Kiwiblog

Reuters reports:

Fifty-five countries, accounting for almost 80 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions, have pledged varying goals for fighting climate change under a deadline in the Copenhagen Accord.

“This represents an important invigoration of the UN climate change talks,” Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said of the national targets for curbs on emissions until 2020 submitted by January 31.

It represents no such thing. As I said in NBR on Friday, the political tide has turned. Regardless of your views on the science, there is no chance of meaningful reductions in emissions. Even if the EU and Australia and NZ manage some reductions, 50% of the global total is basically China, India and the US.

What does India say:

Indian officials said they want the 1992 UN Climate Change Convention to remain the blueprint for global action, not the Copenhagen Accord.

That means they do not want to commit to any reductions at all for India.

And China:

China said it will “endeavour” to cut the amount of carbon produced per unit of economic output by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 from 2005. The “carbon intensity” goal would let emissions keep rising, but more slowly than economic growth.

Now even putting aside the fact China won’t agree to any verification of their emissions (ie they can simply make up their figures), what does their pledge mean.

Let us assume that their business as usual case is that emissions will increase in line with economic growth.

Now their GDP in 2005 was US$2.24 trillion. In 2020 it is estimated to be around US14.6 trillion. That is a 640% increase in GDP.

Now if their emissions intensity is 40% less, then the increase in emissions will be 385%.

So China’s pledge is they will only increase emissions by 385% by 2020.

Now their level of emissions in 2006 was 6,103 million tons. So China’s projected increase in emissions is around 23,000 million tons.

New Zealand’s total level of emissions is 30 million tons.

So we could go totally carbon neutral, and it would barely compensate for 0.1% of the increase from China.

In fact China’s pledge to reduce intensity by 40% means their total level of emissions in 2020 could be as high as 33,000 million tons.

And you know what. That is more than the rest of the world produces today. The world, excluding China, produces 22,000 million tons. With China it is 28 million tons

So the entire world could go carbon neutral, and China would still push world emissions up 20% from 2006.

As I have said before, you need to get an agreement between the major emitters first, and the rest of the world will then make sure they pick up their fair share.

And I would say there is no way China is going to agree to reductions beyond what they indicated at Copenhagen.

So regardless of what you think about the science, the fact is there will be no reduction in global emissions. Doesn’t matter what we do, what the US does, what the EU does.

Now I am not an advocate of New Zealand breaking away from the rest of the OECD, and saying we refuse to do anything, unless China comes to the party. We are too small to do that, without the risk of repercussions. But we should shy away from any emission reduction measures that significantly reduce economic growth, and focus mainly on improving technology.

China may change its stance over time – perhaps in ten years or so, if there has been clear evidence of rapidly rising sea levels for example. But for the next decade, global emissions will increase beyond doubt.

Reuters reports:

China has attacked Washington’s call to lift internet censorship and warned the Obama administration to heed alarm bells over trade, Taiwan and Tibet.

China said that US calls for greater internet freedom were harmful to bilateral ties and that the Chinese government banned any form of hacking, in response to a speech by the US Secretary of State.

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for China and other authoritarian governments to lift their curbs on citizens’ use of the internet in a speech on Thursday (Friday NZ time).

It was a good speech which is in full here.Also an interesting Q&A.

This is not just about what China do behind their own borders, but the threat they may pose to the greater Internet with state sanctioned cyber attacks.

“A new information curtain is descending across much of the world,” said Clinton, calling growing internet curbs the present-day equivalent of the Berlin Wall, contravening international commitments to free expression.

Clinton also urged Beijing to investigate the complaint about cyber spying from China that Google said targeted it and dozens of other companies, as well as Chinese dissidents.

One of the best parts of the speech was:

As I speak to you today, government censors somewhere are working furiously to erase my words from the records of history. But history itself has already condemned these tactics. Two months ago, I was in Germany to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The leaders gathered at that ceremony paid tribute to the courageous men and women on the far side of that barrier who made the case against oppression by circulating small pamphlets called samizdat. Now, these leaflets questioned the claims and intentions of dictatorships in the Eastern Bloc and many people paid dearly for distributing them. But their words helped pierce the concrete and concertina wire of the Iron Curtain.

