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  AGENDA JULY 9 SIMON Following the news on Thursday that London had been the target of four terrorist bomb attacks thousands of New Zealanders and British tourists holidaying here have sought news of their families and friends. At one point the New Zealand Red Cross was taking approximately 200 calls an hour. The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Phil Goff is with me now. What's the latest you can tell us from London Mr Goff, particularly regarding New Zealanders? PHIL GOFF Good morning Simon. The news up to quite recently was good, we'd been through the hospitals, we'd checked the injured, there were no New Zealanders amongst them but there is a particular individual about whom we have real concern, that person hasn’t contacted friends or relatives, they were known to be in the vicinity of the bomb sites, so I think we need to steel ourselves that there may be a New Zealand casualty but we live in hope that perhaps that person left the area, hasn’t informed people, and will contact us later, but they are causing us real concern at the present time. SIMON Do you have any other details about that individual yet? PHIL GOFF I can't give you further details about that individual but what we do know is of course we have tens of thousands of New Zealanders in London and the prospects of a New Zealander being a casualty when so many people 700 injured and 50 people killed it was always on the cards that there may be a New Zealand casualty but we're still hopeful at this stage. SIMON Who from the British government have you been speaking with, at what level are you receiving your security brief? PHIL GOFF I've sent a direct message of course to Jack Straw and likewise Helen Clark to Tony Blair, I've been keeping in touch through the New Zealand High Commission, I've been in touch with the British High Commissioner here, we've offered of course any help that we can give but the British seem to have it under control. I have to say this is an event that people anticipated, we hoped that it would not happen but London always has been a target and at the New Zealand High Commission and the British government we both had systems in place to deal with this eventuality. SIMON You say you've sent messages to Jack Straw and Tony Blair, who are you actually getting your information from? PHIL GOFF We're getting our information through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office but the information in terms of what we might know about it really shouldn’t be talked about publicly at this point. SIMON Some reports are saying that the attacks we're in retaliation for forces being in Iraq and Afghanistan, does that suggest that New Zealand is also a potential target now? PHIL GOFF We're not a prime target but we should never be complacent and believe that we're not a target at all. We have combat forces and we have people in the provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan, we're proud to have them there, they're all doing a good job, we're there because it is important to be on the front line against terrorism. If that makes us a target then that is the price of our commitment to international security under the United Nations Security Council resolution. SIMON If we are a target then what extra security measures are you considering? PHIL GOFF Well we have security measures we've been spending a lot of money in our posts around the world upgrading our security, we've put a lot more into obviously our intelligence agencies, we've done a lot on the Pacific because while the Pacific again isn't in the front line of terrorism if there are failed states in the Pacific that could be a weak link in the chain that could be an entré of terrorism to the region. SIMON In the last 48 hours have you made any extra steps? Sydney and Melbourne have both taken extra steps of security. PHIL GOFF I think people are generally on a high point of alert but the problem with terrorism as you'll understand it can strike anybody anywhere at any time, you can't keep people on full alert everywhere in the world all the time and from time to time the intelligence systems can't be 100% right and that’s what happened in London. SIMON Let's look at the US situation, the departing US Ambassador Charles Swindells as we spoke of earlier said past grievances prevent us having an honest and open dialogue with the US, why do you think he holds that view? PHIL GOFF Well I'm not sure because that’s certainly not been my experience in six years of dealing with the United States where we have had an honest and open dialogue, I had a very close and very friendly relationship for example with Colin Powell, likewise Richard Armitage, different views on different subjects but we talked frankly, we talked openly, we work together, we cooperate in terms of information sharing at a higher level than ever before, we have more regular engagement at a political level than ever before but there are some things that we don’t do and that’s because of the United States presidential order in terms of preventing training between our defence forces. SIMON So you think Mr Swindells is speaking on his own behalf or do