Transcript
Ralph Regenvanu says the cabinet ministers are demanding to see the text now so they can make an informed decision before the countries have to sign in November. He says what they've been given by their own chief negotiator, Sumbue Antas, is not enough.
RALPH REGENVANU: "We do have now, some of the text before us, it's not all of them yet, we are going to see if there's any developments that have come out of Christchurch. From some news about the meeting it seems as if there has been some text agreed, so we want to see that text and we haven't seen it yet."
Mr Regenvanu thinks there should be broader consultation with the community before a commitment is made.
RALPH REGENVANU: "The Pacific islands is made up of more than just governments. It's made up of more than just officials. And I think we need to consider the view of a range of organisations including civil society and I also think that in any civil consultation, especially elected officials, are there to represent the views of the people."
But the chief trade adviser Dr Edwini Kessie, whose office is based in Vanuatu, says the Vanuatu government itself has organised national consultations on PACER plus and his office has attended them.
EDWINI KESSIE: "I believe that the Vanuatu ministry of external trade, they must have seen the documents because they have done these consultations about three or four times, where they engaged all relevant stakeholders. But maybe it fell through the cracks, but obviously I think they are going to share them with the members of the cabinet and other interested stakeholders who haven't yet received the documents."
Dr Kessie says the cabinet of Vanuatu would have authorisation to see the text, and there has been no secrecy. But that doesn't satisfy Mr Regenvanu, nor the groups like the Pacific Network on Globalisation, or PANG. At the Christchurch meetings, press conferences and interviews after closed-session meetings were cancelled. Adam Wolfenden, a campaigner with PANG, says there needs to be better transparency all round, and individual ministers need to be able to understand how it may impact their own ministry.
ADAM WOLFENDEN: "Whether it's the health sector, education, all these sectors will be impacted by a trade agreement in some way or the other and I think that's one of the reasons why there needs to be greater transparency in these negotiations, as well as a fully-funded and independent social impact assessment, something that PANG and over 55 organisations from the Pacific and over the world have been calling for for PACER plus."
Dr Edwini Kessie says there may be some misunderstanding around the current stage of the agreement. He says once the legal document is settled, each country has 12 months to debate it in parliament and work through the ratification process. Joseph Ma'ahanua is the chief negotiator for Solomons Islands and the main spokesperson for the Pacific Islands Forum countries. He says it's unreasonable to expect such detailed legal documents to be sifted through by individual MPs even before its finalised, and he's happy with the lines of communication with his MPs.
JOSEPH MA'AHANUA: "You wouldn't expect people at different parts of the government echelon to really go down into the text. What you can be assured of however, is that this is being handled by people who know what they are dealing with and of course when the legal texts are provided to our ministers, we will do the explanations."
In a meeting last month in Auckland, the chief negotiator for New Zealand Tessa Te Mata said the communications required a degree of security, as the offers made by Australia and New Zealand are exclusive to the Pacific and they don't want other regions and countries to be privy to that information. The agreement is due to be signed in November.