MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE USE
July 8 1999
GATT Watchdog sends playing cards, handkerchief to Lockwood over lamb tariff debacle
GATT Watchdog is sending Minister for International Trade, Lockwood Smith, a personalised handkerchief and pack of
playing cards in recognition at his commitment to a failed, flawed, free trade fairytale in light of the US
administration's decision to impose a 9% tariff on New Zealand lamb exports.
"After wiping his trademark grin from his face, and having a little cry with his new hankie, we hope Lockwood will sit
down and have a game of strip poker with himself outside in the cold now that the US government has moved to impose
tariffs on New Zealand lamb exports. After all, successive New Zealand governments, in their zeal to "lead from the
front" in unilateral trade liberalisation have been playing strip poker with themselves at the expense of New Zealand
communities for many years. And in spite of all his promises and claims to the contrary, few of our major trading
partners can be said to be playing along," says Aziz Choudry, of GATT Watchdog
"The National Government's plan to use September's APEC Leaders Summit as a taxpayer-funded pre-election
photo-opportunity looks doomed to failure. Perhaps its best bet would be to declare war on the USA. Other countries have
gone to war over less - and through its work-for-the-dole scheme it might be able to temporarily disguise New Zealand's
unemployment and underemployment statistics by drafting unemployed workers to invade the USA and hurl frozen lambchops
at unsuspecting US trade officials! National's ratings in the polls stand more chance of a lift through a unilateral
declaration of war than through the millions of dollars being spent to host the APEC talkfest."
"The pressure is on to include agricultural negotiations in the upcoming World Trade Organisation round which will start
later this year. And as the government panics about the fragility of APEC, this US decision and Dr Smith's utterances on
the subject bring home the stark reality behind the feelgood rhetoric of the global free market economy and the myths of
the level playing field.
"The US has always taken the attitude - "do as we say, not as we do" in trade and investment negotiations. Its bottom
line is to protect its economic and political interests. To think otherwise would be to live in a fairyland. But
unfortunately, as many people have discovered to our own cost, New Zealand's unilateral trade and investment
liberalisation has not led to a fairytale ending, but to a dog-eat-dog, deregulated world where economic growth is
pursued for its own sake. As it dawns on people that unilateral trade liberalisation and the pursuit of textbook free
market goals is an exercise in self-delusion, it will be too late to bring back local jobs, livelihoods and communities
which have been thrown onto the altar of a flawed economic ideology," said Mr Choudry.