Without going into a lot of detail, the answer is simple - the transnational corporations (also called multinationals) or TNCs. These are corporations that operate in more in one country. They have no home, they are stateless, but also a state unto themselves. They are the biggest of global Big Business.

Foreign direct investment by TNCs and trade within and between firms are now the dominant elements of the world economy, according to the World Investment Report 2001 of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The world's TNCs – more than 60,000 parent firms and their 820,000 foreign affiliates - account for two thirds of the world trade in goods and services, one third in intra-firm transactions and one third in inter-firm transactions. This means that only one third of world trade in goods and services is according to free market, free trade theories of arms length transactions. In 1995, UNCTAD's Secretary-General said that "foreign direct investment has now superseded trade as the most important mechanism for international economic integration" (Multinational Monitor, March 1996).

TNCs control one third of the world's private sector productive assets. The biggest 100 control around one quarter of the total amount. All but four have head offices in the "Triad": North America, Europe and Japan (the four are made up of one each from Australia, Venezuela, Hong Kong and Mexico).

The World Investment Report 2001 ranked the UK as the top outward investor (France was second and the US was third that year). Investment is concentrated in the developed economies. To quote the Report: "During 1998-2000, the Triad accounted for three quarters of global foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and 85% of outflows…". By contrast the 49 least developed countries, with 10% of the world’s population, received 0.5%. "Most (three quarters) of Japan’s FDI in African least developed countries consists of flag-of-convenience investments in Liberia…".

They are corporations that have outgrown their home markets, they need to establish a global market. The pressures on them are simply a bigger version of those on all capitalist enterprises - the need for constant expansion, increased profits, a bigger market share where they are established, new markets elsewhere, preferably a monopoly situation. To give just one example from the global food industry: almost 80% of the world's grain trade is controlled by two companies. Here in NZ, 65% of vegetable crops are processed by Watties, which is owned by US food TNC, Heinz. The mega-merger which created Fonterra as New Zealand’s biggest company leaves the NZ dairy industry wide open for exactly the same scenario. Globally, 1999 was a record year for cross-border mergers and acquisitions i.e. the process by which the big get even bigger. They totalled $US720 billion. The vast majority were straight takeovers; only 3% were genuine mergers

Over half of the sales of the top 200 are in just five economic sectors - trading, cars, banking, retailing and electronics. In cars, the top five account for 60% of global sales; in electronics, the top five account for over half of global sales; seven drug TNCs account for one quarter of the market. Merger mania is predicted to see today’s 15 major car TNCs reduce to ten or even five, by 2010. And TNCs are widening the gap between rich and poor by catering primarily to the growing wealthier classes worldwide. For example, Manhattan alone has more phone lines than the entire African continent. By contrast, one third of the world’s population does not have access to electricity, let alone to phones or the Internet. According to the January 2002 Economic Journal the richest 1% of the world’s population has a combined wealth equal to that of the poorest 57% (totalling several billion people). For instance, Bill Gates is the first man in history to have been individually worth $US100 billion (it has devalued to a mere $US52 billion, but he’s still the world’s richest individual).

TNCs must constantly have access to more and more countries. Their "market" must get bigger. Hence the rush by TNCs into China. When the tobacco merchants of death are restricted in the developed world, they push their products with renewed vigour in the Third World. There are 500 million smokers in China. In 1998 I spent a month in the Philippines - TV is saturated with cigarette ads (some of which are filmed right here, in smokefree NZ, using blonde actors and lots of pure, white snow). Thalidomide is still being sold in Brazil, spawning a whole new generation of grossly deformed children. You may not know that India, specifically the city of Bangalore, is a world leader in accounting and writing software programmes for major TNCs. Why? Cheap labour. The down market end of this same labour market are the Filipino seamen who constitute about one fifth of that industry's global workforce, working (and dying) in flag of convenience rustbuckets all around the world. TNCs are equal opportunity exploiters, they are quite happy to make profits in white or black countries, from Maori or pakeha, from the rich or the poor. Courtesy of the policies which have flung New Zealand wide open to unrestricted TNC domination, we are in a state of downward transition from rich to poor.

