For immediate release: 1 February 2003

GATS consultation document fails to address key questions

The Action, Research and Education Network of Aotearoa (ARENA) is demanding that the government abandon the World Trade Organization's 31 March deadline to commit even more key services to GATS (the General Agreement on Trade in Services).

ARENA insists the government keep its promise to publicly front-up over the real issues that GATS poses for New Zealand.

Last year the government said it would consult on what demands GATS has made for the new round of negotiations; what the government's options are, and what access would be made available to which basic services.

Last week, ARENA produced and distributed Professor Jane Kelsey's detailed 140-page guide to GATS, "Serving whose Interests?" in an effort to reduce a dangerous information gap on a critical subject.

This weekend, the Labour government finally issued its own convoluted information document about the GATS proposals which can be found on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade website.

This document still fails to tell what is at stake or address the fundamental questions such as why should New Zealand's key services be governed by the interests of huge foreign transnational corporations? Or why these transnational corporations must be legally locked-in forever, with no chance for this, or any future New Zealand government to change its mind?

New Zealand has already a number of bad experiences with partial foreign corporate takeovers of our railways, construction, electricity, health, education and broadcasting.

The government document in its present form does little to inform, and even less to consult the public on any of the key issues involving GATS. It is fundamentally driven by two agenda: trading off well-established essential services for vague promises of trade in agriculture, and locking in the free-market deregulations of the past two decades.

It is not a document to base the whole of New Zealand's future social services upon. The March 31^st deadline must be extended, says ARENA.

"Serving whose interests?" is available from PO Box 2450,Christchurch for $20 plus $3 postage, or from the ARENA website at www.arena.org.nz/GATS version 1.pdf

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