The Berlin Wall symbolized a world divided and it defined an entire era. Today, remnants of that wall sit inside this museum where they belong, and the new iconic infrastructure of our age is the internet. Instead of division, it stands for connection. But even as networks spread to nations around the globe, virtual walls are cropping up in place of visible walls.Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks. They’ve expunged words, names, and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech. These actions contravene the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which tells us that all people have the right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” With the spread of these restrictive practices, a new information curtain is descending across much of the world. And beyond this partition, viral videos and blog posts are becoming the samizdat of our day.

A speech by itself won’t change anything, but the focus of the US Government at the highest levels is a good thing.

I was hugely disappointed in Google when they started censoring google.cn. It was the first time they really broke their motto of do no evil.

So I am equally pleased to see this story:

Google, the internet search engine, has set itself at odds with the authorities in China by declaring that it will stop censoring search results on its Chinese website.

This is going to be a fascinating battle between two giants.

My spies in Young Labour report that they will be hosting at their upcoming summer school a representative of the Communist Youth League of China – the youth wing of the Chinese Communist Party.

I think this is an excellent move. The Chinese Communist party is far more capitalist than the average member of Young Labour. Hopefully they will learn something about the importance of economic growth!

A fascinating article in The Guardian, which I saw tweeted by Public Address. It is from someone in the room with the Heads of Govt, and makes it very clear China went out of their way to sabotage the Copenhagen conference. The title is:

How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room

As recriminations fly post-Copenhagen, one writer offers a fly-on-the-wall account of how talks failed

And then the article:

Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was “the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility”, said Christian Aid. “Rich countries have bullied developing nations,” fumed Friends of the Earth International.

This says a lot about the so called environmental NGOs that fell for China’s trick hook line and sinker. They are so anti-west that they don’t know what to do, when it is not the West’s fault.

All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday’s Guardian, made the mistake of singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying “no”, over and over again. Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as “a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries”.

Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.

Yes China controls a few Governments by blocking UN Security Council action against them.

What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country’s foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world’s most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his “superiors”.

This wasn’t even the Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was someone with no ability to decide anything at all.

To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China’s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. “Why can’t we even mention our own targets?” demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil’s representative too pointed out the illogicality of China’s position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord’s lack of ambition.

China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak “as soon as possible”. The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world.

Now will we hear this from Greenpeace, or even the Greens? Of course one could do a deal without China, but it would be pointless as their emissions growth would dwarf any reductions the rest of the world manages.

Obama needed to be able to demonstrate to the Senate that he could deliver China in any global climate regulation framework, so conservative senators could not argue that US carbon cuts would further advantage Chinese industry. With midterm elections looming, Obama and his staff also knew that Copenhagen would be probably their only opportunity to go to climate change talks with a strong mandate. This further strengthened China’s negotiating hand, as did the complete lack of civil society political pressure on either China or India. Campaign groups never blame developing countries for failure; this is an iron rule that is never broken. The Indians, in particular, have become past masters at co-opting the language of equity (“equal rights to the atmosphere”) in the service of planetary suicide – and leftish campaigners and commentators are hoist with their own petard.

This article from Mark Lynas, should be carried in every newspaper that has covered Copenhagen.

Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China’s century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower’s freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.

I suspect this article is going to be quite catalytic, and may lead to a trade backlash against China. Time will tell.

The Dom Post reports:

The Dalai Lama met with opposition leader Phil Goff after arriving in New Zealand with a flurry of diplomatic protocol hanging over him.

It is disappointing that John Key would not meet with the Dalai Llama, just to keep China happy. I think we should trade with China but not let them decide who we allow into New Zealand and meet with.

Mr Goff said that, if he was prime minister, he would still meet the Dalai Lama.

“I met with him when I was foreign minister, I don’t see any difference whether I’m a member of the executive or a leader of the Opposition. I’m meeting with him in his capacity as a spiritual and cultural leader and as a very nice person.”

Full credit to Goff for doing the right thing, and may it continue if he does ever achieve the top job.

I don’t agree with a huge amount of what the Greens do, but one thing they do that deserves praise is their constant willingness to invite and host in New Zealand dissidents from countries who try and pressure us to lower our own standards of freedom of speech, to meet their own.