The governing global system is what I call corporate feudalism, whereby the world is carved up by the new feudal lords - the TNCs. The ultimate aim is that they will replace the State, in functions, wealth and power. This has already happened to a certain degree. But the TNCs still need states. It is states, not corporations, which comprise bodies such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO). So they currently settle for the corporate State, whereby the State serves the interests of the TNCs. A perfect example are the Australian concentration camps used to imprison refugees – they serve a reactionary racist State policy; they are actually owned and operated by an American TNC, strictly for profit.

The international institutions of globalisation have emerged as the biggest transnational threat to the peoples of the world. Firstly, there was the illfated Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). The MAI was pushed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the rich countries’ club, in the strictest secrecy, both globally and nationally. The National government initially refused to release its copy to the public but later relented, in 1997, as a leaked copy was available on the Internet. The draft MAI was horrifying reading. TNCs would get "national treatment" i.e. the same legal status as local companies, in every country they operated in and it would be illegal to discriminate against them in any way. It would bar national and local governments from tightening controls on foreign investment and prevent measures such as encouraging local investment and requiring use of local products or staff. It would allow TNCs to use NZ courts to enforce their "rights" under the MAI but give no reciprocal legal rights to citizens or governments. It would give TNCs’ executives and their families special immigration privileges. This would render New Zealand law, and sovereignty, meaningless. The MAI truly would be a Bill of Rights for TNCs.

It was also a full frontal assault on democracy. As a sop, National announced that, as from 1998, all treaties would be debated in Parliament - but not voted on! (The Labour/Alliance government has improved on that slightly – MPs got a "symbolic" vote on the Closer Economic Partnership treaty with Singapore, but Cabinet made the final decision, regardless of the vote! As it turned out, that treaty passed courtesy of the Grand Coalition between Labour and National, with the minor parties voting against it).

There was a massive global campaign against the MAI, and nowhere more fiercely than in New Zealand. Here it was fought by CAFCA, GATT Watchdog, the Alliance, Greypower, Maori organisations, and local governments (including the Christchurch City Council).

So, for a change, we had some good news to report. The campaign against the MAI, both globally and in New Zealand, actually beat it. The MAI was expected to resurface at the WTO, but the news got better. The 1999 "Battle of Seattle" marked a turning point in 20^th Century history, inflicting a historic defeat on the "inevitable" forces of globalisation. The Seattle meeting was besieged from outside and beleagured from within its own ranks – it ignominiously collapsed without having launched the Millennium Round. No agenda was even agreed, let alone anything concluded.

But the ideologues, led by our very own Mike Moore, don’t give up – negotiations resumed behind closed doors at WTO headquarters in Geneva, and the latest WTO Ministerial Meeting, at Qatar, in 2001, was dedicated to relaunching the Millennium Round. The Qatar meeting was deliberately held as far away as possible from protesters, and the result was to launch fresh negotiations for the new Round, with a 2003 deadline. The most sinister development from Qatar was that of the rich countries forcing "new issues" onto the agenda. Effectively this resurrects the MAI and brings it under the umbrella of the WTO, rather than as a stand-alone agreement. Central to the "new issues" is an investment agreement, which revives the aim of standardising a laissez faire regime of unrestricted foreign investment across all WTO members. Other key "new issues" are a competition policy (which basically would open up national economies to TNCs) and a Government procurement policy, which would prevent governments favouring local suppliers or local industry development. There are other related negotiations like the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which is dedicated to forcing open a very wide definition of services (such as water) for the benefit of the TNCs.

Running parallel to the painfully slow progress at the WTO has been the much faster conclusion of a whole raft of regional and bilateral free trade and investment agreements. For instance, virtually all of North and South America is now covered by the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In New Zealand, the Labour/Alliance government has taken up National’s bilateralism with alacrity, rammed through the agreement with Singapore, is well advanced on a comparable one with Hong Kong and is in hot pursuit of the "holy grail", a free trade and investment agreement with the US.

