Coates BarryBARRY COATES (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. I would like to speak to Supplementary Order Paper 242 on the foreign investment provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Amendment Bill. This Supplementary Order Paper proposes the deletion of clause 69. Clause 69 would insert a new section 61A and that section would give powers to the executive that we believe should be reserved for Parliament. What it does basically is it takes away the powers of Parliament to determine the rules around foreign investment regulation. I think this is a particularly problematic part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Amendment Bill. As previous speakers from the Green Party have discussed the Green Party does not agree with the ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA) as a whole but even if it went through we would be deeply worried at the loss of democratic and parliamentary scrutiny over the important issue of regulation of foreign investment.There is as members of the public and members of the House know considerable public interest in Government approval of foreign investment and growing public concern about foreign investment of New Zealand's iconic landscapes of agricultural land or primary production of value chains and of strategic assets. The foreign ownership of New Zealand's assets is increasing although we would decry the lack of proper analysis and a database to show that clearly. We believe it is wrong for democratic oversight of that investment to be taken away from parliamentary scrutiny under this amendment so this Supplementary Order Paper proposes to delete the amendment that would remove these parliamentary powers.Let us look at why we might want to have public and parliamentary scrutiny maintained over foreign investment in New Zealand. Members of the public know that there has been deep concern over foreign purchase of residential homes for example. The right to restrict foreign investors from purchasing New Zealand residential homes would be essentially ruled out under the TPPA.But there are many other aspects of foreign investors that give rise to concern. The journalist Rod Oram wrote in an expert paper analysing the TPPA about the loss of control of agricultural value chains. The problem is that if we cede control over value chains in for example infant formula to foreign investment and foreign ownership then essentially New Zealand producers get locked into the role of low-value commodity production without the means of owning the full value chain and without the ability to be able to strategically direct New Zealand's future in agriculture value chains. This is a recipe for New Zealand to be locked into a low-value commodity - producing role in the economy.There are many other reasons why foreign investment may want to be restricted. For example in the episode when schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act was threatened to be opened up by the Government there was concern from industry that that would be restricting foreign investment. Industry said that the value that was locked up was $200 billion—a figure then repeated by the New Zealand Government. So the locking up" so to speak of mining assets that are in fact on conservation land could be the subject of challenges from foreign investors on the basis that it would restrict their access to New Zealand's resources. That is exactly the kind of restriction that we think the New Zealand public needs to have a voice on to ensure—[Bell rung] Mr Speaker. Thank you—sorry Mr Chair.There have been debates also over strategic assets such as Auckland Airport. There is public concern over the use of New Zealand's groundwater. There is public concern over the sale of agricultural land and iconic places. What we are seeing internationally is that agreements like the TPPA which introduce a mechanism such as investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) open up decisions of Government to challenge in an international arbitration panel that has shockingly bad judicial process. That is very dangerous because these decisions are being decided above Parliament. They are being decided above New Zealand's judiciary system. We are opening ourselves up to key issues that affect the functioning of democracy being decided in an international tribunal that can override our democratic processes.We look at some of the international cases. Some of them have mentioned by my colleagues but they have not talked about the most recent case where President Obama's Government is being sued over the Keystone XL pipeline carrying oil from tar sands off Alberta. It is being sued by TransCanada for US$15 billion. So we see the size of some of these agreements. We know that for example Occidental Petroleum took the Ecuadorean Government to ISDS and was awarded $2.3 billion over oil drilling in lands sensitive both for indigenous peoples and for ecological fragility. We have seen the case where Quebec is being sued by the US company Lone Pine Resources for $250 million over its moratorium on fracking. Because Quebec wanted to do further research on the implications of fracking on geology and the groundwater it was sued under ISDS for $250 million. These are the kinds of cases that New Zealand may well face under ISDS.We have heard previously that these cases have not yet occurred for New Zealand under agreements that we have already signed but the agreements that we have signed are with countries that are not nearly as litigious as the corporations from the countries we are about to sign the TPPA with. For example I do not think Brunei's corporations are about to take New Zealand to ISDS but the US corporations have been highly litigious in using mechanisms like ISDS to take countries like Canada to an international tribunal. Therefore under the TPPA we would not only be losing parliamentary oversight of foreign investment decisions and not only be delegating that to the Governor-General by Order in Council—which is a key loss of parliamentary scrutiny—but we would then be opening ourselves up to challenge by multinational corporations over decisions that were taken by this Parliament which could potentially cost New Zealand an enormous amount of money.I think what we have seen from the New Zealand public is a very loud "No" to this agreement. The most credible public opinion poll in November last year said that 60 percent of people who have an opinion on the TPPA reject the TPPA. That is 60 percent of the New Zealand public. People have been asking for a referendum on this agreement. This is a vitally important agreement for New Zealand's sovereignty. It is a vitally important agreement for our economic future for our right to regulate. I would say to Minister McClay that when he says that the right to regulate is protected he should read out the whole sentence which says: "We reserve the right to regulate except where it is inconsistent with this agreement." It is this kind of skating over the reality of this agreement that we have seen far too much of. I would say that this agreement should be rejected. The Green Party rejects it."