Presentation  by Ella Henry, University of Auckland,  on International Trade – APEC and Maori Development

Introduction
This paper investigates the relationship between powerful economic institutions and international trade. Then, it explores Maori participation in international trade, the role of APEC in developing international trade that could potentially benefit Maori and other indigenous peoples on the Asia Pacific region, and the foundations of an indigenous perspective on economy and sustainable economic development.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank [1]

Two of the most powerful economic institutions of recent times were borne out of a conference held in Bretton Woods at the close of World War II. The International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now known as the World Bank) were established to finance the reconstruction of Europe and the development of poorer nations devastated by world conflict. The IMF was charged with responsibility for facilitating global trade, whilst ensuring sovereign nations were free to pursue their own monetary and international investment policies. First the International Trade Organisation (ITO), and later the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) were created to maintain these responsibilities. It was assumed at the time that the trade protectionism apparent during the economic chaos of the 1930’s had been problematic for the world economy, and these should be removed to facilitate trade, economic growth and prosperity for all.

Over the last two decades of the previous century, the IMF has promoted Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP), which prescribe fiscal policies for countries that need the assistance of the World Bank. These SAP programmes include:

• Monetary austerity: Tightening money supply to raise internal interests and stabilise local currency

• Fiscal austerity: Increase tax collections and reduce government spending

• Privatisation: Sell public enterprise to the private sector

• Financial liberalisation: Remove restrictions on the flow of capital and foreign ownership.

When governments agree to the SAP, the IMF will lend them enough to repay international loans and arrange restructuring of national debt among private international lenders. The implementation of SAP’s in developing nations has resulted in economic stagnation and instability in the seventy countries, which have been subjected to their effects [2]. Bello and Cunningham ask why, if the SAP’s (structural adjustment programmes) have shown such a poor record (in terms of economic development), the World Bank and IMF continue to impose them. Their response is that the question is only valid if one assumes these organisations are intent on assisting Third World economies. For them, it is clear that structural adjustment programmes were never meant to succeed. Instead, they have functioned as key instruments in the North’s efforts to roll back the gains that had been made by the South from the 1950’s to the 1980’s.

This supposition is certainly evidenced in New Zealand. Aotearoa/ New Zealand has the dubious distinction of being a ‘developed’ nation that has wholeheartedly embraced a structural adjustment programme  [3] since the mid-1980’s. A raft of structural reforms of the state sector and financial markets has, after more than ten years, not proven to be an economic panacea. Our once egalitarian, socialist-democracy has been transformed into a rampantly capitalist marketplace, underpinned by neoclassical economic theory and ideology. Needless to say, it is our indigenous people who have borne the brunt of these reforms, as represented by significant increases in unemployment and under-employment, and other social indicators that are indicative of Third World populations.

Thus, the roles first envisaged for the IMF and World Bank, to facilitate growth and address poverty, have by and large not resulted in the enrichment of many nations of the East and the South. In fact, increasingly these two organisations are seen by commentators in the East and the South as instruments of control exercised by the developed nations of the North and the West, and in particular the transnational corporations that have grown out of the developed economies.

The GATT negotiation rounds have, over the past two decades, increasingly become the fora at which large powerful nations have dominated the agenda for international trade and economic development. It was as a result of a GATT negotiation that another powerful economic institution was created.

The World Trade Organisation
The WTO was founded in 1995 following the 1986-1994 Uruguay Round of GATT, primarily under the aegis of the United States, which also promoted the expansion of WTO jurisdiction to the Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMS) and Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). In 1999 there were 130 member nations, and another thirty who had applied to join. According to Bello [4], the “first sought to eliminate barriers to the system of trade among TNC subsidiaries that had been imposed by developing countries for development objectives, the second to consolidate the US advantage in the cutting-edge knowledge-intensive industries”. Bello goes on to state that, “It was not global necessity that gave birth to the WTO in 1995. It was the US’s assessment that the interests of its corporations were no longer served by a loose and flexible GATT but needed an all-powerful and wide-ranging WTO.. the WTO is a blueprint for the global hegemony of Corporate America” (op.cit, p3).