you think he's reflecting the US viewpoint? PHIL GOFF Charles is a very independent person, I think he may have been expressing his own viewpoint but of course I had discussions with the American Ambassador quite recently, did the Prime Minister, the essence I think of what Charles Swindells was saying is that he would like to see a good relationship made even better, we share that view and clearly we'll do whatever we can to improve the relationship but the independence of New Zealand foreign policy is not up for grabs or auction or trading off, it's simply not our position that as a small but independently minded country we will give away our right to make our decisions about matters that affect us reflecting our values. SIMON Having said that though the ANZUS rift meant that an embargo by the US on supplying us intelligence, how concerned are you that we might not be getting the security intelligence we need? PHIL GOFF I think that situation has changed. Our information sharing with the United States is very close, very regular and very helpful, both ways. SIMON Can we still afford to be idealistic about security, backward looking as Mr Swindells put it? PHIL GOFF Well we're not backward looking we're forward looking, we're forward looking to a world without nuclear weapons, without weapons of mass destruction, without proliferation … SIMON No one else has followed us on our nuclear policy. PHIL GOFF Well that’s fine. SIMON Twenty years and no one else has taken it? PHIL GOFF No but 20 years and New Zealanders still feel strongly about it and even Don Brash who wants to have nuclear vessels in our harbour can't bring himself to say it because he knows New Zealanders regard this as an icon of New Zealand's independence and of being clean green and non nuclear. SIMON Are there any circumstances under which we would review the nuclear policy? PHIL GOFF I think we are clearly committed to maintaining a nuclear free New Zealand, that is not to say that 98% of the ships in the American Navy can't come to our ports, of course they can because they're neither nuclear armed nor nuclear propelled. We would welcome American naval vessels here in the same way as we have from the United Kingdom from France and China, all nuclear weapon states, but our policy of being nuclear free is a policy to be determined in Wellington not Washington. We gave up being a colony of the United Kingdom a long time ago, we're not about to be a colony of Australia, the United States or any other country. SIMON Okay the independence. Let's talk about Zimbabwe then, why have you chosen to deny Zimbabwe visas to visit later in the year when other human rights abusers are ignored, why Zimbabwe? PHIL GOFF Well I think because Zimbabwe at the moment is the country, the only country in the world that we're aware of that is taking direct action at the instruction of its leader to demolish the homes of a third of a million people and which has taken a country from being a strong democracy to being an authoritarian country in which the human rights and democratic rights of its people are oppressed. It is a bad situation getting worse, we've drawn a line in the sand on Zimbabwe. SIMON Human rights and democratic rights are being abused in a number of countries around the world. PHIL GOFF Certainly. SIMON Pakistan who we welcomed a month or so ago, China who we're seeking a free trade agreement with, why is it that we are selective about Zimbabwe? PHIL GOFF Let's look at your other two examples. In Pakistan we have a person [that] is Musharaf that is leading his country back into democracy, that is taking steps against terrorism, that is taking steps against extremism, that is moving his country in the right direction, it's not there, terrible things happen in the rural and primitive areas of Pakistan. SIMON He told me directly that he denied visa rights to Mukhtaran Mai, the so-called honour gang rape victim because he wanted to prevent her badmouthing his country. Now that’s an abuse of human rights and there are thousands of people on death row in both those countries. PHIL GOFF I can tell you Simon very clearly that that matter was raised directly with the President and very strongly at the highest possible levels. SIMON But thousands of people sitting on death row in those countries, executions happening weekly, daily. PHIL GOFF One thing this government has done very consistently is talk against human rights abuses wherever they’ve occurred, so when President Hu comes to New Zealand I raise issues of Tibet and democratic expression with him as I do on every occasion that I meet with the Chinese Foreign Minister. Nobody has ever accused New Zealand under this government of not being consistent and strong on human rights. What we've said about Zimbabwe is that sports is going to be very important. The denial of visas to that team will make an impact within Zimbabwe, as it made an impact within Fiji when we denied the right of a Fiji national side to tour here in 2000 immediate after the coup. That had a huge impact in Fiji, it was effective, this likewise will have an impact, it does not deny the rights of New Zealanders, it denies the rights of the Zimbabwe government to