Pacific NGOs want PACER Plus negotiations slowed

Updated June 1, 2009 16:19:34

A public meeting in Sydney has been told that Pacific unions, churches and civil society groups want the start of negotiations for a PACER Plus free trade agreement with Australia and New Zealand to be delayed until at least 2013. They want the delay so their people can be properly consulted. Australia and New Zealand are hoping Pacific leaders, who are due to meet in Cairns in August, will agree to start formal negotiations this year.

Presenter: Jemima Garrett
Speaker: Mele Amanaki, Chairperson of the South Pacific and Oceanic Council of Trade Unions; Maureen Penjuelli, Co-ordinator of the Suva-based Pacific Network on Globalisation

GARRETT: PACER Plus has the potential to be the most important trade arrangement ever for the Pacific and discussions are at a crucial stage. At the meeting in Sydney the Pacific Community leaders were concerned the Pacific's vulnerability's are being overlooked.

Mele Amanaki, Chairperson of the South Pacific and Oceanic Council of Trade Unions told the meeting formal negotiations for PACER Plus should not start before 2013 and, due to the global financial crisis, may need to be pushed out even further.

AMANAKI: We need to sit down in the Pacific with respect to PACER, we need to sit down and access the impact, what the ruling for globalisation before we can move on. So before go into the negotiation of PACER, we think that we should evaluate what's really happening to us in order for us to be able to decide. We support the movement for free trade agreement, but we need to make sure that we have the right policies to be implemented.

GARRETT: All three Pacific leaders who spoke in Sydney were worried about the impact of PACER Plus on jobs but, with Pacific countries receiving up to 30 per cent of their revenue from tariffs there was more concern about the threat to the tax base.

AMANAKI: We worry that the social services provided by government, especially education and health, will be affected. It has already been affected. Come July, some of us will start paying more money to use our hospitals, when we never used to do that. Education of our kids at home are very much affected. We have students in the primary schools sitting right from the back to the blackboard, 50 of them in the classroom. How do you expect our kids to learn?

GARRETT: Tonga's Mele Amanaki, Chairperson of the South Pacific and Oceanic Council of Trade Unions.

The Pacific Conference of Churches is worried about the impact of PACER Plus on the poor. Civil society groups are concerned about the way the negotiations for PACER Plus will be conducted as Maureeen Penjuelli, from the Pacific Network on Globalistion, explained to the Sydney meeting.

PENJUELLI: Countries are very concerned about cohersive types of pressure that we are coming to pay, recognising that Australia and New Zealand are key donor partners. There is quite a large worry about what that would mean in terms of negotiations. So they wanted to limit those types of influence on negotiations.

GARRETT: The way the Pacific countries have done that is to suggest they work together in negotiations through an independent Office of the Chief Trade Advisor.

PENJUELLI: The response by Australia and New Zealand has been quite disappointing from the Pacific's perspective, limiting funding for the proposal, one million per year and that's and have to clarify that's one million per year for the next three years. And the range of the office will be reduced capacity building, and possibly the training elements would be removed, and they rejected or they have insisted that the proposal to seek funding for this particular office, we cannot go other donors for funding. So they will have to depend on Australia and New Zealand to fund the office.

GARRETT: Maureen Penjuelli, Co-ordinator of the Suva-based Pacific Network on Globalisation.

In August, Pacific Island leaders meet in Cairns to discuss the way forward for PACER Plus, in particular whether to move to formal negotiations immediately as Australia and New Zealand suggest or to take the more staged approach proposed by Solomon Islands. Pacific unions, churches and civil society groups are backing the Solomons timetable and want time for consultation.

Mele Amanaki again.

AMANAKI: Australia and New Zealand are going to undertake an impact assistance study announced in March, so may be now they starting. It's going to be completed by August, before the Forum leaders meeting. Our worry is even today, we have not been consulted on this. Trade unions how you are being affected. They have not come to speak to us. So our worry is if they tabled this report in the Forum leaders meeting, it will not have our concerns in there. Our leaders will go and deliberate on this without the position of the country, the Pacific Island country. So we should do a proper assessment on the impact, on the workers, on the families, on the businesses, and then beside there how to move forward. So basically we should put PACER Plus on hold until we do all these capacity developments.