The global tidal wave of protest against globalisation (which is nothing more than imperialism under a new name - transnational corporate imperialism) carried on into the new century with almost monthly massive protests against meetings of the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and a whole raft of G8 and European Union summits, and Asian Development Bank meetings. These protests became so big and militant as to threaten not only the meetings, which were their immediate targets, but also to constitute a major confrontation with the authorities of the host city or state. Progressively law and order became the dominant issue and the official responses became more and more violent, culminating in one death, widespread injuries and massive crackdowns on civil liberties. The worldwide anti-globalisation movement had become a major force in global politics and economics (with a significant sector of that movement declaring itself to be an anti-capitalist one).

Things changed again, in the most dramatic way possible, with the terrorist atrocities of September 11 and the US-led war in response to them. This has provided the already very reactionary Bush government with the excuse to swiftly implement a police State apparatus in the US, and to revert to an extremely old form of globalisation – imperialism, backed up by naked military force. This has taken two parallel courses – one has been to emphasise the most oppressive functions of the State, namely an apparently endless and borderless "war on terror", backed by a massive increase in the resources and powers lavished on the military, cops and spies. The second course has been to criminalise all dissent, including the anti-globalisation movement (undefined "terrorists" have replaced "Communists" as the 21^st Century’s bogey men) and to argue that the only way to "defeat the terrorists" is to ram through the globalisation agenda. Thus the US House of Representatives gave Bush fast track authority to negotiate trade and investment agreements, a measure that had been languishing for years. For its part, the Labour/Alliance government tried to ram through repressive new laws with no debate, and has none too subtly tried to link its sending the Special Air Service (SAS) into Afghanistan and the value of NZ spybases such as Waihopai, with its chances of getting a free trade and investment agreement with the US. The trigger happy unilateralism of the US, drunk on its own perceived might, is its own worst enemy and will increasingly alarm and alienate the allies riding on its coat tails.

The State as an institution is suddenly back in fashion, but, unfortunately, for reactionary reasons – to fight wars, to exact revenge, kill and torture enemies, and to frighten and bullshit people, including its own, into acquiescent silence. The TNCs see this huge mobilisation of State violence as being an essential aid to seizing resources, principally oil, for private profit. It is an old, old alliance, that between emperors and pirates, working for their mutual enrichment.

The situation in New Zealand can be very briefly summarised:

That, very briefly, is a summary of the problem, both globally and in this country. Now it’s time to have a look at some solutions, and some strategies to counter it. So what can we do about it? Are we facing an invincible enemy? Is it a lost cause? Not on your life. Remember one simple fact - the bigger they are, the harder they fall. The MAI campaign and the "Battle of Seattle" proved exactly that point. Undeniably, we have suffered a setback in the wake of the backlash from September 11, with the US and its satellites waging an old fashioned imperialist war against anyone they don’t like, and Western "democracies" adopting the trappings of the police State, using the excuse of "anti-terrorism". But the current anti-globalisation movement sweeping the world is the most hopeful development in decades.

The most wonderfully succinct call to arms came from veteran international peace activist Helen Caldicott. She told the Listener (26/7/97): "Economic feudalism - are you going to let it continue or not? You need a revolution. You’ve got to take the whole thing away from the corporations". If it’s good enough for Helen, then it’s good enough for me. The devil, of course, is in the detail.

New Zealand has long led the world in allowing the TNCs free rein here (the MAI would have extended this deregulation on a legally enforceable, global scale). As a bare minimum, CAFCA wants to see the TNCs regulated and controlled in New Zealand by law - not the rubber stamp and welcome mat setup we have at present. Most recently, the 1998 Overseas Investment Amendment Act made some alterations to the law governing land sales to foreigners, giving effect to the derisory Coalition Agreement (between National and New Zealand First) provisions on foreign investment. We made a submission urging that the existing law be toughened up to more effectively control the TNCs (it wasn’t). Interestingly, that Act did not come into force until the end of 2001, because the requisite Order in Council hadn’t been promulgated. The Government didn’t rate it as a priority.

