REGIONAL NEWS OPINION New Zealand has long prided itself on warm relations with its Pacific island neighbours.

However that relationship is under stress as our trade negotiators pressure island officials over a new free trade deal. The time has come for a new approach, comments Rachael Le Mesurier, the executive director of Oxfam New Zealand.

This month trade officials from New Zealand and Australia met with their island counterparts in Vanuatu for the latest round of negotiations for a Pacific regional trade agreement – otherwise known as PACER Plus.

Those talks again highlighted key differences between the negotiating parties.

New Zealand and Australian officials pressed for an agreement that will lower tariffs for exports to the island countries and will provide special protections for New Zealand and Australian investors.

For their part, Pacific officials demanded an agreement designed around their special trading circumstances. They also called for unique arrangements allowing Pacific islanders to work temporarily in New Zealand and Australia.

For some time Pacific arguments have fallen on deaf ears in Wellington and Canberra. Frustration in the region is growing.

In 2013 Papua New Guinea trade minister Sam Abal complained the PACER Plus negotiations were ‘a complete waste of time’.

Last month, Fiji trade minister Faiyaz Koya said it was important not to design “an unbalanced agreement that provides New Zealand and Australia unprecedented access to Pacific markets without giving anything tangible and binding in return”.

In the lead up to last week’s talks, Pacific civil society organisations released an open letter to trade ministers from New Zealand, Australia and Pacific island countries, calling for a suspension of the PACER Plus negotiations.

In the letter, dozens of NGOs and faith-based organisations called for the negotiating text to be released publicly and demanded a full assessment be undertaken to determine the likely social, cultural and environmental impacts of PACER Plus.

Clearly, it is time to reconsider the approach taken to the PACER Plus negotiations. It may even be time to jettison the talks altogether.

It is widely understood a standard trade agreement will offer few benefits for Pacific island countries.

They already have duty-free access to New Zealand and Australian markets.

Lowering their own tariffs is unlikely to provide a significant boost to their economies, and an investment agreement will do little to stimulate new business activity while constraining Pacific governments’ ability to regulate for social goals.

Oxfam has long argued that New Zealand and Australian policy makers should design regional trade policy with Pacific island countries in mind.

In a global marketplace, island producers face unique disadvantages. They have to contend with small domestic markets, huge distances from centres of global commerce, limited resources and small populations, poor transport links, and frequent natural disasters.

Even without a new trade agreement, New Zealand and Australia could do much to help island countries address these challenges.

We could, for example, address our quarantine barriers, which make it so hard for Pacific islanders to export high-value tropical crops.

We could modify our rules-of-origin requirements, which make it difficult for island producers to export manufactured goods –especially clothing and textiles.

Perhaps, most importantly, we could provide more avenues for Pacific islanders to work in sectors that face labour shortages anyway, including picking fruit and tending grapevines in regional areas.

For decades Pacific island governments have extended a welcome hand to their wealthier neighbours. Indeed, New Zealand and Australia are the only developed-countries who are members of the Pacific Islands Forum.

In Auckland earlier this year, Prime Minister John Key and his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott “reaffirmed the pre-eminence of the Pacific Islands Forum” for regional decision-making.

However not everyone in the Pacific is happy with New Zealand and Australian participation at the Forum. Both countries appear to be out-of-step with island leaders on key issues, including global climate negotiations and moves toward decolonisation in New Caledonia and French Polynesia.

The Fiji government has gone so far as to demand Australia and New Zealand step back from the Forum altogether, calling for new island-only arrangements.

If we don’t start to listen to Pacific island voices with regard to the PACER Plus negotiations we risk alienating ourselves even further from our Pacific friends.