The Herald reports:

Exiled Chinese Muslim leader Rebiya Kadeer says she wants to “meet with the enemy” during her New Zealand visit.

“Change can only happen when you change the hearts and minds of those who oppose you,” she said as she arrived in Auckland yesterday for a four-day visit. …

China tried to stop Maori TV from screening a Kadeer biopic last month, and despite talks among some Chinese students about staging a protest at the airport yesterday, no one turned up.

“If the Chinese here learn that it is okay to protest peacefully, then they would have learned a valuable lesson about living in a democracy,” Ms Kadeer said.

Meanwhile, following “internal messages of protest” by university staff on the administration’s stopping Ms Kadeer from holding a public meeting on campus, law professor David Williams has invited her to speak at the law faculty at midday instead.

“I hope that university security personnel will not be called upon to prevent the exercise of free speech,” Professor Williams said. “Rebiya Kadeer is the sort of person whose voice needs to be listened to. Her voice should not be silenced in a university.”

Ms Kadeer was once a successful businesswoman in the northwest Xinjiang region but spent six years in jail after speaking out against Beijing.

China regards her as a criminal who orchestrated the ethnic violence in Xinjiang in July that left nearly 200 dead.

It is opposed to countries providing her with a platform to engage in anti-China separatist activities, a charge she rejects.

Her visit, as a guest of the Green Party, will include meetings with human rights groups, a visit to Parliament and meetings with MPs.

I hope that over time, China will realise it should just accept dissidents will criticise them, and stop trying to pressure other countries to silence them. It just results in their message getting more attention – not less.

Green co-leader was on Q+A this morning, and it was a pretty lamentable performance. While there were a couple of tough topics, she just didn’t cope with the scrutiny, and appeared very flustered and evasive.

I backed Turei as their best choice for co-leader (not that I get a vote!) as she has generally been a strong MP. But today showed up the gap between her and someone like Fitzsimons, who would have handled things much more calmly.

Of course part of the problem was that on the trade issue, Turei had a nonsensical position to defend. Every country on earth supports the move to freer trade, apart from pretty much just North Korea. The Green view on trade is very much a fringe view, and it got exposed today.

From the transcript (not yet online:

GUYON Okay let’s look at an economic idea that you are opposed to, and that is free trade largely.   In your maiden speech in 2002 you said that, and I quote you, ‘the acceptance of free trade agreements threatens our economy, our environment, our people and our sovereignty.’  Do you not believe in any free trade agreements at all?

METIRIA Well our position is that you need to have systems of fair trade, that make sure that New Zealand can retain its economic sovereignty, and free trade deals tend to undermine the economic sovereignty.

GUYON All the free trade deals, I mean the free trade deal that we have with Australia for example that we’ve had for 20 years, has that undermined our sovereignty?

METIRIA It prevents New Zealand from being able to make the economic decisions around our manufacturing, around job retention, all of those issues that are best for New Zealand, and we want New Zealand to be a prosperous and sustainable economy, that means we have to move … we need to be able to make those decisions for ourselves.

GUYON Does that mean all free trade agreements, for example the CER agreement that we’ve had with Australia since 1982, does that cover that?

METIRIA Look the key issue for us…

GUYON No, can I get a straight answer for our viewers on this question please, because it’s all very well to give a speech about free trade.

Yet she still could not state whether or not the Green Party thought CER was a good or a bad thing.

I wonder why the Greens are so inconsistent on the issues of national sovereignty. They correctly point out climate change affects everyone regardless of national borders. They support surrendering sovereignty to the UN on every treaty there is. Yet on economic issues, they cite national sovereignty as a reason to prevent people freely trading with each other.

GUYON Okay with respect, let’s look at one of those countries, China.  Now on Thursday it was the first anniversary of our Free Trade Agreement with China, our exports have climbed 61% over that year to 3.3 billion.  I mean wouldn’t we all be the poorer if we’d listened to you and not gone ahead with that agreement?

METIRIA Oh look Guyon, I mean you can make that kind of accusation and I think it’s just silly, the truth is that so much of New Zealand’s economy at the moment is under serious threat if  you like from the fact that we’re having to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars every week actually in order to just pay the interest on our current borrowing.  We’re having a housing bubble at the moment which is going to also impact seriously on our economy and there are other kinds of tools that we can use to deal with economic issues that are affecting New Zealand, like increasing the ability for banks for example to lend ….