To give it credit, the Labour/Alliance government has made some modest moves to renationalise some things, such as ACC, Tranz Rail’s Auckland passenger network, and, in response to a life or death crisis, it bought back Air New Zealand, in 2001. It has also used the "national interest" provisions of the Overseas Investment Act in several cases, such as Air New Zealand, and, earlier, to stop foreign fishing TNCs from buying Brierley’s share of Sealord (this decision was later reversed). Most commendably, it has set up Kiwibank, so that there is one bank that is both New Zealand-owned and State-owned. But the Government, dominated by the Labour front bench, is still very much pro-Big Business, pro-foreign investment and free trade. Very little has changed of any substance.

CAFCA had a philosophical debate in 1997 - we discussed whether we want to kick the bastards out, or to allow them to operate here under tighter control. The TNCs can breathe easier - on pragmatic grounds we opted for the latter.

But we also decided to be pro-active and draw up a Corporate Code of Responsibility for TNCs operating in this country. Throughout 1997, CAFCA scoured international codes for a model applicable here. It was a lot of work, which went through several drafts, and was sent to various sector groups for comment.

We publicly launched this Code in 1998. Unusually for CAFCA, it is not 80 pages long. It is but a single A4 sheet. It is a statement of very broad principles. It covers human rights, workers rights, legal and government, the Treaty, environment, commercial practices and consumers, and general. I’ll simply give a few quotes: "TNCs shall act in accordance with the Treaty". Straightforward you might think - but not if the MAI came into effect. "TNCs shall allow workers the freedom and right to belong to a union, associate, organise and bargain collectively". This aspect is missing from most overseas codes, which are primarily aimed at TNCs operating in the Third World. In fact, this confronted the former Employment Contracts Act head on. "TNCs shall not interfere in the internal affairs of host countries or attempt to manipulate or defeat public opinion or political leaders". That is aimed at the likes of Comalco, with its history of decades of manipulation of politicians and public opinion. And at the TNCs which comprise the (currently out of official favour) Business Round Table, and those which continue to campaign against MMP. "TNCs shall respect local environmental legislation and standards". They have been campaigning to have the Resource Management Act removed. "TNCs shall not exploit a dominant market position, nor attempt to gain such a position". Think Telecom or any of the other big monopolies. "TNCs shall promote and adhere to the goals of sustainable and equitable development and full employment". Phrases like "full employment" should produce anxiety attacks in corporate boardrooms.

Simultaneously CAFCA, GATT Watchdog and Corso organised the first annual Roger Award for the Worst TNC In NZ (it’s now organised by just the first two groups). That Award emphasises all the negative aspects of TNCs and Big Business in general (in 2001, it was won by Carter Holt Harvey; in 2000, by Tranz Rail, the only TNC to have the dubious distinction of winning it more than once; in 1999, it was won by TransAlta; Monsanto in 1998 and Tranz Rail in 1997). The aim is to poke fun whilst serving a very serious purpose - to present an indictment against the TNCs; to reverse the ceaseless propaganda flow; and to get people to think about and spell out just why Big Business is so bad.

This Code is the flip side of the coin - it lists all the positive and useful things we want TNCs to abide by. Are we terminally naive? Not a bit of it. So who is this Code aimed at? Only incidentally at the TNCs themselves. Although I see no problem in sending them a copy and asking them to sign it. After all, I’m sure they agree with: "TNCs shall not kill, enslave or imprison people". Or: "TNCs shall, at all times, obey both the spirit and the letter of the law in host countries". That’s motherhood and apple pie stuff.

