NZ heavy

Letters

Nauru

Forum

Sir, A NUMBER of issues you raised in your September editorial on the recent 24th Forum in the Republic of Nauru need to be commented on.

I think your editorial missed making the point that the Nauru government and its people had gone out of their way to ensure the Forum was a success which it was. It was a team effort from the Nauru government to the New Zealand contractors and everyone else who had a part to play.

It is not true that I was personally responsible for the good communications set up for the visiting media in Nauru. I did provide some input to the host government to ensure that the interests of the media were accommodated but there is nothing extraordinary about this as it s the sort of thing I do prior to and during the Forum every year.

If there’s anyone worthy of mention in respected magazine in respect of the nedia set-up for the Nauru Forum, it is ocal staff of Nauru Telecom. Without heir untiring effort no reports would lave got out of Nauru. They did the

vork. I only helped.

As many of your avid readers may know, my main concern at every Forum is to try to ensure that the media has all the necessary facilities so that it performs its duty effectively and with a minimum of fuss. It does not always work absol utely perfectly but that is not to say no one is trying.

I look forward to a continued close working relationship with your magazine and other news organisations.

Alfred Sasako

Information & Publications Officer Forum Secretariat.

NZ heavy

engineering

Sir, I WAS angry at comment by your correspondent Roman Grynberg in the August 1993 report What Future the Islands. To say “New Zealand does not care whether the islands exist or not” is simply not true. For the heavy engineer ing sector, the South Pacific provides a significant export market. Unlike other countries which have served this market in an arrogant manner, for short-term gain, New Zealand companies are there for the long haul.

We have facilitated engineering train ing by New Zealand polytechnic tutors in Port Moresby and other countries. We

have facilitated travel of senior PNG engineering staff to New Zealand to work with NZ companies and to learn ad vanced engineering skills in our polytech nics. We are assisting basic infrastructure industries in both Fiji and PNG, and to a lesser extent in other island nations.

In short, the islands are important to the New Zealand heavy engineering

industry.

Dr W L Richards

Director NZ Heavy Engineering Research Association Manukau City, NZ

Employment

legislation

Sir NEW Zealand’s Minister of Labour M McTigue’s letter in the July edition of PIM registering his “objection and that of the New Zealand government” to my April comment about NZ’s Employment Contracts Act is heartening because it shows that (as a Tongan proverb says) the medicine has had some effect, even though the minister’s purpose may have been to slam the lid back tight on this contentious issue.

I see the minister seems to regard bargaining at a shop when buying a suit or negotiating legal representation as being on par with transacting labour

power with employers. They are not.

The first is a simple market event; the second is for a function presided over by an institution whose basic principle is or should be justice. But the third kind of arrangement is apart from the self interest and profit motive fraught with grave social and political implications.

As such it is treacherous to encourage a person to enter this third type of relationship ‘alone’ or represented by another individual especially when fac ing employing companies, and much worse if they are trasnationals.

The Employment Contracts Act is particularly vicious in assuming that the individual has effect in the sociopolitical domain. Of course we must recognise, respect and above all, always protect individual rights. But this can never mean that the individual has power vis a-vis the powerful companies which are the usual employers in NZ. This legis lation, in persuading the individual worker that he has effect and opening the way for him to be just by himself, can only destroy and working class move ment and anything liberal that goes with it. The studies the minister cites, I’m afraid, are lost on me since I do not believe the basic nature of society can change and I accordingly foretell their imminent refutation. It is an elementary fact that any lawyer or politician worth his salt should never forget viz that politically speaking the individual qua

individual has not capacity and it is the movement, the institution, the organis ation which are the real actors in any actual society.

Moreover, when the individual is encouraged at his peril to move in and out, as it were, of unions, the latter will surely suffer and wither away. They will become chaotic since they cannot be sure who their members are and can never put their act together. This law then is the stone that kills two birds at once the worker and the union. It shall stand as a symbol or illiberality and infect all spheres of life. It shall be copied in the islands I need not remind readers that the history of the islands is a story of copying what NZ does.

I, therefore, stand by my original description that “New Zealand in 1991 massively contributed to the erosion of liberal values ... demolished trade union ism and the right of association and collective bargaining”.

I F Helu

Atenisi Institute Tonga

Bully Beef

Club

Sir, I WRITE in respect of a report entitled A Chapter Ends for Pangu written by Wally Hiambohn in PIM May.

I must make it clear from the outset that the purpose of my writing is not to demean the report and the status of those whom the article featured, but rather to correct the record in so far as the Bully Beef Club and the establishment of the Pangu Pati are concerned. I feel obliged to do this before history becomes dis torted.

As one who was at the Papua New Guinea Administrative College at the time, and more importantly, one who had a small hand in the setting up of the Bully Beef Club, I want to place on record the following facts: Sir Michael Somare was NOT a co founder of Bully Beef Club because he was not at the Administrative College in 1964 when the club was started; the name Bully Beef Club was a registered name of the students’ canteen or tuckshop and not a political club as it is now being bandied around by journal ists; the Pangu Pati was created in 1965 as a consequence of the political discussions which often took place on the premises of the Bully Beef Club canteen rather than out of the Bully Beef Club itself.

I would like to urge the writers of contemporary history in the Pacific to research their facts well before putting pen to appear.

W Noel Levi (Cbe)

PNG High Commission London