The creation of the WTO has meant that developing nations and economies have lost much of their control over trade policy as a developmental tool. This is manifest in the use of TRIMS and TRIPS. For example, under the TRIMS Agreement the right of newly industrialising countries (NIC’s) to use ‘trade-balancing’ requirements or ‘local content’ regulations to integrate foreign capital and national institutionalisation is no longer legally sanctioned. Similarly, under the TRIPS Agreement what would once have been considered ‘technological diffusion’ can now be seen as ‘piracy’ by industrialised nations who have previously benefited from the incorporation of technological innovations by other nations. This process has been described by the United Nations conference of Trade and Development (UNCTAD) as “a premature strengthening of the intellectual property system.. that favours monopolistically controlled innovation over broad-based diffusion” [5].

Bello recognises that one of the centrepieces of UNCTAD is the relationship between trade and development for developing countries. This was recognised by GATT through the ‘special and differential status’ accorded to developing countries, and through the 1979 Framework Agreement known as the Enabling Clause, which provided for the General System of Preferences (GSP) schemes giving preferential access to developing country exports. After the Uruguay Round the GSP schemes were no longer bound. Thus processes requiring developing countries to ‘catch up’ on an ‘even playing field’ replaced measures that were created to address structural inequalities in international trading systems. The whole concept of the even playing field has been continually criticised as an ideological argument proposed by the neoliberal agenda of the New Right. The neoliberal agenda, founded on neoclassical economics, has also driven the argument that the only real route to development is via trade liberalisation.

According to Bello, Charlene Barshefsky the United States Trade Representative to the World Trade Organisation, stated in the aftermath of the collapsed Seattle Ministerial (November 1999) that, “the WTO has outgrown the processes appropriate to an earlier time. An increasing and necessary view, generally shared among the members, was that we needed a process which had a greater degree of internal transparency and inclusion to accommodate a larger and more diverse membership”. Stephen Byers, the UK Secretary of State, reiterated this sentiment for Trade and Industry, when he called for radical reform of the WTO. However, Bello underpins this commentary with the recognition that reform of the WTO is not on the agenda, and that civil society in the North and the South should be pushing for the complete abolition of the WTO.

What this debate highlights is the contentious nature and environment in which international trade and economic institutions operate. The South and the East, the home of most of the under-developed, exploited and impoverished peoples of the world are predominantly those that spark contention and raise criticisms about the explicit and implicit power of these organisations. The dilemma for peoples of the East and the South, and their supporters in the North and the West, is to develop economic and political strategies, which can generate and distribute wealth and well-being more effectively and sustainably.

International Trade Agreements: APEC
Over and above GATT and WTO, a range of other international trade agreements, coalitions and treaties exist to facilitate and liberalise trade between neighbouring states. A small sample of these include:

• NAFTA: The North American Free Trade Agreement

• The European Union

• CER: Closer Economic Relations (between Australia and New Zealand)

• APEC: The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum

Unlike more formal trade agreements APEC is a voluntary forum of member economies. APEC was established in 1989 to promote economic cooperation in the Asia Pacific region. APEC is a high-level dialogue between member economies. Decisions made during the fora are consensus based and ask for voluntary undertakings. As such, there are no dispute resolution strategies built in to the APEC agenda beyond discussion and consensus.