Primarily, we see the Code as a campaigning tool. For example, that political parties be asked to adopt it as the basis of their policies towards TNCs. That local bodies require TNCs to agree to it before moving into their region. That ordinary people say that they will only accept foreign investment into NZ by TNCs which accept this Code. And, most importantly, that it be used as an indication of what we are for, rather than simply a reiteration of what we are against. We urged people, in 1998 - when they got the glossy brochure and questionnaire from the National government, asking their views on the beneficiary bashing Code of Social Responsibility - to send back a copy of this Corporate Code of Responsibility instead and demand that the Government get this enforced. Let’s concentrate on the mugger, not the mugger’s victim.

The best outcome would be for the Code to become law, with proper enforcement and penalties for non-compliance. The most that CAFCA can do is to float the idea. Already some influential people are getting the message. Christchurch’s Mayor, Garry Moore, wrote to us (26/1/99) saying: "The code is a very useful statement of the principles all companies, especially transnationals, should follow. It provides a useful checklist to use when agreements are being negotiated".

Join CAFCA (membership includes a sub to Foreign Control Watchdog). We have a vested interest in suggesting that (and in urging you to financially support the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Fund, which provides my income). But the fact is that we have probably the best specialist knowledge on the subject, outside of the inner circles of the political and business collaborators of the transnationals. It is important to remember that our perspective on the subject is internationalist, progressive nationalist, Leftwing and anti-racist. Not to mention, a wealth of facts.

Fine, that's given away more money, but what can I do?

If you attach importance to the Parliamentary system, then get involved in the party of your choice and work actively to ensure that it serves the interests of the New Zealand people, not local or international Big Business. MMP has changed the game and opens the way for greater Parliamentary representation by people who share our viewpoint. CAFCA doesn't endorse any particular party nor parliamentarianism as a whole. We recognise it, however, as a legitimate means of advancing the cause. MMP opens the prospect of working alliances with likeminded people from all major parties - Labour, Alliance, Greens, National, New Zealand First (even, God help us, ACT). CAFCA has sent people to Wellington to personally brief the Alliance and Green caucuses and to speak at the Alliance’s national conference. In Christchurch, we have spoken to several branch meetings of the Alliance, Greens and Labour. At the local body level, the chances of lobbying and influencing politicians are even better. Campaigning against the MAI at local body level, and more recently, the Singapore and Hong Kong bilateral free trade and investment agreements, has been particularly successful.

OK, that might lead to somebody representing me but what can I actually do?

Raise your political consciousness. Educate yourself about foreign control in all its manifestations. It affects us in so many areas of our daily lives. You don't need to study obscure academic texts; just read the papers with a critical mind. You'll find an awful lot just from the business pages and general news. Reject defeatist thinking. You are neither alone nor powerless.

Individually, you can do the time honoured letterwriting, earbashing your MP, etc. Or you can fight back as an individual - for example, in the 1990s, people refused to pay their hospital outpatient’s bills. That single action became a mass campaign and a major blow against the New Right and their transnational backers. Never underestimate the power of an informed and determined individual. Multiplied, it becomes a mass civil disobedience campaign. And it works – National’s hospital charges were scrapped. I speak from personal experience when I say that it is a very satisfying feeling telling the army of health sector financial managers to shove it. Even better when you burn your bills in Cathedral Square, as a number of us did. Currently, Auckland’s Water Pressure Group is directly defying Metrowater’s coldblooded attempts to make people pay for water, reconnecting those who have been cut off for refusing to pay. The Papakura Water Pressure Group is waging the same battle against United Water, the TNC which has the 50 year franchise on the local water supply. A whole campaign has sprung up in Auckland to fight the plan by John Banks and Bill Birch to flog off virtually all the publicly owned assets of the Auckland City Council.

