[asia-apec 1153] NZ: Shipley's Apec bubble begins to burst

[Gatt Watchdog]

Evening Post, Wellington, 12/6/99

Shipley's Apec bubble begins to burst
by Brent Edwards

It looked like a political strategist's dream.  Just a month or
two before this year's election campaign, New Zealand will host
the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group in
Auckland.

No one - not even the cleverest spin doctor - could have organised
a bigger photo opportunity for Prime Minister Jenny Shipley.

There she'll be on the Apec podium rubbing shoulders with some of
the world's heavyweights, including United States President Bill
Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin.  Then follow State
visits from President Clinton and other world leaders before
National launches into its election campaign.

On paper it looks a great election campaign idea.

But the dream is quickly turning to a nightmare. Apec is becoming
more problematic and the photo opportunities might not be enough
to boost either Mrs Shipley's or National's support.

Indeed, Apec has all the potential for derailing National's
election campaign before it starts.

This will be no easy meeting for Mrs Shipley - still a tyro in
international relations - to chair.

Member economies will bring to the summit a host of difficulties
which, if anything, have grown worse in the past year, not better.

And, depending on what President Clinton does over the lamb
question, it could even be soured by testiness between New Zealand
and the US over trade issues.

Who's going to take President Clinton seriously preaching free
trade at a time when the US is becoming more protectionist?

Nor do the Asian economies, still beset by economic difficulties,
appreciate American arrogance over free trade.

Throw in the bitter battle over the head of the World Trade
Organisation - with the US and New Zealand on one side and the
Asian countries on the other - and a growing dispute between Japan
and New Zealand over blue fin tuna and this Apec meeting has the
potential to go off the rails.

The best Mrs Shipley can possibly hope - despite the optimistic
hype of the Apec taskforce's publicity machine - is that the
voluntary grouping of economies sticks together and continues to
make generalised commitments to free trade.

Even if Apec does make some substantive statement it's hardly
likely to impress a New Zealand electorate which, at best, is
disinterested in the process and, at worst, is deeply suspicious
of it.  That's why the Government is running a strong public
relations campaign to convince New Zealanders that Apec's good
for all of us.

The theme Trade Minister Lockwood Smith is trying to promote is
that more trade means more jobs.  But tell that to workers laid
off in a number of industries as this Government has opened up our
economy before many of our competitors.

And recent trade statistics also fail to back up claims that free
trade is good for us.  The export-led recovery National boasted
about earlier in the decade appears to have petered out.  For the
year to the end of April this country imported more goods than it
exported.  The trade imbalance was nearly $1.3 billion.

Increasingly the Government's looking defensive over Apec.  Labour
leader Helen Clark accuses National of simply using the meeting to
boost its chances of re-election.

After spending $44 million on hosting Apec, all National might get
out of it is a group of Aucklanders upset that their city was
disrupted for a few days in September.

Meanwhile the rest of the country could hardly care less.  Now
about that clever election year strategy...