Phil Goff

Labour Leader Phil Goff leaves today for a major conference in Chile at which leading politicians and economic experts will share ideas on ways to tackle urgent global issues such as the world economic and financial crisis.

The two-day event, organised by global think-tank Policy Network, takes place on March 27-28 in Vina del Mar, just five days before the G20 Summit in London. It will be hosted by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, and be attended by world leaders including U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"With the world in the grip of the worst recession in 60 years, we need to ask fundamental questions about its causes and the workings of the global finance system," Phil Goff said.

"While hundreds of thousands of people are being thrown out of work every week and face real hardship as a result, bankers and business leaders whose greed and recklessness created this situation have their hands out for bonus payments worth millions of dollars. That is obscene.

"The current financial crisis presents an opportunity for the world to make changes to rein in the excesses of the financial markets and reconnect them with the real economy, and for policy-makers to find the right balance between openness and regulation.

"I will give a New Zealand focus on the global crisis and share ideas on what the world can do to reshape the international financial and economic system.

"I will be promoting the critical need to commit to a rules-based multilateral free trade system and to resist protectionism, which would compound the effects of the recession as it did in the 1930s," Phil Goff said.

The conference brings together international centre-left figures to put forward a future vision for a more prosperous world. The conference's theme is "Responses to the Global Crisis: Charting a Progressive Path".

More than 200 senior policymakers, opinion-formers, government advisers and experts will attend. Other world leaders attending include Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and President of Uruguay Tabare Vazquez.