The APEC Ministerial Forum met for the first time in 1993. Since then there have been an APEC fora each year, bringing together public and private sector leaders. In 1994 the APEC leaders established the Bogor Declaration, with goals of free trade and investment. In 1999 the APEC fora were held in New Zealand, one of the founding member states. At that round of APEC meetings it had twenty-one members, which included four G8 economies: US, Japan, Canada and Russia. APEC discussions focuses on:

• Trade and investment liberalisation

• Trade and investment facilitation

• Economic and technical cooperation

According to New Zealand government briefing papers [6], the key objectives for New Zealand during its year as Chair of APEC in 1999 were:

1. To achieve further substantive progress towards trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation

2. To shape a credible response to the economic crisis

3. To reinforce the capacity of institutions and human resources in the region to deal with the economic challenges they face

4. To build a broader support for APEC among the wider community.

Building on these goals, the government proposed three ‘unifying themes’ for APEC 1999. These were to:

• Expand opportunities for doing business throughout the APEC region through economic and technical cooperation (ECOTECH) and trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation (TILF). Initiatives to advance these goals include- APEC support for the multilateral trading system; Early Voluntary Sector Liberalisation (EVSL) to take the tariff elements of the first nine sectors [7] of EVSL to WTO for expanding participation and binding negotiation, whilst finalising agreement on the final six sectors [8].

• Working with other economies to strengthen the functioning of markets, to build confidence and resilience and speed the recovery of growth in the region, through a focus on internal competition and regulatory frameworks. This will involve addressing institutional weaknesses and capacity shortages, particularly skills shortages, strengthening social safety nets, and on needs in the areas of economic governance.

• Broadening support for and understanding of APEC in the community through a range of associated for a including: the women leader’s network; APEC Business Advisory Council; SME Business Symposium; the CEO Summit; engaging with NGO’s; and Maori outreach initiatives.

Whilst these goals are ostensibly positive initiatives for regional economic development, there are a number of alternative analyses of APEC. These mirror the concerns raised by previously mentioned critics of trade liberalisation.

APEC: Alternative Critiques
According to Kelsey [9], APEC is not just a trade bloc. It is as a process for servicing the “needs of capital and promoting its optimal expansion through unregulated markets, unrestrained foreign investment and unrestricted trade- firstly among its own members, then globally by ratcheting up the process in other parts of the world” (1999, p.1).

For Kelsey, APEC operates through secretive annual meetings whose deliberations are visible only to those with privileged access. She goes on to analyse the origins of APEC within the context of the ‘frenzied atmosphere of the late 1980’s’ as the Cold War came to an End, the Uruguay Round of GATT looked like collapsing, and institutions and alliances were being redrawn. Some countries in the region feared the unilateralism of the US, and the bilateral tensions between the US and Japan. Whilst ASEAN countries were reserved in their initial commitment to APEC, “The US and increasingly Australia, New Zealand and Canada became much more focused on eliminating barriers to trade and investment in markets which they desperately wanted to penetrate” (op.cit, p4).

Kelsey goes on to explore a number of common fallacies about APEC. For example, that the APEC (and WTO) model pretends that all players in the ‘global economy’ will play by the rules to which they have agreed. This is despite the track record of powerful governments in trade organisations that are selective about the rules they will adhere to. Furthermore the notion that APEC is purely about trade is challenged when the range of economic policies includes minimal controls on big business and unlimited export of profits, as well as destruction of sustainable community-based production in favour of costly and ecologically unsound cash crops for export. The fallacy that APEC is about economic policies does not take account of the noneconomic flow-on effects of such policies. These include increases in unstable, low quality, low-paid employment and increased inequality and poverty, especially for women, children, the elderly and indigenous peoples.

Ultimately, Kelsey accuses APEC of being undemocratic because it pressures governments to adopt the free trade and investment agenda, makes it difficult for future governments to change tack, and makes its decisions behind closed doors among like-minded officials, politicians, private sector representatives and academics. These individuals often belong to a network of related economic agencies and institutions. Finally, Kelsey articulates the costs of APEC, based as it is on a community of ‘economies’, not governments or countries. Thus, the noneconomic costs need not be considered by participating members. These costs include abuses to human rights, as host governments quell protest and dissent. She asks, “If governments will go this far just to look good at a meeting, what will they do to create an attractive free trade and investment regime and lure foreign investors to their shores?”

