Persuasion Among Equals

New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff

New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff is one of more familiar faces around political circles in the South Pacific. For the coming year he is likely to spend even more time in the region, acting on behalf of the current Pacific Forum chair, his boss, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark. He spoke to Pacific Magazine at the end of this year’s Pacific Forum Summit and Post-Forum Dialogue session, which were held in Auckland, New Zealand. Goff, 50, is a veteran politician with degrees in political science and lecturing duties in politics at Auckland University. He has been in the New Zealand Parliament since 1981 and has been foreign minister since 1999. Goff represents one of New Zealand’s most racially diverse electorates, Auckland's Mount Roskill, celebrated as the first landing place for many Indo-Fijians and Indians setting up in New Zealand.

Pacific Magazine: Describe the nature of the New Zealand-South Pacific relationship?

Foreign Minister Phil Goff: I thought the Forum reflected pretty well on New Zealand's relationship. In terms of the interchange I had with the other ministers and leaders, it was very amicable and the general mood of the place was pretty positive. It was positive about the deployment in the Solomons. The election of (Australian) Greg Urwin as Forum Secretary General did not create strong rancor; it was a decision in the end that the Pacific Forum nations themselves made, notwithstanding the conventions of the past.

New Zealand performs the role of something of a bridge between Australia and some of the goals it has for the Pacific, and some of the Pacific countries themselves in the sense that we are a smaller, less dominant country, a country with a degree of strength from our large Pacific Island community in New Zealand. I think the role we played throughout the conference was regarded pretty positively.

PM: New Zealand has the chair of the Forum for a year. What is going to be the characteristic of this period?

PG: I think the Prime Minister (Helen Clark) will take her task as chair of the Forum very seriously. It is a year of chairing that will coincide with the coming into office of the new secretary general and the holding of the review on the role of the secretariat and how we can strengthen the Forum through strengthening the capabilities of the secretariat. So given, in particular, that we draw up the terms of reference for that review, that gives us a chance to be a participant in the future shape and structure of the secretariat.

It is also a year in which other reviews, of air services and shipping services will take place, it's a year in which we also look at the success or any problems that are associated with the Biketawa Declaration and the deployment of regional assistance missions, such as that taking place in the Solomons. It looks to be a pretty exciting year from a Pacific point of view with the potential to move the organization forward, not by imposing our views on anybody, but by performing a role of leadership and ensuring whatever solutions are put up, whatever changes are proposed, there is a sense of ownership over them by other Forum members.

PM: Do you see a fundamental change occurring to the Forum as a result of the review and as a result of the New Zealand chair, and of an Australian secretary-general?

PG: I don't think it's a fundamental change in the sense that the organization wasn't broken before. I think the organization, as far as regional organizations go, performed quite reasonably, but it is a question of whether we needed to lift that performance up a notch or two and I think the coming year gives us the opportunity to do just that. There is a great focus on issues such as good governance. There are two messages that came out of the Forum.

One, we don't have the monopoly on problems in governance or ethnic tensions or anything else and it's important we don't paint a depressingly black picture of it so that it doesn't become a self-fulfilling prophesy, deterring investment, trade and travel to the region.

But at the same time we need to acknowledge openly and honestly the problems that do exist there. Unless you acknowledge the problems you can't start to resolve them. I think in terms of the statement of good leadership principles it was also a step forward as it was with the Biketawa Declaration when we gained agreement on a set of values that should mark the Forum's performance and, in a way, set a benchmark by which we can judge the performance of each of our governments and countries.

PM: And judge New Zealand as well?

PG: Absolutely, if you set up the rules you have got to be bound by them.

PM: Was there anything at the Post-Forum Dialogue sessions that struck you, concerned or surprised you?

PG: No, I don't think there were surprises out of it. Generally the Post-Forum Dialogue continues to broaden in its scope.

PM: It's got a bit of a pro-forma atmosphere to it?

PG: There is a degree of that in the agenda drawn up. You have got to try and break away from a formulaic approach. The challenge of course is that when you are at the Post-Forum Dialogue, particularly when you are chairing it as Kalipate (Tavola, Fiji's foreign minister) and I were, you have to remember you are there as a Forum representative, not a country representative. You can't simply play by your instincts about what you want to say or put forward as being the position of the Forum. There are some restraints in that regard, but at the same time we gained some improvements in it.

The briefing by the Forum at the start was a very good innovation and we deliberately wanted Helen (Clark) to do that so it sets a precedent for the coming years. After each session there was a briefing for the media so there is increasing openness and transparency on what is going on there.

PM: So New Zealand is already stamping its mark on the Forum?

PG: In part, although to be fair these were the sorts of changes we had recommended last year when I was also involved in the Post-Forum Dialogue. The fact that there are a growing number of countries that want to indulge in the dialogue. The fact that we were getting some reasonably high-level representatives from the dialogue partners indicates that some importance is attached to it.

PM: Because New Zealand is richer and bigger and better off, is the relationship with the Pacific an unequal relationship?

PG: Only in the sense that in every international organization some countries have higher populations, greater resources, greater economic and military strength than others, but the nature of multilateral organizations is that you are still reduced to having one vote per organization and you have to work by persuasion.

PM: Does that characterize the wider relationship?

PG: Yes, I think it does because the good thing about being small in the wider context of the world is that you don't start from a position of arrogance.

New Zealanders, not only at a political level but right across the board, including our police force and military force who serve in the Pacific, have a pretty good track record of treating people as equals.

PM: Of course the military forces and the police have plenty of Pasifika people in their own ranks.

PG: That's absolutely it, and that helps. New Zealand's own association with its own Pacific community and peoples is important as well. I thought the Sky Theatre display (Islander performances at the opening ceremonies for the Forum) was brilliant in terms of saying something about ourselves, our Pacific identity and Pacific culture and the way in which people have come from the Pacific to New Zealand and gone through trials and tribulations, but come out with success stories.

PM: This fast growing, dynamic Pasifika community in New Zealand is clearly affecting New Zealand, but is it also creating a culture that may also be affecting the neighbors as well. New Zealand becoming the powerhouse of Samoan culture?

PG: I am not sure I would quite make that claim for us just yet. Samoans are 160,000 people at home and pretty proud, pretty staunch. We're only 106,000 (Samoans in New Zealand).

PM: The Cook Islands?

PG: In the Cook Islands and Niue I think certainly the size of the New Zealand communities outweigh the size of the communities at home. It creates an importance to work with those communities to preserve and promote their culture.

Certainly with Polynesia there is an easy exchange with most of Polynesia from New Zealand and we have also developed strong relationships in Melanesia. I work closely with PNG and Rabbi Namaliu (Foreign Minister) and Kalipate in Fiji and fortunately I get on very well with both of them.

PM: They're pleasant people?

PG: They are good people and that makes a difference. You have to try to build a relationship that goes beyond personalities, but personalities can help or hinder a relationship and in those cases they really help.

We are also keen on outreaching to Micronesia, which is an area that New Zealand has the least involvement in the Pacific. I am planning an Air Force trip up there next year where we will go to Kiribati, the Marshalls, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau.

We are quite well regarded and we are a richer and larger country than many of the neighbors, but I don't think they feel threatened by it and they don't feel they are about to be overwhelmed by it and they don't see New Zealand as being part of an Australasian effort to shape and dominate the region.