The stupidity of Metiria’s response is the China FTA means we are borrowing less. Exports rose 60% in the middle of a recession!! That is a huge sucess. She just had no answer at all to this.

GUYON Can we return to this agreement though because there are some real Green issues here in this China Free Trade Agreement and I want to talk to you about one of them, because the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise says areas like the health supplements in Manuka Honey are a great area for expansion of our exports, and in fact your own Super Fund has quite a large shareholding on Konvita New Zealand which has 18 branded stores in China and is actually doing very very well out of this China Free Trade Agreement, would you deny them that opportunity, because you opposed that agreement.

You have to love the irony. Their super fund is personally profiting from the China FTA that they battled against.

The Herald reports:

A year ago today New Zealand’s free trade agreement with China came into effect.

The results so far show it to be a big success, says New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s general manager for North Asia, Rod McKenzie.

New Zealand exports to China climbed to more than $3.3 billion in the year to June 30 – an increase of 61 per cent on the previous year.

Clark and Goff did very very well with the China FTA. I regard it as their finest foreign policy achievement, even though their own Foreign Minister campaigned against it.

Sad to read in the HoS:

President Barack Obama slapped punitive tariffs on all car and light truck tyres entering the United States from China in a decision that could anger the strategically important Asian powerhouse but placate union supporters important to his health-care push at home. …

The federal trade panel recommended a 55 per cent tariff in the first year, decreasing 10 per cent in each of the next two years. Obama settled on an extra 35 per cent in the first year, reducing by 5 per cent for two years. Beijing yesterday sharply condemned the US move: “China strongly opposes this serious act of trade protectionism by the US.

“This act not only violates the rules of the World Trade Organisation but also violates the relevant commitments made by the US Government at the G-20 financial summit.”

Protectionism may sometimes deliver short-term gain, but at the expense of long-term pain. NZ is a sterling example of this as we got rid of almost all tariffs and subsidies, yet up until the global recession had the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD. Protectionism doesn’t save jobs in the long-term, it merely keeps capital locked up in relatively inefficient industries.

To be fair to Obama, Bush was also a protectionist despite his rhetoric. He slapped tariffs on regularly, against WTO rules. They know they will lose at the WTO eventually, but do it to get through the election.

It is a pity, in terms of trade policy, that John McCain did not win. He was a very sincere and dedicated free trade supporter – his policy was to remove barriers to trade with every country on Earth, except those they have security issues with.

AP reports:

China’s Health Ministry has ordered a hospital to stop using electric shock therapy to cure youths of Internet addiction, saying there was no scientific evidence it worked.

No kidding.

Chinese psychologists say symptoms of Internet addiction include being online more than six hours a day – playing games and looking at pornography rather than working or studying – and getting angry when unable to get online.

Well I’d say most Kiwiblog commenters fit that definition

Shuyun said it was only part of the overall program to treat patients, which also included medicine and psychological counseling. Patients are charged 5,500 yuan ($NZ1290) a month.

You pay $1,290 a month to get electrocuted? Man that is the best cyber scam yet.

I almost didn’t blog these, because they are so positive, but it is probably worth doing so, as Key is new to Foreign Affairs. First we have Fran O’Sullivan:

The Prime Minister’s diplomatic team skilfully orchestrated the visit so that New Zealand’s vital business interests in China were enhanced.

Wen made clear that China has drawn a line under the tainted milk affair at Fonterra’s now bankrupt Sanlu joint venture and welcomed increased participation in its fledgling agriculture industry.

Air New Zealand has also won a departure slot at Beijing International Airport that will help it encourage more Chinese visitors to come to Auckland, arriving at around 6am rather than just before 3am.

Key’s meetings with the prime Chinese customers of some of New Zealand’s major firms will also help in easing some barriers to doing business.

Clark’s own high-level political skills and feel for international affairs enabled New Zealand to secure last year’s historic free trade deal with China. But now the FTA is into the “implementation phase”, Key’s business skill-set is proving valuable.

It is good Key is continuing Clark’s fine work with China.