Another New Zealand critic of APEC, Choudry [10] states that, “The neoliberal market ideology which dominates APEC is based on the same kind of twisted, anti-human logic and value system which has legitimised colonialism over centuries. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, the neoliberalism of APEC, GATT/WTO and the radical domestic market reforms that have made the country one of the most deregulated economies in the world must be seen in the context of the ongoing colonisation of indigenous Maori lands, lives, resources and futures by the Crown”. He goes on to note that it is not coincidental that the same countries promoting APEC with such fervour (New Zealand, Australia, US, Canada) are the very ones that “continue to deny indigenous peoples in those territories, rights to decolonisation and self-determination, at the same time as disguising this fact with mythical notions that coloniser governments in these countries are inherently humanitarian, democratic and forward-thinking”.

Choudry acknowledges the significant and negative effects for Maori when New Zealand embraced a structural adjustment programme in the late 1980’s. He states that, “Between 1988 and 1993, Aotearoa/New Zealand enjoyed the dubious distinction of leading the world in the sale of state-owned assets, often at bargain basement prices, to overseas investors, most of which are well-known transnationals. Some $NZ14 billion, or 3.6% of the annual GDP was sold off like this. The Economist magazine describes the neoliberal economic reforms as “out-Thatchering Mrs Thatcher”. Other commentators have referred to this process as “revolutionary”, or indeed “Chile without the gun”.

The government statistics [11] for this period note that there were dramatic job losses between 1986-1991. This report states that, “The impact of the economic downturn on Maori employment was particularly severe due to the large numbers of Maori working in industries which were “shedding” labour.. State sector reforms also impacted on Maori, especially those employed by the Railways and the Post Office” (op.cit, p2). These latter organisations were among the state assets that were privatised or metamorphosed as ‘state owned enterprises’ during this period. Though the economic outlook for the nation had improved somewhat by the 1992-1995 period, some of these gains were lost between 1996-1997.

A report by the Ministry of Maori Development, entitled ‘Closing the Gaps’ (1998), put Maori social and economic development into a broader context of economic and political reform over the previous ten years. The overwhelming conclusion of the report was that the decade of ‘mainstreaming’ assistance for Maori, as a means of addressing disparities between Maori and non-Maori, combined with the SAP economic reforms had resulted in a progressive decline in Maori employment, income, health, education and social welfare statistics.

Thus, the wholehearted adoption of the ‘globalisation’ agenda as articulated by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organisation appear to have done little to improve the economic and social outlook for Maori since the late 1980’s. This sad and sorry situation for Maori, economically, does not even begin to address Maori political aspirations. Maori demands for self-determination and recognition of the rights and privileges accorded to the tribes, as signatories to the Treaty of Waitangi signed with the British Crown on February 6th 1840, remain unmet by successive New Zealand governments. Both political and economic imperatives continue to drive Maori in the contemporary context of international trade. To better understand contemporary Maori perspectives on trade, political and economic development, one needs to look at our history since contact with Europeans began in the late 18th Century.

Maori Economic Development
Maori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa. Maori were the ‘first nation’, as the original settlers of the Aotearoa/New Zealand islands in the South Pacific. Maori are members of the wider Polynesian peoples of the Pacific, who settled the Polynesian islands over the previous three thousand years. Maori have dwelt in Aotearoa for over one thousand years in a tribal, and kinship-based society, founded on a political economy that Mauss [12] describes as an economy based on gift exchange and reciprocity.