Of those suggestions, I think the most important are consciousness raising and networking. I don’t discount the traditional Parliamentary and political party work. It has its advantages - fighting the MAI within NZ is a good example. The Alliance did excellent work on it and we got the most unlikely allies, such as the odd ACT MP, who was not happy with it for his own reasons. But I would discourage reliance on politicians - Winston Peters barnstormed the country in 1995 breathing fire about foreign investment (CAFCA hosted him and Jim Anderton at a public meeting in the Christchurch Town Hall). I needn’t go over what happened. Peters made his stand by opposing details of the sale of Wellington Airport - the majority of his New Zealand First colleagues opted to abandon him and the party, staying with National (electoral oblivion was their reward). The 1984-99 period saw an endless procession of broken promises, worthless pledges and betrayal. I didn’t get dewy eyed over the election of a Labour government – we were born during a Labour government; this is the third in CAFCA’s lifetime. We certainly aren’t packing up just because the Alliance is in government and the Greens are in Parliament.

In fact, the Alliance is staring into the abyss precisely because it has achieved (a minor share of) power and the resulting compromises by its Ministers and MPs have caused intolerable tensions between the Parliamentary caucus and the Party (a situation that has been the status quo in Labour for decades). I believe that the Greens will face exactly the same dilemma if they replace the Alliance as Labour’s junior partner. Labour may have halfheartedly renounced Rogernomics, but it’s done virtually nothing about rolling it back, apart from absolute necessities such as the emergency renationalisation of Air New Zealand. Labour remains wedded to the model of virtually unrestricted foreign investment and free trade, plus a blossoming military and political relationship with a nakedly imperialist US.

Winning the MMP battle a decade ago was a great victory over the politicians and Big Business who bitterly opposed it - but we have to realise that MMP simply delivers a more representative Parliament; it doesn’t choose a government, let alone provide any different sort of government. Politicians do still hold some power over the TNCs - but only if they choose to exercise it. If they can’t or won’t do so (and the MAI was definitely aimed at stopping any politicians who might be thinking of doing so), then we shouldn’t waste time with them. We have to do it ourselves.

Reclaim the language. Reject perversions of "democracy", "efficiency", "free trade", etc. Don't be afraid of words like "government", "protection", "independence". Reject the ideology, find out what these concepts really mean. Recognise that TNCs and their local agents are far from invincible. On some issues they are positively vulnerable. Faced with direct, united and uncompromising action - such as the 1993 Matakana Island blockade by locals fighting to save their forests from TNC plunder - they can be frustrated and defeated by ordinary people. It was the small towns and rural areas that fought most tenaciously to retain their endangered local hospitals, from Kaitaia to Balclutha, and most prominently, in the Ashburton homebase of Jenny Shipley. Worldwide, and in New Zealand, it was ordinary people who stopped the MAI in its tracks. Ordinary people withstood the teargas, batons and curfews to win the "Battle of Seattle" (and to take on the forces of State violence in all the other anti-globalisation battles since, sometimes with deadly results).

Consciousness raising sounds rather daunting. Not really - at its most basic, it means seeing through the bullshit. Recognise that we’re being constantly bombarded with propaganda. Reverse the emphasis and stop to think - who does benefit by New Zealand being flogged off lock, stock and barrel? What is so "efficient" about chucking tens of thousand out of work and reducing hundreds of thousands to poverty? In whose interest is it that a very significant chunk of the population is markedly worse off than before? Realise that we are involuntary competitors in the race to the bottom i.e. the race to provide the "most attractive" conditions for foreign investors, ones in which they can make the most profit with minimum costs.

This consciousness raising should not be a passive process i.e. you waiting for us to tell you about it. Get out and find out who’s who and who’s up who in your own backyard. I’ll give you some examples, based on what we’ve done. In recent years CAFCA has run a series of tours of Christchurch (usually on foot, once by bus), touring a representative sample of TNCs in one New Zealand city. These have proved to be extremely popular. Most recently we incorporated one such tour into the protest against the Qatar Meeting of the World Trade Organisation, in November 2001. These tours can be duplicated anywhere (with local research) and they capture both media and public interest. Never assume that because we know who owns what that other people also do. They don’t and they’re very interested to find out.