And the NZ Herald Editorial:

John Key’s state visit to China was a potentially tricky one. The 12 months after the signing of a momentous free trade deal have not been plain sailing. Most notably, New Zealand was implicated in the contaminated milk scandal that swept through China, thanks to Fonterra’s involvement in the now-bankrupt Sanlu joint venture. It is a feather in the cap of the Prime Minister and this country’s diplomats that the Chinese say they see no reason to allow this issue to undermine relations. …

Premier Wen Jiabao told Mr Key he regarded China’s relationship with New Zealand as the “very, very best” it had been. It is reassuring that a tie skilfully built by the previous government continues to flourish despite some unforeseen hiccups.

As the US buckles under the weight of Obama’s spending, the Chinese economy will become much more important to us.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key has said he will meet the Dalai Lama when he comes to New Zealand next year – one week after China retaliated against the French president for doing the same.

The Dalai Lama will be visiting Auckland on December 6 next year to speak at Vector Arena and lead a session on Buddhist teachings.

“The Prime Minister will treat the Dalai Lama in the same way as any other significant visitor, and will meet the Dalai Lama should his diary permit,” said a spokesman for Mr Key.

Good. We can not have a foreign country dictate who our PM can or can not meet.

An interesting article on the positive impact Chinese bloggers are having:

Tens of millions of mice over-ran China’s internet trap this year, swamping it with chatter, nibbling towards freedom of speech.

Riots in Tibet, the Sichuan earthquake, an under-age Olympic hero, poisoned milk, official corruption, and even a fake tiger sighting – China’s top news stories this year took on new life in the blogosphere.

The twisted reports and deliberate silence of the Communist Party’s traditional propaganda machine – state-owned newspapers and television – were held to ridicule by swift-moving mice that scrutinised, uncovered and spread little pieces of competing truth

Yay.

The number of bloggers in China doubled to 107 million in the six months to last June, according to the China Internet Network Information Centre. Total users rose 56 per cent from the previous year, to 253 million, giving China the largest online population in the world.

Mr Mao says he can see a tipping point coming. He believes that as a result of blogging, young Chinese brainwashed by their education system are now trying to think for themselves, work together and find smarter solutions.

Sounds hopeful.

There’s a fine line between predicting and being seen to advocate. I am not sure it is helpful for Phil Goff to have said:

Trade Minister Phil Goff expects severe punishment for those criminally responsible for China’s contaminated milk scandal – but he doesn’t think Fonterra’s representatives at San Lu should join the growing list of arrests made by Chinese authorities.

Fonterra has three directors who sit on the San Lu board and as arrests in the milk powder scandal multiplied yesterday, Mr Goff said it was “almost certain” the people who added the chemical melamine to milk would be executed.

I really don’t know why Goff thought it was necessary to say that, as the Chinese Government could see that as diplomatic code for condoning such executions.

China has made great strides in recent years, but one is reminded of how big the remaining gulf is, with the story over the fake singing at the Olympics opening:

The girl in the red dress with the pigtails, called Lin Miaoke, 9, and from a Beijing primary school, has become a national sensation since Friday night, giving interviews to all the most popular newspapers.

But the show’s musical designer felt forced to set the record straight. He gave an interview to Beijing radio saying the real singer was a seven-year-old girl who had won a gruelling competition to perform the anthem, a patriotic song called “Hymn to the Motherland”.

At the last moment a member of the Chinese politburo who was watching a rehearsal pronounced that the winner, a girl called Yang Peiyi, might have a perfect voice but was unsuited to the lead role because of her buck teeth.

So, on the night, while a pre-recording of Yang Peiyi singing was played, Lin Miaoke, who has already featured in television advertisements, was seen but not heard.

The one good thing is that the musical designer who revealed this, felt he was able to do so without disappearing into the night as once would have been he case.

But really to have politburo members choosing the child singer!

And the fireworks were also faked in part:

Officials have already admitted that the pictures of giant firework footprints which marched across Beijing towards the stadium on Friday night were prerecorded, digitally enhanced and inserted into footage beamed across the world.

Now again the good thing is through blogs and elsewhere Chinese citizens are able to debate whether or not they think these actions were good, or not. But they do do real damage.