have their national team come to New Zealand and that is the right stance to take. SIMON Just briefly, the latest issue of the Economist notes that Zimbabwe's no worse than a handful of other benighted countries but is treated differently by the west because of its legacy of white settlement, that’s the quote, there's some truth in that isn't there? PHIL GOFF No, the people being oppressed in the Zimbabwe at the moment, contrary to what the Maori Party might believe, are black people, those are the people that are being evicted from the settlements, those are the people including those that have been crushed in their homes, those are the people that have suffered the lowering of life expectancy from 61 to 33. the thing that is different about Mugabe is that he has taken a strong country economically, the bread basket of Southern Africa, he's taken a country that was democratic with British traditions of justice, independence of the media, independence of the judiciary, he's turned it into a personal fiefdom and he's moving further and further in that direction, we're saying it's time to make a stance that’s why we've taken the stand we have.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHRIS BALDOCK, Editor Sunday News PHIL GOFF Well you obviously can't always separate sport from politics as much as we would like to and we have intervened on a number of occasions, we intervened under Norman Kirk to stop an apartheid selected rugby team from coming to New Zealand, we intervened to stop a team coming from Fiji after the coup as I mentioned, this is a third occasion in which we believe the situation has got so bad in recent times we need to intervene, it does make a difference in Zimbabwe that we're doing that, we'll have people, visitors coming to New Zealand that will stand by that in the next week. Somewhere you have to draw a line in the sand, how could we have our team there playing while people are being evicted from their homes and not speak out against the undesirability of our team coming and the decision to refuse permission to allow their team to come here. CHRIS As Simon mentioned China- at the same time come the Beijing Olympics presuming that you're still in power you will be sending an all singing all dancing group to support our Olympic team there? PHIL GOFF That’s right because it would make no difference at all to not send a New Zealand team when every other team in the world was going to China. That doesn’t stop us speaking out against Chinese human rights and in the aftermath of Tianamin Square of course it would have been inconceivable that we would have entertained the Chinese sending a sports team here or our sports teams going there. China is not in a great situation with human rights, we speak out against it but at least that country is moving in the right direction, Zimbabwe is moving in the opposite direction. SIMON Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff thank you so much for your time.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIMON The latest UMR poll put the Green Party at 9% up from 5% the previous month. The poll was taken as the party continued its campaign to stop the New Zealand cricket team's tour to Zimbabwe in August. The Greens have drafted a bill which would make it illegal for any New Zealand sports team to tour Zimbabwe. Green's Co-Leader Rod Donald is with me now. Welcome to the programme. Before we begin your reaction to what Phil Goff had to say. ROD Predictable – I've gotta give the government credit for one, saying that the Zimbabwe team can't come here in December, and for taking initiatives with the IMF, with the United Nations and with South African Development Organisation, that’s all good but none of that’s gonna stop the Black Caps going next month, the government has the power to stop that tour, it just needs to declare the tour illegal, we've given it some ways of achieving that. SIMON Yes you’ve proposed this bill banning sporting contacts with Zimbabwe, why have you been unable to get any support though? ROD I really can't figure it out to be honest because there's an awful lot of tough talk but when it comes to taking decisive action everyone backs off and yet we take decisive action on other things, I mean we don’t allow New Zealanders to go overseas and be mercenaries or to be sex tourists in Thailand and here we have a situation where Mugabe's conducting a campaign of deliberate genocide, surely you can join the dots. SIMON Hang on, mercenaries, sex tourists, cricketers, it's hardly joining the dots is it, I mean you're denying the rights and freedoms of New Zealanders in order to assert the rights and freedoms of foreigners. ROD Actually what we're denying is the right of an organisation to play sport. No no we're not stopping Stephen Fleming going to Zimbabwe and if he wants to play cricket while he's there that’s fine but he should not be allowed to go as a Black Cap, New Zealand should not be seen to be playing sport with a country with a cricketing organisation that has Robert Mugabe as its patron. SIMON So a rebel tour would be okay? ROD No I don’t like the idea of rebel tour, but no the point I'm trying to make is we made our legislation