Pick specific targets which people can relate to - in Christchurch, we slowly and painstakingly brought together a range of groups, each with their own axe to grind with Telecom - the union representing its workers, beneficiaries, people fighting cellphone towers, independent Internet Service Providers, political parties. We held a two day event, in 1997, called Telecom Exposed! A Critical Forum. It’s hard work - one school board of trustees, scheduled to speak, pulled out at the last minute because of fear of Telecom in its battle over a cellphone tower. But that Forum led to the creation of SPOT - the Society for Publicly Owned Telecommunications, which specialised in Telecom. The name said it all - we decided to accentuate the positive, what we wanted, rather than the negative, what we didn’t like (the other suggested name was the Society for Public Outrage at Telecom). SPOT has since run its course but the model is a good one. Telecom has national significance but there’s also plenty of scope for localised campaigns on specific TNCs. The January 2002 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil (the biggest ever gathering of the anti-globalisation movement) called for campaigns targeting specific TNCs.

Finally, I want to stress the vital importance of networking. In the 1984-99 period, the people of New Zealand were badly let down and failed by two of the traditional institutions for advancing the interests for ordinary people - namely, the Labour Party and the trade union movement. CAFCA has a limited working relationship with both Labour and the Council of Trade Unions (there are very good people in both, including a few MPs). So we needed to look elsewhere - both the Alliance and the former Trade Union Federation (TUF) were a response to the failings of Labour and the CTU. Changes in CTU leadership and policies, returning to actually getting involved in workers struggles, and the reunification between the CTU and TUF, are the most hopeful sign in union politics in a decade. CAFCA is aligned to no political party, nor do we endorse any particular party. But we acknowledge the reality of Parliamentary parties. In the past few years we have worked extremely well with the Alliance’s grassroots activists and the party as such – but the Parliamentary wing exhibits all the symptoms of an old disease called "being in Government", and has ceased to be any sort of credible campaigning force (whether it will continue to be a party at all is an open question at the time of writing). On the other hand, we have developed an active and productive relationship with the Greens, who remain a campaigning party (precisely because they’re not in Government). Let’s see if that relationship survives them becoming Labour’s junior partner, as is widely predicted.

But we have to take it a lot further than relying on Parliamentary parties and/or unions to do it for us. We have to do it ourselves. Which means we have to build a genuine grassroots people’s movement. I’m not suggesting yet another party - we’ve got too many now. Movement building is damn hard work - you have to agree on what you’re for, not merely what you’re against. And you get into all sorts of turf wars with people who want their single issue to be the priority and not compromise.

So, rather than starting from scratch, the next best thing is networking. That is, building links and sharing information with all manner of existing groups. But to be pro-active about it - cooperate and coordinate campaigns. And, most importantly, establish the common ground between us all. That’s the vital part. All around New Zealand there are groups directly fighting TNCs - whether they be genetic engineering companies, polluting gold miners, predatory power companies, union busting forestry companies, abusive cleaning companies, greedy oil companies, or phone companies putting cellphone towers in against the wishes of local communities. For example, in the late 90s, CAFCA worked with Canterbury farmers and rural residents, who were fighting plans to build the South Island’s biggest landfill in their backyard. They were none too keen on the involvement of garbage TNC, Waste Management, and that’s where we could help them (the dump is now being sited elsewhere in Canterbury; Waste Management is in different ownership, so we are no longer involved).

Add to that the huge number fighting the indirect effects of foreign control, by which I mean everything that has been done to "make New Zealand attractive to foreign investors". So then you get all those who have been fighting hospital closures, the commercialisation and rundown of the health system, the destruction of the Welfare State, the attack on unions and workers, the deliberate impoverishment of a huge number of New Zealanders. What has been done here is good old fashioned class warfare - from the top down. We need to be organising the middle and bottom.