People like me wonder if the hosts are so willing to fake the singing and fake the fireworks, how much confidence can you have in them to have discouraged steroid use and the like? The technology is always somewhat ahead of the detection, so even the best efforts of international authorities will be limited if a host country condones anything in its desire to be the best.

Parliament did some good yesterday and passed into law the legislation necessary to implement the free trade agreement with China.

The New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement Bill passed its third reading on a vote of 104 to 17, strongly supported by the National Party and opposed by the Greens, New Zealand First and the Maori Party.

I really wonder why those parties are against our export sector being able to export more goods and services to China?

As Phil Goff says:

Mr Goff said that would give New Zealand companies a unique competitive advantage in the world’s fastest growing economy.

“Our exports to China, currently at more than $2 billion a year, are estimated to grow by between $230-350 million a year faster than they would have without an FTA.”

The FTA is a win-win – good for New Zealand and good for China.

This comes from the BBC. Good on the enterprising factory owner for not letting politics get in the way of business!

The Herald have reported that the Labour Department says Air NZ is not breaking the law by paying Shanghai based staff less than the minimum wage on international flights.

The legal minimum wage is $12 an hour but the Labour department report said it was not applicable to Air NZ as “it would appear Chinese employment law applied to the agreement between Air New Zealand and the Chinese Air crew”.

But not quite that clear:

However, in a statement last night the Department of Labour corrected “an assertion” in a media release from Air New Zealand on the issue.

The statement was in response to a release from the airline that stated that the department had found that Chinese law applied to the agreement between Air New Zealand and the Chinese cabin crew.

“What we said in our briefing to Labour Minister Trevor Mallard was that “it would appear that Chinese employment law applied”, workplace deputy secretary Andrew Annakin said.

“This is an important point of difference, as the department cannot definitively determine what employment law applies in a particular factual situation, particularly outside New Zealand.”

It would be a very interesting test case if taken to court. If the staff worked in China, there would be no doubt Chinese law applied. But when on an international flight, the law of the air generally tends to point to the law of the country the aircraft is registered in. However I know that flights into the US also have US Federal Law apply, so definitely not clear cut.

Winston Peters demanded the media grovel and apologise for the report that Phil Goff had described Peters’ attack on the free trade deal as Bullshit.

The Government then conceded that Goff has used the term “bullshit” but only in relation to criticism of the FTA, but somehow mytically this excludes Winston’s criticism.

Today the NZ Herald reports a business leader on the record confirming that Goff did indeed use the word “bullshit” about Peters’ criticisms of the deal.

No Right Turn blogs that he believes the NZ First advertisements do breach the Electoral Finance Act as “a reasonable person would regard it as an encouragement to vote for NZ First”. I agree. As Idiot/Savant says it is not a survey, it lays out policy and encourages approval of it.

Poneke has more on the BBC story on climate change which got modified. The reporter denied he did it under pressure, but an activist has blogged she successfully pressured him to change it.

The visible hand in economics looks at fixed vs floating exchange rates.

The DAFT Party has a solution for China over Tibet. It is to rename China to Tibet, and declare they are all Tibetians. The PRC Government should see the sense of this now they are running a market economy – you replace a tarnished brand with a more positive brand!

Bernard Hickey has video and a blog post on Alan Bollard’s speech suggesting we are talking ourselves into a recession. Bernard says we’re not, and if we do have a recession, it is because we deserve it! Them’s fighting words! It’s a lengthy excellent post with many graphs.

The Herald reports that calls for Peters to be sacked as Foreign Minister (he could be moved to another portfolio) are growing. Business representatives who are still in China are said to be furious and Phil Goff has been trying to calm them down, agreeing it was a “bullshit” situation. Those effectively calling for him to go include:

• Northern Employers and Manufacturers Association chief executive Alasdair Thompson
• Bob Fenwick, a past president of the NZ Export Institute
• Revenue Minister Peter Dunne

The fact Peters is not just quietly voting against (or abstaining) but has launched a high profile campaign  in NZ against it with newspaper ads is what has them fuming, plus his insistence he will state his views against it when overseas as Foreign Minister.

