Islands Business - Interview: WINSTON PETERS

Why the Pacific is important

Duncan Wilson
It’s mid-afternoon, Government budget day in late-May, and foreign minister Winston Peters is poring over paperwork in his modest government office in Wellington.

Winston Peters... boosted New Zealand’s commitment to the Pacific and now has world superpowers like the United States and China following his lead.

He’s just announced an NZ$70 million (20 percent) increase in the country’s annual overseas aid to NZ$429 million, and pledged further boosts to NZ$600 million in three years time. More than half of this funding will be spent in the Pacific.

The budget increase and regional emphasis met the approval of aid agencies and foreign ministry officials.

They also saw it as another win for a minister they say has in two short years changed New Zealand’s foreign policies—and the country’s attitude—towards the Pacific.

For Peters, that increase is long overdue. Aid has been cut back by as much as 40 percent over the last 10 years.

“There’s a very strong case for such an increase, based on the developing situation in the Pacific where the shape of the regional environment has changed quite significantly, particularly in the last 12 months. We need to respond to those changing circumstances and greater need, particularly in Melanesia.

“But, of course, we have to get to 0.35% of gross national income (NZ$600 million/year) much sooner and we will.”

Following his appointment as foreign minister in 2005, Peters announced he would concentrate on improving New Zealand’s relationship with the United States. In nuclear-free New Zealand, the proposed rapprochement caused a media flurry and earned him a rebuke from Prime Minister Helen Clark.

But Peters has always been concerned with the Pacific. And just a few weeks after his initial statement, he said his focus would be on the Pacific—an area where the US should do more, adding that it (US) had failed to appreciate New Zealand’s role.

The remarks, delivered in a departure from a Pacific focused speech he’d worked on with the foreign ministry, caught many people by surprise, including his officials.

But they brought an immediate response from the US, with their ambassador and assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill both saying Washington appreciated New Zealand’s role and wanted to be more involved.

Since then, Peters has developed a positive relationship with senior figures within the US Administration, including Condoleezza Rice. The two have met several times, most recently at last year’s APEC summit in Vietnam.

“I said to them, look I understand why the Pacific has temporarily slipped off your radar. I see the pressing issues you must contend with in other parts of the world. But I also said you can’t continue to let this happen—they’ve got investment here, people here, they share the Pacific ocean and the western seaboard—it’s a hugely significant part of the world.”

Peters says the Pacific leaders’ May meeting with senior US figures in Washington DC was key to increasing the superpower’s involvement in the Pacific.

“It had a specific purpose of improving relations with Pacific countries and occurred within the context of Bush’s signal that 2007 would be the Year of the Pacific. The meeting demonstrates America’s willingness to engage directly with the region.”

In that context, Peters says Fiji’s interim Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama’s refusal to meet the US deputy assistant secretary of state, barely a week before the leaders conference, was “very foolish.”

Officials close to Peters say the minister does not shy away from directing large powers to his frank assessment. And they say that what began as an unscripted aside at the US role has become a manner of straight-talking that cuts through diplomatic niceties which can obscure issues.

Peters’ criticisms last year of the “deleterious effects” of China-Taiwan rivalry and chequebook diplomacy in the Pacific riled the two countries.

But officials say it also encouraged China to be more upfront about its actions, and led to the nation’s commitment to work more closely with New Zealand.

“Now with the new emerging countries like Cuba and Venezuela in the Pacific,” Peters says: “Well, we’ll have to wait and see what that all means, we have to be very careful in any analysis.

“But we would seek where we can to work in partnership with these other countries, if we’re going in the same direction, so that our collective efforts and dollars go far further.”

Peters says this intergovernmental approach, coupled with people to people links across the Pacific islands, is vital for long-term stability and prosperity in the region.

Securing these bonds across the Pacific might seem an impossible task. But even those once-skeptical Kiwi commentators now concede that Peters, who in less than two years reoriented and boosted New Zealand’s foreign policy, could be the country’s best bet for working alongside other Pacific figures to achieve regional goals.

Here’s what he told ISLANDS BUSINESS:

What do you make of interim Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama’s refusal to meet the US deputy assistant secretary of state?

“It’s very foolish for Fiji in the long-term, but unfortunately I hope like us the US sees its friendship as with the Fijian people rather than with temporary self-empowered governments. You’ve got to take that approach, you’ve got to look at the people. They are not always responsible for the actions of their leaders.”

Do you see any possibility of New Zealand easing its sanctions against Fiji?

“Until there is a clear, firm indication with a timetable, there will be no change. We cannot sell the New Zealand taxpayer out. This aid is given by hard-working New Zealanders for specific purposes; democratic government and the rule of law are two paramount priorities in our aid programmes offshore.”

What is your understanding of the European Union’s assessment?

“First of all, one of the preconditions I understand the European Union has set was the ending of the emergency provisions, they’ve just been extended on May 14, so that’s a slight to the EU as well. The Cotonou agreement specifies certain parameters for their aid. It doesn’t include military-led governments not conducting elections. On our recent trip to Europe I was questioned very closely by different countries on the Pacific, and Fiji in particular. They’re engaged and they’re quite anxious about what we have to say because they acknowledge that we’re much closer to the action. One hundred and twenty million dollars of EU aid will not go to Fiji on 30 June if there is this state of emergency.

“Fiji desperately needs this money. They have 95,000 homeless, some of them living in abject poverty, no country of that size can afford to pass this EU money up, on an annualised basis. The withdrawal of sugar subsidies is punishing for them as well.”

How significant was the Pacific Islands’ leaders’ meetings in Washington, and what do you think could be the next step?

“It had a specific purpose of improving relations with Pacific countries, and occurred within the context of Bush’s signal that 2007 would be the Year of the Pacific. The meeting demonstrates America’s willingness to engage directly with the region.

“However I would say that the United States leaders seeing Pacific leaders in the Pacific is I think an important initiative that they should take up. Pacific leaders are invited to Japan, they’re invited to Paris, they’re invited to Washington, but who’s seen them here on their own territory? I think that’s important because only here, in the Pacific, can you get the flavour for what’s going on, and also I think it makes good political sense.”

Does that meeting, and the US label of 2007 as Year of the Pacific, signal a long-term US commitment to the region?

“I hope so, because you know a quarter of the world’s surface is a very important configuration in anyone’s strategic planning. But of course, New Zealand’s objective has been to be an influential partner in what is a peaceful developmental environment. There is a deliberate approach on our part to eradicate and impede untoward development seen in other parts of the world.”

In the Solomons, how will the country’s relationship with Australia and New Zealand be affected if Sogavare gains a two-thirds majority?

“I think there have been serious attempts to repair the situation between Australia and the Solomon Islands, and it’s better now than it was say two months ago. But there is some way to go. I always take the view that you have to deal with whoever is elected. So, frankly, I think some of the decisions taken by the Solomon Islands were regrettable, particularly in respect to Moti, but in the end it’s for them. You’ve got to respect it whether you like it or not but we don’t make any bones about pointing out our disquiet in our discussions.

“However I’m really conscious of the fact that the Solomon Islands has not been independent for long. It was left with few structures that would train personnel to take the lead and place of a forward-looking, modern self government. You’ve got to have regard to that. That’s why we’re putting so much more money into education in the Solomons. We have a very, very heavy budget in education simply because you need to educate a population to enable them to determine their own future.”