Brazil-Oceania: New Horizons

Brazil-Oceania: New Horizons

Speech by Rt Hon Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand, to Brazil/Australia/New Zealand seminar

Brasilia, 20 November 2001

Thank you for the opportunity today to contribute to this seminar on Brazil’s relationship with New Zealand and Australia. In my address today, I will talk briefly about New Zealand’s relationship with Australia, before discussing aspects of New Zealand’s foreign, economic, and trade policies and our new strategy to strengthen New Zealand’s relations with Brazil and with Latin America in general.

New Zealand and Australia have had a long and exceptionally close relationship. We share over 200 years of history and many national characteristics. There are extensive links between families across the Tasman, and there is a great deal of business, sporting and cultural engagement between our two populations. Our economies are integrated through the Closer Economic Relationship, now almost twenty years old. ANZCER is a very successful FTA which has seen free trade in goods and services between New Zealand and Australia increase five-fold.
Today we continue to address ‘behind the border’ barriers to trade, including through regulatory harmonisation, to bring New Zealand and Australia towards even closer economic integration. This close economic relationship also sees us working with Australia internationally on many trade and economic issues.

New Zealand and Australia also cooperate closely on security issues in our region. In Bougainville, the Solomon Islands, and East Timor, our peacekeepers serve side by side. Even in establishing our embassy in Brasilia we have worked together - those who attended the opening ceremony of the embassy this morning would have perhaps recognised the surroundings as being formerly Australian!

Alongside a raft of common interests we also have some differences in our perceptions and interests. Size is one factor here, and geography another. Australia looks west to the Indian Ocean and north to South East Asia. New Zealand looks west to Australia and north to the South Pacific. Our island neighbours in Polynesia have contributed migrant communities to New Zealand which now make up around six per cent of our population. The indigenous population of New Zealand, Maori, at around fifteen per cent of the population, is significantly larger as a proportion of the whole than the indigenous Aboriginal population is of Australia. New Zealand is geographically more isolated than Australia, which also impacts on our foreign affairs and defence policies.

Last year my government decided that New Zealand should lift its level of engagement with Latin America substantially. We hold a lot of views in common on international issues ranging from disarmament, human rights, and the environment, to trade. Both New Zealand and Australia are, like Brazil, “New World” countries, not bound by tradition, but open to innovation and new ideas.

The international scene
New Zealand is a trading nation, with about one third of its GDP coming from exports. We need markets to sell our goods and services, we need capital from offshore to invest in our future, and we need the stimulation and energy which comes from a strong dialogue of ideas and culture with our friends like Brazil, and in international forums. This leads New Zealand to embrace globalisation, not reject it.

Nor is globalisation a new phenomenon. Modern New Zealand, like modern Brazil, was brought into existence by an earlier phase of globalisation. Europeans came to settle in both our countries, changing them for all time. Through that settlement, our common heritage stretches back to the philosophies and cultures of Greece and Rome. Trade with Europe was an essential part of in our modern development. Sugar exports were to Brazil what meat and wool exports were to New Zealand. People from many other parts of the world have also settled in our two nations. Each of us has been built on the process of globalisation.
Today, technology has brought new energy and challenges to globalisation. Its pace has speeded up dramatically. The volume of interaction across borders, especially trade in both goods and services, is increasing dramatically too. For example New Zealand’s exports to Latin America jumped 83% in the year to June 2001, and our imports from the region increased 39%.

Thus it is now more vitally important than ever that the conduct of international trade is governed by rules which make it fair and equitable. New Zealand benefited from GATT’s Uruguay Round, but, given the role of primary agricultural production in our exports, we have not yet achieved the trading freedom of the industrialised world. We are therefore pleased that the WTO has been given a mandate for a new round of negotiations, and delighted that agriculture is to be given prominence. It is about time. New Zealand, Brazil, and Australia have worked hard together in the Cairns Group to achieve that outcome. Our Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton visited Brasilia in August to discuss Cairns Group tactics.

Alongside the increasingly globalised world economy, we are seeing an unprecedented globalisation in international politics. Each year, the world seems a smaller place. The events in New York and Washington on 11 September have accelerated that process. The international community must now work together in a way unprecedented in history to deal with an uncertain and dangerous situation.
If indeed every cloud has a silver lining, then a new commitment to multilateralism could be one of the outcomes of September’s tragedy. So far we have witnessed that with the launch of the new WTO round, but not in other vital areas like disarmament.

