Knock on Nafta's door says Mulroney

Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney says there would be "no finer partner than New Zealand" for the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).

He told an Auckland luncheon yesterday that New Zealand's refusal to accept nuclear-armed United States warships since the 1980s should not be an obstacle to making this country Nafta's first member outside North America.

"I would take the position that that was then, this is now," he said.

Mr Mulroney, who dined last night with Prime Minister Helen Clark, said she should tell US President George W. Bush that both were new leaders who were allowed to make their own national policies.

She should say: "We have been tremendous allies and friends over the years, we have paid for this in blood.

"New Zealand is a country, after all, which, allied with the United States and Canada, has paid its dues in two world wars. Its valour is the stuff of legend," Mr Mulroney said.

"The Nafta members, in my judgment, would have no finer partner than New Zealand."

The 400 million people of the US, Canada and Mexico were already the world's largest single market and the population would double to 800 million when the rest of Latin America joined a new free-trade area of the Americas in 2005, he said.

"So why not Nafta membership for New Zealand? Expanding the Nafta across the Pacific to New Zealand would be mutually advantageous for all four countries."

Mr Mulroney, whose visit prompted a small anti-globalisation protest outside the luncheon at the Stamford Plaza Hotel, said predictions that Nafta would suck jobs out of Canada and the US to Mexico had proved to be "goofy stuff."

In the eight years that followed the Nafta agreement in 1992, the United States had created 24 million jobs.

In contrast to warnings that free trade would reduce Canadians to being "hewers of wood and drawers of water" in the face of sophisticated American competitors, Canada had actually become an exporter of cars, jets and high-tech equipment.

However, he said, free trade had forced Canada to recognise the reality that the world did not owe it a living. When President Bush cut $US1.3 trillion off American taxes, Canada could no longer ignore it.

"How are we going to keep our tax rate up here when the Americans are currently pushing their's down, and they are attracting a share of the Canadian brain drain and increasing productivity and becoming more attractive for foreign investment?" he asked.

"That is the self-correcting dynamic that you find when you sign a free-trade agreement with the greatest economy of the world."

Mr Mulroney's visit comes as the Herald today concludes the first part of its series, Our Turn, on New Zealand's prospects in the new global economy.

During the coming months, Our Turn will investigate the outlook for some of the country's growth sectors and examine what the "knowledge society" may mean for New Zealand.

We will report on projects aimed at extending access to new technology and jobs to all New Zealanders, regardless of income, age and location.

We will also be looking for ideas on how to help the almost 600,000 New Zealanders who now live overseas, and the 770,000 foreign-born people living here, to contribute to New Zealand's development.

Herald features

Our turn

The jobs challenge

Common core values

href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?reportID=57032">The knowledge society

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Catching the Knowledge Wave