Henare [13] has developed a succinct analysis of the pre-European Maori political economy, based on the traditional philosophy, or Maori world-view, which determined economic and social relations. He has likened Maori world-view and cosmology to the koru, the unfurling fern frond, personifying new life and sustenance. This koru incorporates the key concepts, which bound traditional tribal society together. Belief systems founded on kinship, solidarity, spirituality and guardianship were underpinned by beliefs that exemplified the connectivity between all living things, the ancestral linkages to the gods from whom we all originate, and the intrinsic sacredness of all things animate and inanimate. Thus, if all things are sacred and all things are connected, then one’s relationship to them is based on the need for mutual respect and care, a ‘humanism’ based on humanity and humility. From this world-view originates the political economy, which Henare describes as the ‘economy of affection’. That is, within this economy one accepts that one affects and is affected by all things corporeal and spiritual. These socio-cultural ‘affects’ determine ones’ sense of place, identity, ownership and relationships. The economy of affection is the exact opposite of the ‘economy of exploitation’, which capitalism represents and contemporary capitalist society propagates.

Thus, it was the political economy of ‘tribal communism’, or the socio-cultural ‘economy of affection’, which shaped Maori participation in international trade during the first period of contact with Europeans in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries. By the 1820’s Maori worked their land to provide agricultural products for the growing markets in New Zealand and the Pacific. The tribes operated flour and timber mills, aquacultural ventures, and fleets of sailing vessels. In 1831 Maori tribes exported goods worth £34,000 to New South Wales alone. In the same year they imported £30,000 worth of goods, thereby generating a trade surplus that would be worth many millions in New Zealand currency today.

These early Maori ventures were tribally owned and operated, members of the tribes were cooperative shareholders and all surpluses were returned to the shareholders and their communities. Maori enjoyed a period of social and financial affluence, traveled internationally, and incorporated Western institutions and practices (eg religion) without fear that their traditional heritage would ever be threatened. After a period of savage inter-tribal conflict [14] in the 1820-1830’s, the tribes recognised the need for unity, solidarity, peace and nationhood, to cope with the ever-increasing influx of Western culture and technology. This culminated in the signing of the Declaration of Independence in October 1835, and the creation of the first flag of independence. The British Parliament accepted the Declaration and the New Zealand flag in 1836, and Maori vessels were accorded the protection of the Royal Navel in all foreign waters where the British were dominant. It is no surprise then that five years later the tribes of the independent and sovereign nation of New Zealand signed a Treaty with the British Crown, thereby ensuring the tribes rangatiratanga (chieftainship and sovereignty), whilst ceding to the British the concept of kawanatanga (governorship, an alien to concept to Maori). However, the English version of the Treaty made clear that the British intended to take and exercise absolute sovereignty over New Zealand and the Maori people.

It was only a matter of months before the chiefs realised their relationship with the British Crown was not to be a mutually beneficial partnership, but one of British control over legislation, jurisdiction and all other social institutions. Maori antipathy and protest eventually resulted in the Musket Wars [15], between the 1850’s-1860’s. Whilst Maori proved to be worthy opponents to the British and settler militia, ultimately the sheer weight and force of the Crown wore down Maori resistance. From the period of the late 1800’s until the mid-1900’s Maori have progressively suffered the consequences of a conquered people. The economic dominance of the new settlers was reinforced by legislation and military and judicial might to undermine collective ownership of resources, and to individuate and expropriate Maori lands. The results of this economic oppression have been devastating for Maori. However, more subversive and odious has been the socio-cultural oppression of Maori. This has resulted not just in the loss of land by stealth, and people through disease, poverty and despair, but loss of language, culture, cosmology and identity. By the mid-1950’s Maori was a dying language and Maori people suffered the very real threat of death by assimilation. Over the same period, European settlers grew in wealth and opportunity, on the backs of the stolen land and mana of Maori people.

