NZ delegation fails to end Tonga strife

A New Zealand delegation led by a retired judge has failed to negotiate an end to a five-week strike by civil servants which is destabilising the Pacific Island state of Tonga, one of the world's last feudal kingdoms.

Foreign Minister Phil Goff said yesterday the mediation team, led by former judge Tom Goddard and New Zealand labour union leader Ross Wilson, was returning home after talks in the Tongan capital Nuku'alofa were unable to reach any agreement.

Goff said the talks foundered on demands by the strikers for change in the 40-year autocratic rule of Tonga's 87-year-old King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV.

"There is a call for reform, there is a call for the introduction of a constitutional monarchy and democracy - that is not a topic that this particular delegation can assist with," Goff said.

He told a meeting of Tongans in Auckland yesterday, that New Zealand supported a peaceful process of reform and adoption of a fully democratic system in Tonga, a chain of 170 islands between New Zealand and South America inhabited by 100,000 people.

"But this is ... something that the people of Tonga and its government must determine for themselves."

According to reports from Tonga, 1000-3000 civil servants, who earn as little as the equivalent of NZ$35 a week, are striking for 60-80 per cent pay rises. But the stoppage has highlighted injustices in the feudal system in Tonga, where the king's family and aristocratic nobles live grandly and commoners live in poverty.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY