia. We are still seeking a bilateral with the US, and we have received positive noises from the US on this. The fact that we have succeeded in a free trade agreement with Singapore and almost Hong Kong, where Australia hasn't, is also an attraction to the US.
I can only speculate that the current Government's decision to freeze tariffs on some imported goods, instead of continuing with the proposed phase-out of all tariffs by 2005, may have taken away a degree of the moral force of NZ's international trade liberalisation argument. It is correct that NZ's current message is that it will look at further trade liberalisation only when it is in New Zealand's national interest; however, the level of trade protection in New Zealand is absolutely minimal, anyway, and confined to very limited industry sectors.
For instance, New Zealand has a tariff on imports of textiles and clothing. From memory, the tariff is set at 5%. It is slightly irrelevant in any case, since Fiji, one of the major exporters of low-value textiles and clothing to New Zealand, is part of the South Pacific Free Trade Agreement, and no tariff is levied on their goods imported to New Zealand. Amusingly, considering our anti-nuclear stance, one of the more obscure imported goods in the scheduled zero-tariff reductions by 2005 is the importation of nuclear reactors to New Zealand!
So perhaps New Zealand's stated position on national interest is a departure from our unfettered free trade position of the past. Perhaps it may undermine our call for reductions of trade barriers in other countries. That's a fair call. But in reality, the current tariffs in New Zealand are so small that we are still way ahead of the world in reducing trade protection.
This post has become somewhat rambling, over several different topics, and I apologise for this.
Kind regards,
Hamish Price
Your links to regional newspapers has already been explained as your misunderstanding of what a regional paper means.
You may be more interested in the New Zealand Herald. The site is http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
Regarding your arguments on NZ's nuclear free policy...Have you ever heard of something called "Rupture"? That's when you're having a conversation with someone and suddenly realize that no communication is occuring. It usually comes from the fact that you are both speaking from assumptions about the world that are far apart. It is possible to establish communication after you realize a rupture has occurred, but it involves backing way up, and trying to sort out those assumptions.
I'm afraid a rupture is what I hear when I read your arguments for the moral superiority of the "nuclear free policy". If you want to put in the effort to try to continue the debate, I am willing. I firmly believe in the value of intellectual debate - it is how both free minds and free societies flourish. A wise man once said,"You can call no idea or opinion truly yours until you have defended it in reasoned debate." I consider the warfare of ideas to be close to a patriotic duty. Especially as it's one type of war that leaves both parties stronger, wiser, and freer than they were.
However, it will be a very long discussion, and may deserve it's own thread. The topic here seems to have drifted off into name calling, and I'm not too sure anyone whould still be interested. What do you think?
Although I was still only at primary school when the nuclear shit hit the fan in NZ, I think I would be correct in saying that the attitudes then were the same. I think (I hope) we are going to go the other way on GE - that is, continue to allow GE research. For better or for worse, we went the nuclear-free way in the 80s. That we could now reverse that I very much doubt. Apart from the huge amount of international back-tracking the government would have to do, no government that reversed the nuclear-free policy could possibly survive the following election.
Abolishing "nuclear-free" would be akin to abolishing the all blacks, or coming up with a programme to declare kiwis pests and eradicate them. It has become part of the national identity and I think that the world for the most part has come to accept it, as one of NZ's quirks and as part of our "clean green" tourism image. I take your point about rupture though.
NZ to USA, Your on your own (mine)
This was the thread where Cajungirl was busy accepting France's surrender, and where others were giving her a language lesson.
Amazing how many New Zealanders are looking at FreeRepublic! Surely we have lots of friends there.
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