Freedom

Leters

Freedom of choice

Madam, I wish to register my objection and that of the New Zealand government to a comment about New Zealand’s Em ployment Contracts Act 1991 which appeared in your magazine in April 1993, in an article on the erosion of media freedom in the Pacific by Futa Helu.

The article stated that “New Zealand in 1991 contributed massively to the erosion of liberal values and media freedom by her Employment Contracts Act which demolished trade unionism and the right of association and collective bargaining”. Any reading of the Act shows this comment is simply wrong. The Employment Contracts Act specifically and clearly provides for freedom of association and collective bargaining.

Employees and employers have the right to choose whether they wish to be represented in negotiations by another person, group or organisation (which may be a union) and which person, group or organisation they wish to represent them. Once the parties have settled their representation, the Act also enables them to negotiate whether they will have collective or individual employ ment contracts.

Trade unionism has not been demol shed in New Zealand. As I have said, :rade unions are eligible along with other ndividuals and groups to act as represen atives for employees in negotiations and n other dealings with employers. A ;urvey conducted on behalf of the New Zealand Department of Labour by the deylen Research Centre and Teesdale Vleuli and Co in 1992 showed 57 percent )f employees involved in negotiations for ollective employment contracts were epresented by unions. Although some mions have lost members as a result of mployees’ ability to choose whether hey join or not, some commentators lave noted that a “new look, albeit mailer, union movement is appearing” is a result of rationalisation, amalga nation and the concentration of mem icrship (Harbridge and Hince, in Em iloyment Contracts: New' Zealand Ex >eriences, edited by Raymond

iarbridge).

In many ways the challenges faced by mions as a result of voluntary member hip have invigorated some unions and heses unions are more competitive as a esult.

Finally, I find the suggestion that the Employment Contracts Act has “con tributed massively to the erosion of liberal values and media freedom” quite ridiculous. Freedom of choice is surely a liberal value by any standards, and the Act has nothing whatever to do with media freedom or control.

Hon Maurice McTigue

Minister of Labour New Zealand

Vanuatu’s

economy

Madam, I have recently gone through the. very interesting ‘Focus on Vanuatu’ in the last issue of your magazine, to which the Statistics Office subscribes. However, I was greatly disappointed when I dis covered that most of the statistical information you report is neither accu rate nor up-to-date. Apparently the journalist did not bother to visit the Statistics Office while in Port Vila. Nor did he/she consult the statistical publi cation we are sending you regularly. You will find below some of the corrections to the mistakes I noticed and some remarks.

On overseas trade you published only the 1991 statistics whereas the 1992 figures have been available since early February 1993. The commentary that Vanuatu’s trade deficit “is not only chronic but widening” and the graph on

page 41 are wrong. Actually, the trade deficit of Vanuatu decreased over the last two years from 9009 million vatu in 1990 (celebrations of the 10th anniversary of independence) to 7181 million in 1991 and to 6593 million in 1992.

On tourism you don’t publish any figures about visitor arrivals. Once again, these statistics were released in February 1993 (42,673 visitors in 1992).

Your writer has said “the tourism sector has been in decline all over the world throughout the present recession, except in Vanuatu”. 1 think the journal ist should have mentioned that the tourist arrivals all over the Pacific region have strongly increased between 1991 and 1992 (by over six per cent according to Tourism Council of the South Pacific

figures). Also, government expenditures

constitute around 25 per cent of the GDP (1990 figures) and not 60 per cent as stated.

I hope my letter will prevent further mistakes in reporting the state of Vanu atu’s economy in your very valuable magazine, and that we will be consulted in future.

Jacob Isaiah,

Acting Principal Statistician, Vanuatu.

Editor’s note: The statistics used in the report were from the Australian National University data base and reports from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.