[asia-apec 1574] Fw: NZ-S'pore free trade pact a sure thing

[APEC Monitoring Group]

>Straits Times 14 Sept 2000
>
>NZ-S'pore free trade pact a sure thing
>
>
>By DOUGLAS WONG
>
>
>SINGAPORE can have ""absolute confidence'' that the bilateral free trade
>agreement with New Zealand would be ratified, said New Zealand Prime
>Minister Helen Clark yesterday.
>
>Ms Clark said she had reached an agreement with Ms Jenny Shipley, leader of
>opposition National Party -- whose administration first started work on the
>deal with Singapore -- that should ensure parliamentary backing for the
>pact.
>
>Her coalition partners, the Alliance and Green Parties, have said they will
>vote against the free trade deal, while the National Party opposed a clause
>which refers to the government's treaty obligations to improve the rights
of
>the indigenous Maori people.
>
>Confirming this, Mrs Shipley yesterday said her party supported the New
>Zealand Singapore Closer Economic Partnership agreement (CEP) in principle,
>but it would seek to negotiate a removal or rewording of the Maori clause
if
>it came back to office.
>
>""We have agreed to try and see if a mechanism can be arranged to
>disassociate ourselves from the text,'' she told reporters after meeting
the
>Prime Minister.
>
>The Labour-led government is expected to come up with a text for a
>parliamentary motion which would allow the National Party to support the
>specific law changes required by the pact without endorsing the overall
>treaty with the contentious clause.
>
>""I think the Singaporeans can take from what has been said today with
>absolute confidence that the agreement will be signed...it will be passed
>and there will be ratification,'' Ms Clark told reporters.
>
>She had met Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong in New York last week on the
>sidelines of the United Nations Millennium summit and assured him that the
>deal would be concluded.
>
>New Zealand political analysts told The Straits Times that the National
>Party's opposition to the government's Maori policies was focused more on
>unrelated health-restructuring plans and that party elders had persuaded
Mrs
>Shipley not to jeopardise the CEP.
>
>A parliamentary vote is expected in about two weeks and the free trade
>agreement looks set to come into effect as planned on Jan 1 next year, the
>analysts said
>
>
>
>
>