KEY POINTS:
After four decades of division, foreign policy is again bipartisan as far as the two big parties are concerned. That goes for trade, too.
Since John Key became leader, National has accepted anti-nuclearism, a multilateral approach to foreign relations rather than an alliance-based one and an army-based defence force.
Helen Clark's pragmatic adoption of free trade soon after taking office in 1999 brought Labour into sync with National. Scepticism of or opposition to free trade is confined to the Greens (who favour local production), the Maori Party (which worries about Treaty of Waitangi implications) and New Zealand First (which voted against the China deal).
Clark signed the Singapore closer economic partnership, brokered by Tim Groser, now National's shadow trade minister, and since expanded to include Brunei and Chile as the "P4". She grabbed China's offer of a free trade agreement (FTA). The Asean-CER deal is almost sealed, including an especially promising arrangement with Vietnam. She has pushed Japan, Korea and, more recently, India for deals.
Clark - and Phil Goff - buried the nuclear hatchet with the United States and renormalised that relationship. Talks will start in March on a P4-United States deal, which might also include Australia, Peru and Vietnam in a transpacific grouping.
Clark - and Michael Cullen - also re-energised the flagging programme designed to create a single economic market (SEM) with Australia.
All of that is music to Groser's ears. The only significant difference he and National would bring to trade would be Groser's range of contacts built up while chief trade negotiator in Geneva.
Even on two topics dearer to Labour than to National - the inclusion of labour and environmental safeguard clauses in FTAs - National would not likely change tack. Groser sees that as a way to persuade potentially protectionist Democrats in Washington to accept an FTA.
There is one difference: National says it "expects" the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade "to put the support of exporters as their single most important priority" - shades of Sir Robert Muldoon's "foreign policy is trade".
Longer-term, will bipartisanship endure? As rich countries regulate their finance sectors, that might encourage a wider enthusiasm for regulation - including import protection. Climate change might add to that push. In Washington, the new Congress is likely to legislate an emissions trading regime, and in France politicians talk of trade barriers to protect local producers from imports from countries deemed climate-unfriendly.
Therein lies a Labour-National division. National talks of defending the clean, green brand, notably for tourism which John Key wants to run himself. But its climate change policy is more defensive of industry and agriculture than Labour's.
Climate change is not trade policy yet. If it becomes so, bipartisanship might again be in doubt.
www.colinjames.co.nz
colinjames@synapsis.co.nz
