Shipley weighs into US lamb access dispute

Prime Minister contacts Clinton over tariff decision as farmers consider demonstrations.

By Philippa Stevenson

Prime Minister Jenny Shipley has weighed into the sheepmeat row with the United States, indicating that New Zealand may join Australia in taking a case to the World Trade Organisation.

US President Bill Clinton is due to decide by June 4 whether to impose tariffs on lamb imports, mostly from New Zealand and Australia.

As the deadline nears, New Zealand trade officials who have lobbied the US administration to keep the $120 million trade free of restrictions have become increasingly disheartened by signals from American bureaucrats.

The Prime Minister, who has already written to Mr Clinton, said she did not want to pre-empt the President's decision.

"It may still be favourable to New Zealand but there are remedies available to us if it is not," she said.

Yesterday, Federated Farmers president Malcolm Bailey - part of the New Zealand lobby in the US in recent days - said farmers were considering mounting protests here ahead of the President's decision.

Earlier, Meat Board chairman John Acland said that imposition of tariffs might provoke farmers into street demonstrations during President Clinton's attendance at the Apec summit in Auckland in September.

But Mr Bailey said farmer action could be immediate. "It's being considered, but just wait and see," he said. Meanwhile, Mrs Shipley said the Government's next move would be made by Trade Minister Lockwood Smith when he met US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky in Budapest this week with Australian deputy prime minister Tim Fischer.

Mrs Shipley's comments followed a meeting with Mr Acland in which he appealed for her to personally contact Mr Clinton.

Mr Acland said the ball was in Mrs Shipley's court, but lobbying needed to be done "right at that top level." He believed New Zealand still had a chance of a favourable outcome, but Mr Bailey was less sure.

US officials had indicated to him that some sort of trade intervention could be imposed because the decision would be politically, rather than commercially, inspired.

A rare sign of support had come from a group representing around 25 per cent of sheep farmers selling up to 50 per cent of sheep traded.

The United Sheep Producers told Washington trade officials they welcomed New Zealand and Australia's offer of jointly funded promotion for lamb in the US.

"If this was joined by a generous financial assistance package from the US administration targeted at specific areas of the domestic industry that need help, it would provide more immediate assistance than tariffs or quotas at the high levels that the ITC is recommending. Tariffs only benefit the US Treasury and will not provide the help the industry needs," the organisation said. The ITC, or US International Trade Commission, responded to an application from the American Sheep Industry Association to protect the US sheep industry from imports of New Zealand and Australian lamb.

The commission recommended Mr Clinton impose a range of safeguard measures including tariffs and restrictions on the amount of imported lamb.