Bring together the Greypower/RSA/National voters who fought to keep their small town hospitals open, with the so-called "Maori radicals" who are fighting for land and self-determination; bring together the community groups fighting to keep their power, water, housing, buses, airports, ports, etc, in public ownership, with the unions and workers fighting to keep their jobs and improve their wages and conditions; bring together the middle class parents concerned about the impact of cellphone towers on their kids’ health, with the newly impoverished underclass who are fighting the legacy left by market rents, benefit cuts and dependence on food banks. Thrash out what we have in common and realise that we all have a common foe - an economic and political system that benefits only the TNCs and local Big Business. Dump phony issues, such "as these bloody Maoris are ruining the country with their demands", and realise that the Treaty of Waitangi is the one thing that has stopped yet more of New Zealand being flogged off. For instance, it’s the only reason that the land itself, rather than just cutting rights, was not sold when the State forests were privatised. Accentuate the positive - all round the country are examples of people helping themselves, standing tall without reliance on the State or our new corporate sponsors. The Peoples Centres in Auckland and Wellington are excellent examples.

In case you think that this all sounds rather well meaning but airy fairy, I should spell out that I quite clearly see the problem as being capitalism itself. CAFCA’s brief is to concentrate on imperialism, which Lenin called the highest stage of capitalism. Because that’s what "globalisation" is, just a modern name for imperialism, but one in which companies, rather than countries, set out to colonise the world, including New Zealand. When talking about globalisation we need to ensure we define it as "corporate globalisation", because we really have no argument with globalisation in the sense of internationalism, and the free movement of people, for example. Nor should "globalisation" ever be confused with "progress". Opposition to globalisation is most definitely not opposition to progress. Corporate globalisation is one of the most reactionary forces in world history – opposition to it is both progressive and liberating, not to mention vital for the survival of the planet and all life on it.

Foreign control is not the only issue, nor necessarily the most important one. Eradicating it will not, in itself, eradicate war, secure the environment, restore equity to the workplace, cure unemployment or remove racism and sexism. But it is one of the very biggest problems that we, and all of the peoples of the world, face. It needs concerted opposition, progressive opposition, and because we face a global foe, international opposition. It is an anti-imperialist struggle and fighting imperialism has always been a vital and honourable part of any progressive people’s movement worthy of the name. Eradicating it will not in itself eradicate capitalism, its seedbed, but it would give it one hell of a kick in the guts. Speaking personally, it's got to go but it is not my brief or the policy of CAFCA to tackle capitalism per se.

New Zealand has a distinct national identity, a people’s identity, not to be confused with flagwaving bullshit and artificial hype. In the case of the Maori they are a completely unique people, culture and language. The Treaty is a unique partnership and provides a powerful weapon with which to fight the foreign takeover.

And we have a distinct people’s ethic, that of the fair go. There has been a deliberate attempt to kill the fair go in recent years and to permanently stack the balance in favour of the rich and powerful, of the local and international variety. There has been an attempt to destroy the natural cooperative nature of New Zealand society, both Maori and pakeha and to break us down into competing individual units. It hasn’t succeeded yet but that’s not from lack of trying. We are being set up to compete with the most ruthless societies on Earth, all in the name of "attracting" foreign investment. Fundamentally we need to establish one simple point: that the people of this country are the only ones entitled to control our national destiny, and we want a reaffirmation of the fair go society. A commitment to equity, democracy, sustainability and security. To achieve that, national sovereignty is essential.

Despite the post-September 11 global crackdown and the transformation of the US Empire onto a permanent war footing, I remain optimistic because more and more people are seeing that what we’ve been saying from the outset is right – that foreign control is economic and political recolonisation; that globalisation is just another word for good old fashioned imperialism; and that the root cause of the whole thing is capitalism. We don’t have to explain to people any more what is a transnational corporation. At its simplest, we can say "We told you so". But it goes much further than that. Our side has started winning some battles in recent years, such as that against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, or against the World Trade Organisation’s 1999 meeting in Seattle. But these battles have to be fought over and over again (which is the nature of war, after all). The WTO is arguably back on track after its 2001 Qatar meeting, and the MAI is re-emerging under the guise of the WTO’s "new issues". The naked militarism and imperialism of the US presents a challenge at one level; on the other hand, it does us a favour by stripping away any illusions people may have about the essential nature of capitalism: Do as you’re told or we’ll kill you.