[asia-apec 1501] NZ Herald -

[notoapec at clear.net.nz]

07/08/00 - Moore calls in on Samuels in WTO break 
						By AUDREY YOUNG

Mike Moore, on leave from his job as Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, is staying in the Far North with sacked Maori Affairs Minister Dover Samuels, an old friend.

The former Labour Prime Minister said it was inappropriate for him to comment on Mr Samuels' situation but he was willing to talk about his first year in the WTO and the protests he had encountered in most countries.

"It's a walk in the park compared to internal Labour politics."

It is believed that Mr Moore has kept in close touch with developments through his friends in Labour's right faction.

It includes Justice Minister Phil Goff, Police Minister George Hawkins, Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton and Mr Samuels, and is based as much on a sense of kinship with Mr Moore as on politics.

When Mr Moore was back in New Zealand in January, he also holidayed with Mr Samuels, whose family runs a motel at Matauri Bay.

Mr Samuels was a strong supporter of Mr Moore in 1993, when Helen Clark deposed Mr Moore as Labour leader.

It was not a popular move among Maori, and Mr Samuels, as Maori vice-president of Labour, later played a prominent role in getting Maori to accept her leadership. He was elected to Parliament in 1996 on the list.

Now Prime Minister, she sacked Mr Samuels on June 28 amid allegations of an unlawful relationship with a teenager 14 years ago and suggestions of further allegations to come.

The findings of the police report which investigated rape complaints by the woman has not yet been released.

Mr Samuels revealed to Parliament last week that he had five convictions. Helen Clark says he disclosed only one to the Labour Party.

Mr Moore will head to Wellington on Wednesday for talks with the Government, and on Friday will receive the Order of New Zealand, the highest honour in the country.

In anticipation of Mr Moore's return, the anti-WTO group Gatt Watchdog (Gatt was the predecessor of the WTO) wrote to the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) last week suggesting it keep him under watch in its role of safeguarding New Zealand's economic interests.

The letter was under the name of Aziz Choudry, who successfully challenged in the courts a pre-Apec summit search of his home by SIS officers.

"Being an intelligence organisation, the NZSIS must know all about the devastating impacts that trade and investment liberalisation is having on communities throughout New Zealand, beginning with job losses caused by tariff cuts, the frighteningly high level of transnational corporate ownership of vital infrastructure, the land sold to infamous criminals like the Suharto family, increasing income disparities between rich and poor, and so on.

"Given that the WTO operates in clandestine ways to achieve their objective we presume you will seek a warrant to intercept Mr Moore's communications now and in the future," Mr Choudry wrote to Richard Woods, the director of security.

"We would however suggest some prior training in the art of breaking and entering as we are a little concerned at the level of skill displayed by some of your officers in the past."
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storyID: 146942
fromname: GATT Watchdog
frommessage: NZ Herald, 7 August 2000
submit.x: 41
submit.y: 19