deliberately weak so that no one could claim that we're infringing on New Zealanders’ human rights to travel and yet that’s the spin that the other parties have got because they're not prepared to take the tough action. Can you just see the split screen that’s gonna happen in August, we'll have our guys in their whites knocking this red ball around with their willow bats and the other half of the screen is Mugabe's bulldozer knocking down the homes of the people. New Zealand is going to become an international pariah. SIMON Why are you singling out Zimbabwe though, as I pointed out to Mr Goff it's not the only country with a human rights abuse record that we consort with? ROD You're dead right and that’s why I stood on the front steps of parliament with a Tibetan flag. SIMON You didn’t put China in the bill though, you haven’t included anybody else, you’ve just put Zimbabwe in there. ROD This bill is just focused on Zimbabwe that’s right, but if you look back at the letter I sent Phil Goff in April, I actually invited the government to come up with a policy for dealing with human rights abuses and sporting contact, so we put that on the table back then, the government hasn’t responded to that request. SIMON Let's move further internationally- what would a Green government do to improve our relationship with the US? ROD We would have a dialogue with the US, in fact we have one now. It's actually interesting talking to the Americans because they’ve made it clear to us because some time ago the whole issue was around free trade agreement which we of course opposed, but they said look our whole Pacific fleet could be in your harbour and you still wouldn’t get a free trade deal. I'm not actually opposed to a friendly visit from an American ship in our harbour. SIMON But that’s not happening. ROD Well the Americans have gotta come to the party and be up front and honest and say we would like to send a ship that is neither nuclear propelled nor nuclear armed. SIMON Have we specifically invited them though, isn't that sort of thing that awaits invitation, maybe after the election? ROD Maybe after the election we will because we've had the Canadians, we've had ships from a whole range of countries, the Germans, the Chileans. SIMON A range of sources in the media are saying that the US want to have more dialogue they're pushing for it yet it's us who are resisting. ROD Well I'm not on the inside to be able to tell one way or the other, but certainly I'm all in favour of dialogue. SIMON Would you support a referendum to consider repealing the ban on nuclear propelled vessels? ROD No we wouldn’t. For us referenda are things you use for major constitutional issues by and large not a policy position like this. SIMON It may well improve the fortunes of New Zealand. ROD What it would do I think is lock in our nuclear free status so the outcome would be perfect but the process is not the ideal one. SIMON What is not negotiable when it comes to a way forward with the US? Is it that – nuclear revision? ROD That certainly would be not negotiable. SIMON Let's bring it back home now, the election's not far away obviously well who knows when it will be but will the Greens be targeting… ROD 17th of September I think. SIMON Yeah I think most of us are. Will the Greens be targeting an electorate seat? ROD No we're not, we are putting our whole focus on increasing our party vote, that’s the lesson we've learnt from the last two elections, the best way for us to get more MPs is to campaign for the party vote, so yes we will have candidates standing all over the country in most seats but their goal is to lift that party vote, get the message out that the best way to make MMP work is to party vote Green and then pick the person you think will do the best job to be your local MP. SIMON You talk of the Green vote being a vote for a Labour led government, how important is it for the Greens to be in government? ROD I would say very important for us to be in government. Speaking for myself I've been in Parliament for nine years, I don’t go there to eat my lunch, I want to make a difference. Inevitably you have more power the closer you are to the cabinet and if you're actually inside it you can make a real difference. As a party we've got a very strong agenda and we've got a determination to implement our policies, we've achieved some in confidence and supply relationship quite a few even this term, even though we didn’t give Labour confidence but that’s not good enough. SIMON At the conference you said and I quote “there will be no pre conditions to negotiations but we are not offering Labour a blank cheque”, what are the bottom lines for your support? ROD We're not putting up any bottom lines but what we are saying to Labour is that we need a decent policy agreement before we would entertain going into government or for that matter a confidence and supply relationship, so there are a whole range of issues that we're campaigning on, it's fairly clear what we will want to achieve, some sustainability for the economy particularly in the energy field, because we're facing an energy crisis and the government isn't grappling with that, we want a fairer society and the focus there