New Zealand and Brazil need to understand each other’s perspectives on these and other issues, and explore how we can build on existing cooperation. The past few years have given us a foundation from which to start - the work we do in the New Agenda for nuclear disarmament, in the Valdivia Group on the environment, and in the Cairns Group on trade, are good examples. In a changing world we will need all of these linkages - and more - if we are to retain our voice and influence, and contribute to managing the economic, security/political and social effects of terrorism and other pressing international issues. Brazil with its significant role in world affairs has a particularly important contribution to make.

Today’s world must confront a new range of global challenges. Terrorism, transnational crime, and threats to our biosecurity are risks we all face. Large and growing numbers of refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced people are another. Those numbers before 11 September were estimated to stand at 22.5 million people. The UN has a big role to play in dealing with these issues and building a more secure and equitable world.

Since its formation more than half a century ago, support for the United Nations has been a fundamental element of New Zealand’s foreign policy. For a small nation like ours, the UN provides a forum for building and participating in networks which help shape the international context.

New Zealand and Brazil have a good track record of cooperation at the United Nations. We share values and aspirations. New Zealand, Australia and Brazil all contribute to the UN peacekeeping effort in East Timor. Our close cooperation in the New Agenda for nuclear disarmament has been notably successful. We are also working together for a Southern Hemisphere free of nuclear weapons, and for improved international arrangements for the shipment of nuclear materials. New Zealand’s Minister of Disarmament and Arms Control visited Brasilia in July to discuss these issues, and had very fruitful discussions with Foreign Minister Lafer. We also share similar views on international human rights issues. We are both actively involved in UN discussions on the establishment of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

New Zealanders are often asked, why does a small nation, so remote from major conflicts, stand up so prominently for disarmament? Advocacy of nuclear disarmament has been a strong theme in New Zealand foreign policy for decades.

The obvious can be noted: the islands of New Zealand are in the Pacific Ocean, the scene of the use of nuclear weapons in 1945 against Japan, and of the subsequent testing of weapons by Britain, France and the USA. The other two acknowledged nuclear weapons states, China and Russia, also have Pacific shores.

It was nuclear testing in our region, however, which had the most significant impact on public opinion. We spoke out strongly against French atmospheric and underground testing in French Polynesia, and sent naval vessels near the test zone in 1973 and 1995 to show our opposition. We declared ourselves a nuclear free nation in the 1980s. And we were, and are a key promoter of the South Pacific Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.

In 1987 an Act of New Zealand’s Parliament banned the entry into our country of all nuclear weapons and nuclear powered vessels. It was a unique and powerful action which drew some international opposition. It impacted negatively on our hitherto strong alliance relationship with the United States. But it has had overwhelming public and bipartisan political support within our country.

New Zealand appreciates that this individual stand must be backed up by hard painstaking work at the multilateral level. Every state, large and small, has a voice.
We use ours to call for strong, binding rules and conventions to make the world a safer, healthier, more socially responsible, and prosperous place to live. We seek our security at the global level in security for all.

It is this same sentiment which has drawn New Zealand into the international fight against terrorism. Within our limited means we will provide support for the multifaceted international campaign against terrorism and those who support it. That campaign has diplomatic, intelligence, financial, and military components. It must also encompass a commitment to peace in the Middle East, to development, and to humanitarian support for displaced refugees. The United Nations has a leadership role to play and needs our strong support. In recently accepting asylum seekers from Afghanistan who were stranded while seeking unlawful entry to Australia, my government sought to draw international attention to the need for greater support for the work of the UN and its agencies in dealing with these huge problems.

New Zealand’s economy in the 21ST Century
New Zealand’s population stands at 3.8 million. Our land area is around the same size as Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Some sixty per cent of our exports are sourced from the primary sector, from farming, forestry, horticulture and fisheries. Our per capita GDP is around US$14,000. Economic growth in the year to June was 3.5% and unemployment at 5.2% is the lowest for 13 years. Our balance of payments, often a problem in the past, now stands at four per cent of GDP, its lowest level in eight years.
The annual trade balance came into surplus in July for the first time in six years. Our dollar is very export friendly. Forecasts suggest that over the next year we should continue to outperform our trading partners.

We operate an open economy. Our tariffs are almost non-existent with per cent of imports by value coming in tariff free. Exports contribute about one third of our GDP.

As a small and geographically isolated country with a well-educated population, New Zealand stands to benefit more than most from new ideas and new technologies, especially in communications. By riding the knowledge wave, we aim to speed up the transformation, already well advanced in our economy, from commodity-based trade to a more sophisticated goods and services trade. We put high priority on social inclusion and participation, believing that it is important that the benefits of a strong economy spread to all sections of society.