Martin Kay in the Dom Post covers in more detail the Revenue Minister’s views on Peters:

Mr Dunne, UnitedFuture’s leader and revenue minister, said Mr Peters would fly in the face of “all conventions about good government” if he spoke out against the FTA as a minister. “I can’t see how you stay on that basis.”

… Mr Dunne told Newstalk ZB the FTA was central to the Government’s foreign policy and Mr Peters had to represent that.

Kay also covers the issue of Labour’s about-face on this:

Dr Cullen’s insistence that it is all right for Mr Peters to speak against the deal contradicts comments he made soon after Mr Peters was appointed, when he said the FTA was one of the “highest foreign policy goals”.

His insistence that Mr Peters is free to criticise the deal overseas also appears at odds with a Cabinet circular that says he must speak for the Government “on all issues” when out of the country.

Colin Espiner in The Press also quotes Dr Cullen yesterday:

“I think that people understand very clearly that the confidence and supply agreement provides that Mr Peters is bound on matters purely of foreign policy …”

Now recall that in 2005, Dr Cullen stated in Parliament that the China FTA was one of the Government’s “highest foreign policy goals”.

I was also on ZB today, and was asked about National’s position on Winston as Foreign Minister. I said that I was disappointed in the response in that it missed an opportunity to differentiate National from Labour in terms of how far one would compromise good Government just to keep the numbers together.

What I would have liked John Key to say in response to the question of whether one could have Peters as a future Foreign Minister is:

“Look no one is ruled in or out of a portfolio in advance, but what I will say is that in a Government I lead, you will not be able to be Minister of Foreign Affairs unless you support the Government’s foreign policy, which obviously includes trade agreements”

Key was not wrong to not rule Peters out. The sad reality of MMP is you can’t rule most things in or out until you have the elction results. But I do think he missed a real opportunity to make it clear that while he could not rule a person (Peters) out, he could rule out unacceptable behaviour (the Foreign Minister saying he will criticise a trade agreement while overseas, and campaigning against it in NZ before the ink is even dry).

This whole episode shows us the problem with the ever increasing removal of collective responsibility. It has gone too far.  I am not saying it needs to go back to the days of every member of the Executive having to support the Government on every issue. But when you are having a debate about whether or not it is okay for the Foreign Affairs Minister to be personally heading up a newspaper campaign against a major foreign policy achievement with China, then things have gone too far. There shouldn’t even be a debate.

I mean we have the Foreign Affairs Minister campaigning on his opposition to trade with foreigners, his opposition to Asian foreigners being able to live here, and his opposition to people being able to sell property or shares to foreigners. Does Helen not think this might slightly undermine his ability to be an effective and respected Foreign Minister?

The Government is, to be blunt, lying when it says there is no need for the Foreign Affairs Minister to support the China Free Trade Agreement because trade agreements are somehow seperate from foreign policy.

To rebut this preposterous claim, let me quote the Rt Hon Helen Clark who just six months ago addressed the Oxford Union on the topic of “New Zealand Foreign Policy“:

A successful WTO round is our top trade priority. For it to succeed it must deliver on opening up agricultural trade. That is also in the interests of the developing world. But New Zealand has strong interests in negotiations on industrials and services too, and is looking for an outcome which delivers more openness across the board.

Meantime in our own region we are forging new trade links with APEC partner economies. Our first free trade agreement was with Australia over 24 years ago. Now we have FTAs with Singapore and Thailand, and a sub regional FTA with Chile, Singapore, and Brunei. We have completed fourteen rounds of FTA negotiations with China. Negotiations for an FTA are also going on between ASEAN and Australia and New Zealand.

Clark makes it absolutely clear trade policy is a subset of foreign policy. It is not a separate issue as Clark now tries to claim. It is like arguing overseas aid is not part of foreign policy.

To quote Helen Clark some more, in 2000 she said “As I have indicated, multilateral trade policy will continue to be a key focus of our foreign policy.”

And Dr Cullen in 2005 in Hansard said:

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Yes, the Minister of Foreign Affairs accepts that seeking a free-trade deal with China is one of our highest foreign policy goals.  …

Cullen points out that Goff is Trade Minister, not Peters. But he very clearly states that the China free-trade deal is “one of our highest foreign policy goals”.