is obviously on child poverty and also getting rid of that student debt burden. SIMON So you're not prepared to back them regardless, that may prevent a Labour government from being in power. ROD It is our intention to make sure there is a Labour government in power. SIMON If they need you though then you have no leverage, surely. ROD Oh I think we have leverage. SIMON They need you to be in power, you want to be in power, you need them, you can get power, but don’t you paint yourself into a corner? ROD I don’t think so, we've made it very clear to the electorate which side we're on, that’s something that some other parties aren’t being honest about. In that process I believe we still have a lot of power to negotiate a decent deal with Labour. SIMON What if that Labour led government was a Labour New Zealand First coalition, what do you do then? ROD We start again because when we say Labour led government we really mean a Labour Green government with perhaps Jim Anderson and … SIMON What if you haven’t got the numbers and they need to have New Zealand First they're gonna go with New Zealand First because of the numbers as the polling suggests. ROD Well that’s the message to the electorate - vote Labour and Green. SIMON Could you be part of that? ROD We can work with any party… SIMON New Zealand First included? ROD As long as the policy agreement is one that we can support. SIMON Including New Zealand First? ROD Including New Zealand First. SIMON The man you called a month ago a “snakeoil merchant” and “the ugly face of politics. ROD Yes, but the point is we could not support a Labour New Zealand First government that adopted any of those obnoxious polices that Winston Peters was proposing. SIMON Treaty policy, removal of Treaty references, immigration flying squads? ROD Couldn’t vote for that. SIMON It's gonna be an awkward time isn't it? ROD Well it's in the hands of the voters, that’s the key thing, the voters get to decide what sort of government they want. SIMON Okay but how concerned are you by the fact, by the possibility that Labour won't need your support at all, that the Greens become increasingly marginalised? ROD Well that’s a matter for the public to be concerned about because I don’t think they want Winston Peters to be holding any power in the next government. SIMON Are you worried at all by the absence of a hot button issue, something that resonates with voters that you’ve had in the past? ROD We can never win, at the last election at our pre election conference we launched our child policy, ending child poverty, didn’t get any traction because the whole fixation was on genetic engineering, this election everyone's saying you haven’t got GE how are you gonna survive. I mean we're committed to a sustainable economy, we want a fairer society, we want to make people's food healthy, we want a bright future for this country, that’s what we're offering in this country. SIMON Well last time it was GE. ROD GE hasn’t gone away if I might say, we've gotta clean up the environment whether it's the 95% of our rivers that are too dangerous to swim in. SIMON Okay GE's hovering in the background but why have you ditched cannabis reform as a platform? ROD Oh we haven’t ditched cannabis reform. SIMON Well it's certainly been downplayed. ROD Not at all. SIMON Nandor Tanczos’ list rating goes and no one's talking about it. ROD Well we continue to talk about it, watch this space. SIMON Okay do you support Materia Turei's statement that the Foreshore and Seabed legislation is – quote again from a press release – “shameful racist and a tragedy for New Zealand?” ROD Indeed, definitely, that statement was issued on behalf of the Green Party and by the way you mentioned Materia, why did Nandor go down in your words, it's because Materia went up, there's a strong … SIMON He didn’t go down one place he went down a lot more than that. ROD Yeah he went down two places and the other person that leapfrogged him was Keith Locke and he takes strong stands on Ahmed Zaoui, Afghanistan, Iraq. SIMON Is your Maori policy an attempt to woo back the support you lost to the Maori Party? ROD Our Maori policy hasn’t changed since before the last election. SIMON It's more prominent though. ROD It's more prominent only because the media has thankfully given it more attention. SIMON Who are the Greens now, the pro-cannabis “flakeys” as Peter Dunne called them, the pro-Maori activist, the Hikoi marchers, the anti-GE ideologues or the environmental lobbyists, who are you? ROD We're the mainstream. SIMON And you define that as what? ROD We define that as people who are caring, who are committed to New Zealand having a sustainable future, a future where we actually look after the environment so there's something left for future generations, a country where quality of life is more important than economic growth, a country that has a position in the world as international citizens who want to be and are concerned about what's happening that’s bad and trying to stop those bad things and make the world a better place. SIMON But your positions on cannabis, Maori, GE, the environment – isn't this a mixed message, do the voters know who you are? ROD Cannabis should be a health