In the aftermath of the Second World War Maori began an unprecedented urban migration. Whilst this further served the needs of assimilation it also introduced increasing numbers of traditionally isolated and rural Maori to the institutions, the technologies and the opportunities of the Post War economy. Maori became educated, embourgoisened and empowered to the extent that by the 1970’s the Maori Renaissance [16] was borne and fully acknowledged. The Maori struggle was founded on demands for Maori sovereignty, acknowledgement of the Treaty of Waitangi as the founding document, and demands for redress for Treaty abuses of the past. A Maori Land March in 1975 brought together diverse activist and Maori organisations to highlight the plight of Maori people. In the same year, a National (tory) government created a Tribunal to look at Treaty grievances. However, it was not until the Labour government of 1984 that the Waitangi Tribunal was given the power to look retrospectively back to 1840, and the potential (albeit without teeth) to require the New Zealand government to address their findings. Since 1985 the New Zealand government has devolved hundreds of millions of dollars to tribes as part of settlement of grievances arising from the Treaty of Waitangi. Over the last twenty-five years Maori have grown in political strength and unity, particularly since the introduction of proportional representation to the New Zealand political process in 1996. However, Maori still languish economically, socially and culturally. Movements such as the Kohanga reo (Maori language early childcare system), kura kaupapa Maori (Maori language primary and secondary education), wananga (Maori university system), Maori Language Commission, Maori Broadcasting Authority, and a raft of other organisations have created a positive potential for change. Alongside these government initiatives has been the call from predominantly Maori intellectuals for a reappraisal of the applicability of Western knowledge construction and research, resulting in the burgeoning field of kaupapa Maori [17] theory and research [18]. Also, the 1996 Census data recorded a heartwarming increase of Maori, especially women, increasing their participation in self-employment and small business, though still small when compared to the dominant Anglo population. However, these and other proactive Maori initiatives are often wholly reliant on government beneficence for their survival and growth. Increasingly Maori are looking to economic development as a means of further expanding the aspirations for Maori self-determination and increased prosperity. To do this, the tribes, who are traditionally rural and land-based, as well as pan-Maori and urban organisations have looked to the global arena to advance economic opportunities.

In 1999, when New Zealand chaired the APEC Forum, tribal and other Maori organisations looked to the government to offer opportunities or insights into the ways that APEC might benefit Maori. In the months before the Leaders Conference in August 1999, the New Zealand government funded a ‘roadshow’ of discussions and meetings to articulate the positive outcomes that might occur as a result of New Zealand’s continued participation in APEC. Some six months after the Leaders Conference there does not appear to have been any fundamental shifts in the opportunities provided by the APEC meetings [19]. In fact, many among the Maori business community remain cynical and skeptical about the long-term benefits of continued participation in APEC.

That may be because, whilst the potential for economic development and international trade hold much promise, Maori have had to take into account the fundamental changes, which have occurred within Maori society and culture over the last 150 years. These changes have been subtle but profound, particularly as they have impacted on Maori world-view. For example, Maori were initially colonised by patriarchal 19th Century British males. This has had a negative effect on the gender complementarity experienced in traditional Maori society between men and women [20]. Maori tribal organisational forms have been eroded and replaced by Western organisational models [21]. When viewed as a whole, Maori society and culture has been immutably changed by Western society through the process of colonisation. Today Maori are likely to perceive themselves as incapable of managing their own affairs, and inadequate in the face of Western assumptions of superiority and arrogance.

Thus, Western hegemony has reshaped and transformed Maori society and Maori attempts to regain sovereignty have been hampered by the need to first decolonise Maori people and Maori world-view. In that context, institutional frameworks like APEC continue and extend the process of Western colonisation in the contemporary milieu, as globalisation cuts a swath through traditional indigenous communities. This was clearly expressed in a review of the impacts of APEC on indigenous people when the author [22] discussed the “new forms of colonisation, ranging from karaoke machines which play mindless repetitive music to the free market economy which produces poverty, uneducated people, economic dislocation, the sex trade and drug industry” (op.cit, p8).

