Government rules out cutting aid to Tonga

11.45am - By KEVIN NORQUAY

New Zealand will not cut aid to Tonga in protest at its efforts to curb media freedom and end the right to seek judicial review of its laws.

Foreign Minister Phil Goff and Associate Minister Marian Hobbs, who oversees official development assistance, today ruled out cuts in annual aid of $5.6 million to Tonga.

King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV has moved to prevent courts from reviewing his actions, through legislation that would sharply curtail freedom of speech in Tonga.

The New Zealand Government will today make a protest to the Tongan government through its High Commission in the Pacific nation.

Former development minister Matt Robson wanted New Zealand to do more than that. Aid to Tonga must be reviewed to show New Zealand did not support a "self interested and greedy power structure", he said yesterday.

Green Party spokesman Keith Locke echoed that call.

However, Ms Hobbs did not see aid as being linked to constitutional matters, her spokesman told NZPA today.

Aid was not seen as a judgment on a particular government, but was directed to help alleviate poverty, the spokesman said.

"She draws the analogy that we continued giving aid to Iraq... even though the regime of Saddam Hussein was generally detested, and out of favour with the rest of the world," he said.

Tonga is seen as trying to ban the outspoken Taimi 'o Tonga (Tonga Times) newspaper.

Mr Robson said that would make Tonga more of a police state "than ever".

"We need to review our economic, military and aid relationships," he said.

The proposed Act of Constitution of Tonga (Amendment) Act would restrict free speech and place the king's ordinances beyond the reach of courts, he said.

Mr Goff has urged Tonga to ensure changes to its constitution did not breach human rights requirements.

While each country had the right to determine its own constitution and laws, they had also an obligation to comply with international human rights, he said.

But he did not go as far as backing calls by the Green Party and Progressive Coalition for Tonga to be suspended from the Commonwealth.

"This is not a case of a democratic system overturned by a military coup," Mr Goff said.

Commonwealth Press Union New Zealand chairman Gavin Ellis said it would consider Tonga as an urgent item at its press freedom committee meeting tomorrow.

The king's move followed the February banning of the Tonga Times.

The newspaper's New Zealand publishers won an order from Chief Justice Gordon Ward, a Briton, who ruled the ban was unconstitutional.

The king, sitting as Privy Council chair, then imposed a new ordinance banning the newspaper -- a law Justice Ward declared illegal.

Copies of the paper remain in the hands of the Customs Department, while a monarch-backed daily, the Tonga Star, has begun a campaign to impeach Justice Ward.

The proposed law is likely to pass as the king appoints, without election and for life terms, his cabinet and they take 12 of the 30 seats in the assembly.

The kingdom's 33 nobles control nine seats.

Among the nobles are members of the royal family, including Crown Prince Tupoutoa who is heir to the throne.

The 100,000-strong commoner population elects nine representatives.

Tonga Times publisher Kalafi Moala said the bill was a declaration of dictatorship by the Tongan government and the issue had moved way beyond the ban on his newspaper.

A legal opinion by Auckland lawyer Rodney Harrison QC, who regularly appears in Tongan courts, slated the Tongan government's planned constitutional changes.

The opinion, given to the New Zealand Herald newspaper by Mr Moala, said the cumulative effect was potentially extremely serious.

"If held to be valid, they [the changes] would amount to an effective overturning of the current constitutional regime."

In particular, the plan to prohibit judicial review of laws and ordinances would "effectively put an end to the rule of law in the Kingdom of Tonga".

Mr Moala has called on Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright to refuse to visit the king for his 85th birthday next month.

Government House has refused to comment on the issue.

Mr Goff said in the Dominion Post newspaper today there were no plans to cancel Dame Silvia's visit.

"That would be tantamount to closing off our communication with Tonga. We feel it's important to keep the lines of communication open."

- NZPA