Now Clark yesterday has tried to pretend it is not foreign policy, but trade policy only, as reported on TV3:

She did not believe that China or anyone else would find it strange for the foreign minister to attack trade policy.

But as Dr Cullen and herself and Goff have said on many occasions, it is a key foreign policy goal.

Now even worse, Peters has said he will criticise the deal when overseas as Foreign Minister.  So the NZ Government will pay for their Foreign Minister to fly to other countries, and if asked about the China FTA, to say it is a bad deal which does not deliver enough to NZ. He will even say this to the Chinese Foreign Minister he claims.

Peters is also running advertisements today in newspapers attacking the China FTA.  These ads were placed *before* his Caucus claimed to have decided their position yesterday. That tells you something.

So in summary, we have multiple statements from the Government that the China FTA has been and is one of their top foreign policy goals. And you have their Foreign Minister:

• Stating he will criticise the FTA when overseas as Foreign Minister if asked
• Attacking the deal while the PM is still in China
• Basically attacking his own colleagues and MFAT staff as having failed to get a good enough deal
• Claiming not to have made his mind up on the deal as he hadn’t seen details, yet drawing up advertisements in newspapers attacking the deal before it had even been signed!
• also heading a party campaigning against Asian immigration to NZ

Now it is possible Peters is trying to get sacked.  Since he was re-elected to Parliament in 1984, he has never gone into an election backing the Government of the Day. He could have just announced his party will vote against but he will abstain in recognition of his responsibility to the Government he is Foreign Minister of.

But Clark’s credibility is one the line if she thinks it is not an issue that the NZ Foreign Affairs Minister is campaigning against the Government’s foreign policy, and allows him to do so.

What would we think if the US Secretary of State opposed the foreign and trade policy of the US Government? Or if any Foreign Minister anywhere in the world denounced and ran advertisements against their own Government’s foreign policy?

The “agree to disagree” clause in the agreements between Labour and NZ First can not and does not extend to the Foreign Minister able to campaign against and denounce overseas the foreign policy of the Government. It is the equivalent of the Finance Minister voting against tax cuts in the Budget (something Cullen probably wishes he could do) on the grounds tax is a matter for the Minister of Revenue, not the Minister of Finance.

Peters can not continue as Foreign Affairs Minister and be sent by the NZ taxpayer to countries around the world, where he will then criticise and attack the New Zealand Government foreign policy and achievements (by way of giving personal opinions on questions) rather than advocate on behalf of the Government he is the Foreign Minister for. That is a bauble too far.

Ben Thomas in the NBR takes a look at the double standards when you look at the China FTA (which I support and Govt does) and the Canadian proposal to purchase some shares off existing private owners in Auckland International Airport, with a maximum 25% voting strength (which I support, but the Govt will turn down):

There’s one footnote to FTA. The two internationalists, Clark and Goff, know that back in New Zealand, there are politicians who are less expansive in their views on free trade and other cultures.

They are ready to stir up xenophobia to take advantage of the electorate’s insecurities, and boost their polling chances.

Your correspondent refers, of course, to Michael Cullen. The finance minister this week will be waiting with baited breath for the decision of his junior ministers (David Parker and Clayton Cosgrove) on whether the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board can buy 39.5 per cent of Auckland International Airport shares.

Cullen was the driving force – or at least, the public face – of government opposition to the possibility of the Canadians acquiring a “strategic asset” like the airport.

He fronted the decision to amend the Overseas Investment Agency’s test to make the Canadians’ bid for 39.5 per cent of the airport (now only 24.9 per cent of votes) more difficult.

Why does Dr Cullen oppose the Canadian deal so vehemently?

Perhaps one concern is Canada’s poor record on human rights: the country only passed entrenched human rights legislation in the late 1970s.

Perhaps it is the Canadians continued oppression of their French-speaking minority, and refusal to grant the outlying province of Quebec greater autonomy.

Or perhaps, to paraphrase Enoch Powell and more latterly New Zealand First’s Peter Brown, Dr Cullen fears that opening the door to Canadian investment will lead to cultural disharmony and “rivers of maple syrup” in the street.

Very good points. The Govt gets full marks for the FTA, but their behaviour over a mere 25% voting strength in what is already a privately owned airport is petty political posturing.