We believe that government can be a catalyst for the development of a more innovative economy. In the 21st century we believe the government’s role is to provide strategic leadership, and to facilitate, coordinate, broker, partner, and fund, where appropriate.

In our proactive approach to building a knowledge driven economy and society, we are emphasising education more than ever before, and more public and private investment in science, research and technology. We seek to commercialise more of the new knowledge generated by New Zealanders in New Zealand itself. We have supported the development of business incubators generally aligned to tertiary and research institutions for that purpose and have put up seed and start up capital to nurture new knowledge driven businesses. We are developing a new approach to attracting foreign direct investment based on targeting sectors where we have good potential for high volume growth, but need further investment and capability building. We are also developing world leading e-commerce and e-government strategies.
. We aim to build a network nation. We want to facilitate interaction between local and global talent centres, and to encourage others to invest in, live in, work in, and do business with New Zealand. We are a very stable investment location, and an easy and competitive place in which to do business. Our clean uncluttered environment, our cultural dynamism, and our generally inclusive and tolerant society makes our lifestyle proposition one of the best in the world. . . It is our government’s outward looking approach to New Zealand’s future which has brought me to Brazil. And, in the spirit of government/business partnership, a senior economic delegation has accompanied me. Together we are seeking new opportunities and new relationships for our country.
New Zealand seeks to complement its multilateral open trade efforts in the WTO with bilateral and regional arrangements. Our first open trade arrangement was the Closer Economic Relationship with Australia signed to the early 1980s. Our second, with Singapore, entered into force on 1 January this year. We are currently negotiating a similar agreement with Hong Kong. And with the other APEC economies, we have ambitious open trade goals to meet.

New Zealand and Brazil
This visit to Brazil, the first ever by a New Zealand Prime Minister, together with the opening of the embassy, should be seen as a symbol of our determination to make new friends, to reinvigorate old friendships, and to build strong partnerships for the future. Brazil is important to us. Opening an embassy here was one of the first decisions we took following the launch last year of our new strategy to deepen and broaden links with Latin America. I discussed the likelihood of opening the embassy and deepening our engagement with Brazil with President Cardoso when we met in Santiago last year and his response was very positive.

New Zealand and Brazil already have a solid relationship. As I have already noted, we cooperate well internationally, and we hope that cooperation will intensify. Our trade relationship is growing. Two-way trade increased fourteen per cent to June 2001 to NZ$167 million. $88 million of that was Brazil’s exports to New Zealand.
We have signed bilateral agreements covering air services and quarantine arrangements. And there has been some New Zealand investment in Brazil.

We now have an opportunity to develop fresh momentum in our relationship. We wish to do that at the political and diplomatic levels, through trade, and through people to people links.

Education is a key way to foster closer links in the long-term. Already, the many young Brazilians who come to schools in New Zealand are making an impact. We would like them to stay on in our universities and polytechnics, which offer world class education in the English language, in a safe environment, and at a very competitive price. We want to build more alliances between our tertiary institutions too. The Vice Chancellor of the University of Otago, Dr Graeme Fogelberg, is in our delegation. Today he will sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Rio de Janeiro Catholica University. In Sao Paulo he will sign a similar agreement with the Getulio Vargas Foundation. These agreements will facilitate the exchange of students and staff.

Tourism is another way in which we can get to know each other. New Zealand offers a unique and safe experience for visitors. Tomorrow, with President Cardoso, I will witness the signing of a Visa Waiver Agreement between New Zealand and Brazil. This will facilitate travel between our countries.

Tomorrow President Cardoso and I will also witness the signing of a Science and Technology Agreement to improve the exchange of ideas and technology between New Zealand and Brazil. An agreement on regular bilateral consultations between our officials is also being signed.

New Zealand is keen to conclude a Working Holiday Scheme with Brazil. We have this year put in place such agreements with Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. These agreements encourage our young people to spend time travelling and working casually in each other’s countries.

Seeing and hearing more of each other’s arts and culture is important in rounding out our relationship. A Maori cultural group is with me in Brazil this week.

And we are keen to see more of Brazilian culture in New Zealand. That is why our government funded the artistic director of the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts to come to Brazil this year to identify potential acts for next year’s festival. I am pleased to say that Brazil will be represented in both music and dance. Earlier this year we also supported an exhibition of Brazilian art in Wellington.
In the future I look forward to our two countries working to maximise cooperation through more high level political contact; expanded cooperation on international issues; improved trade and investment frameworks; and more people to people contacts.

I am encouraged by Brazil’s openness toward New Zealand and its warm response to the opening of the New Zealand Embassy here.
Thank you once again for the opportunity to address these issues today.