Transcript
Since its beginning nearly a decade ago, the PACER Plus agreement has been hailed by New Zealand as a win-win scenario for the Pacific.
It was finally signed last year by New Zealand, Australia and nine Pacific Island countries at a ceremony in Tonga, but it won't come into force until at least 8 of the 11 countries ratify it, and Trade Minister David Parker wants the others to follow his lead by the end of the year.
He says it will create jobs and prosperity, but opposition has been simmering from some who say the deal will savage small island economies.
"You see the language from Australia and New Zealand about this deal being a good deal for them because it secures their prioritised access, the market access to the region. That's not development for the Pacific, that's development for Australia and New Zealand industries."
That's Adam Wolfenden, a trade justice campaigner from the Pacific Network on Globalisation, or PANG.
Yesterday, just hours before David Parker announced he'd ratified the agreement, the group released a highly critical report.
In it, PANG says the small Pacific Island signatories stand to lose more than $US60 million each year in government revenue if it goes ahead.
While the group has long argued the tariff exemptions involved in the agreement will hurt Pacific Island countries, these are the first concrete figures provided.
Adam Wolfenden says the deal needs to be rethought.
"We think that the Pacific is probably better off to walk away from this deal and say that we want to actually have an honest conversation and a realistic conversation about what Pacific development could look like and how we go about enacting that."
Another opponent of PACER Plus is Cleo Paskal of the global think tank Chatham House.
Dr Paskal says enforced free trade will undermine customary land rights and work against other domestic systems in Pacific nations.
And once those economies are weakened, she says it will be China moving in to pick up the pieces.
"You'll get Chinese government-backed companies perhaps registered in Australia and New Zealand that then go in once those economies have been broken open to bid for pieces of critical infrastructure, like ports, like telecoms."
Dr Paskal says the free trade agreement is also hurting New Zealand's reputation because it's seen as forcing other regional powers out.
Fiji quit negotiations two years ago, saying New Zealand and Australia were inflexible and not focused enough on its development needs.
Cleo Paskal says it's telling that Fiji and the other Pacific powerhouse, Papua New Guinea, as well as America's Pacific territories have all stayed out of the agreement.
"PACER Plus is possibly one of the biggest strategic mistakes that New Zealand and Australia can do and it is being watched very closely in other capitals including D.C. and Delhi and Tokyo, all of which for example would be locked out under a PACER Plus situation."
David Parker is in the United States and Canada on a trade mission and says the deal does have a focus on development and Pacific countries do have a direct say over how funds are spent.
