ACT.

• Position: ELECTION 2005 - Liberal party - Political party

ACT's vision is for harmonious international relations and greater freedom in international trade.

The promotion and pursuit of multilateral free trade is in New Zealand's best interests as is building our defence ties with our traditional allies Australia and the United States, together with those other nations who share our values based on freedom and open democracy.

New Zealand has a huge amount at stake. The gains we can make from freeing up trade internationally are enormous. Despite good intentions internationally with the Doha Round, progress towards global free trade continues to move at a slow pace.

This means bilateral trade agreements are the best practical short- to medium-term solution for New Zealand. Much of our trade is with just a handful of countries. In fact, almost half of it is with the United States, Australia and Japan. ACT backs all trade agreements currently under negotiation. We would try to speed the process up, and we would look to commence negotiations for free trade agreements with other countries where possible. While favouring broad-based multi-lateral trade liberalisation, we accept that bilateral arrangements are useful steps towards liberalisation.

Rebuilding relations with our traditional allies are of paramount importance. New Zealand continues to trader-fund and run down defence forces, to the point where we cannot train and participate with our allies in joint exercises.

Defence is a government's primary responsibility. Successive governments have slashed spending and shifted emphasis to peacekeeping. ACT would resource defence properly, and rebuild our relationship with our allies.

It is not good enough to pretend that defence policy has no impact on trade. Foreign policy and defence policy are inextricably linked. Under Labour, New Zealand has gone to the back of the queue for a free trade deal with the United States.

ACT maintains that it is time that New Zealand's foreign policy interests received the attention they deserve. We need to roll back the dangerous isolationist experiment and rebuild relationships internationally. New Zealanders would have much to gain under a government with the dedication and commitment required.

ACT has three broad foreign policy goals:

* An extensive range of healthy diplomatic relationships linking New Zealand to the international community, particularly those with whom we have the strongest common interests in relation to trade and defence.

* Free trade and open...