issue not a crime and all they need to do is go to our website they’ll see what we stand for, it is very clear we have four principles which are sustainability, social justice, peace and democracy built on a foundation of a treaty relationship. SIMON Sources in the party tell us you have downplayed the cannabis reform because you are scared of frightening off the middle class voters. ROD Well for the last three years we've actually employed a cannabis campaigner to raise awareness of this policy, we've spent more money on literature on cannabis, we've got a whole page on our website on cannabis, we've written to all the doctors about cannabis, I don’t think we've ever done as much on cannabis as we have in the last three years, I just think most people have moved on from that and say yeah the Greens are probably right, yes there should be medical cannabis, yes it should be a health issue not a crime, maybe the Greens are making sense because prohibition simply doesn’t work. SIMON Co-Leader of the Green Party Rod Donald thank you so much for joining us today on Agenda.
SIMON Joining us again are our guest commentators Bryce Johns and Chris Baldock for their reaction to what Rod Donald had to say. Who are the Greens, who wants to answer that? BRYCE JOHNS, Editor Waikato Times SIMON No threat,no trade? BRYCE Yeah exactly right. SIMON Selective morality? CHRIS BALDOCK, Editor Sunday News BRYCE Completely, get the bands and the trumpets playing and get people behind them. I look at energy as well, I got a press release over the desk this week from the Greens – we're against the new proposal for a gas fired energy plant on the shores of the Kaipara. Well I didn’t even look at the reasons- why because it's similar to what they're doing with everything, we can't have power from water because it affects the rivers, we can't have power from coal because too much smoke, we can't have gas now apparently, we can't have wind turbines, nuclear's gonna make us all have two heads. SIMON Is the earth flat? BRYCE Well they want us to shower in the rain. CHRIS Nevertheless though I think they’ve got a very important place on the political landscape I mean after all they are environmental, probably humanitarian and kind of moral watchdogs for society and they do raise issues that are important. I mean we look at the policy the government's policy on vehicle emissions where have they got with that? I mean we've still got shonky old cars driving around on our roads churning out you know rubbish and nothing is done about it, other countries are way ahead. BRYCE They’ve got the numbers though now, they’ve got the numbers to make change and they haven’t raised the question. SIMON By painting themselves into Labour's corner what leverage do they really have? Why does Labour have to listen? CHRIS Well the reality is they will probably get left out in the cold one or tother whatever the outcome of the election won't they, but they make noises, I mean the energy issue is important I mean we've got you know a million pylons going to be constructed from Taupo to South Auckland, and it is important that people like them get behind these issues and draw then to the public attention. BRYCE But you have to have realistic solutions as well and it seems to me it's roadblocks all the way. We can't do this, we can't do that, we can't do this, what's the solution we have a little solar power heater in all of our homes or something that’s about the truck of it. CHRIS But it's not within their power to implement the solutions is it, but if they keep pushing the issues you know hopefully they gain some traction. SIMON Their role is to be conscience isn't it? CHRIS Yeah a public conscience yeah. SIMON Yeah humanitarian and environmental conscience. What about the lack of a hot button issue, they're really struggling aren’t they for resonance with the electorate, and speaking on that note actually a source within the Labour Party has said that Labour are looking at the Zimbabwe issue as potentially one that will raise a national fervour in the way of South Africa in 1981. BRYCE No, no chance of that, no chance of that. SIMON There's a huge difference isn't there? BRYCE Well there is, it's not the national sport and the Zimbabwe team is a sham at the moment, it's their B team, the top players can't play for whatever reasons, they're languishing down with Bangladesh in the world rankings, both in test and one day cricket, no interest globally in what they do apart from five or six countries, it isn't going to be a hot button issue at all, but you’ve got to admire the Greens for the way they’ve ramped this one up, they’ve got Alonga coming this week, they're gonna get a lot of coverage a lot of mileage and in terms of polling it can't do anything but help them. CHRIS I think they see it as Mr Peters is, you know like his Iraqi refugees, you know I think they see this is very much the same way. Transcripts are copyright to Front Page Ltd and may contain errors. They should be checked against a taped copy of the programme to ensure accuracy. Copyright to Front Page Ltd but may be used PROVIDED attribution is made to TVOne and Agenda |
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