The ongoing challenge for Maori is to further develop economic advantages and continue to work toward political and economic sovereignty, whilst overcoming the impacts of colonisation in the past and the new forms of colonisation that are an inherent part of globalisation. One of the approaches being taken in Aotearoa/New Zealand is to bring tribal and pan-tribal groups together to work on a multi-pronged development approach that is founded on the unique Maori world-view, whilst embracing an outward looking and forward-thinking perspective on economic development. The Taitokerau Maori Development Unit was created out of a charitable trust in Northland. Working with non-Maori organisations with a similar agenda, the Unit is focusing on bringing together educational programmes, management support systems, community capacity development ideas, kaupapa Maori research and knowledge construction, and venture capital for Maori business. This agenda is predicated on a notion of a ‘kaupapa Maori economy’, incorporating Maori world-view and an ‘economy of affection’.

The Mission Statement of the Taitokerau Maori Development Unit reflects their commitment to a kaupapa Maori economy founded on:

• sustainable economic development (quantitative growth) and economic improvement (qualitative growth)

• capacity development (increase in breadth of capacity ) and capacity enhancement (increase in depth of capacity)

• increase in Maori control (ownership) and self-determination (empowerment)

• engendering (physical) wealth and (spiritual) well-being for all Maori

• an enduring and equitable partnership with tauiwi (non-Maori).

This mission statements embodies the traditional Maori world-view and values insofar as it advocates kinship, solidarity, spirituality and guardianship, whilst supporting the need for economic growth and advancement.

Though still a fledgling initiative, this is a reflection of other innovative approaches to sustainable economic development and global trade [23]. These models challenge the hegemony of the IMF and WTO agenda for growth at any cost, and that inequitably advantages the mature and developed nations at a cost to the disenfranchised and impoverished.

Alternative Approaches to Global Trade
The ‘Global Sustainable Development Resolution’ appears to be one tangible means for putting an alternative development model on the agenda of the economic institutions which so shape and influence the lives of indigenous peoples.

According to Brecher and Smith this resolution seeks international cooperation to control out-of-control global corporations, capital and markets [24] and the impacts on environment, labour, poverty, democracy and human rights of globalisation. The resolution is founded on the notion that global corporations and markets must be regulated to ensure that local communities can retain control of their economies and their economic lives.

The resolution aims to:

1. Reduce the threat of financial volatility and meltdown

2. Promote democracy at every level from the local to the global

3. Protect human rights for all people

4. Maintain environmental sustainability worldwide

5. Facilitate economic development of the most oppressed and exploited groups

The resolution proposes:

• A US Commission on Globalisation and parallel commissions worldwide to develop the dialogue on the future of the global economy

• A Global Economy Truth Commission to investigate abuses of power by financial institutions

• A series of conferences to initiate the negotiation for the Global Sustainable Development Agreement

• A Global Sustainable Development Financial Strategy to restructure the international financial system, avoid global recessions, protect the environment, ensure full employment, reverse the polarisation of wealth and poverty, and support efforts to coordinate economic resources, underpinned by a new financial architecture. The strategy will:

• Encourage economic policies based on domestic economic growth and development

• Encourage major industrial countries to coordinate their economic policies to stimulate domestic demand and prevent global deflation

• Help countries adjust currency exchange rates without competitive devaluations

• Develop means for assuring global liquidity

• Reduce the flows of destablising short-term capital by adopting necessary controls

• Establish standards and regulations for banks and financial institutions Encourage a shift of financial resources from speculation to sustainable development

• Establish a tax on foreign currency transactions (Tobin Tax)

• Create public international investment funds to meet human and environmental needs

• Develop international institutions to perform monetary regulation functions.

This resolution offers a sophisticated overview of an alternative model of global and economic development. It has much to offer the aspirations of Maori and other indigenous peoples. The challenge for indigenous communities and peoples is to work together in concert to further an agenda of this nature, and to be active in our demands to our own governments to participate in and further the aims of this resolution. This forum provides us with the opportunity to further that objective. Kia ora, be well.

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