Groser Tim: Tariff (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Groser Tim: Tariff (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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TIM GROSER (National) 
: 
 I rise also to support the bill. The mood in the Committee tonight is understandably a little lethargic but I would suggest that that is actually something that from a broader perspective we should welcome because it just reflects the fact that there is broad consensus politically. It is not complete consensus—we have heard the Green Party’s view once again—but it is very broad consensus in New Zealand society on the bill and on the principles and philosophy that underlie it. 
I am sure that many members at least of my generation will know that had we had this debate which envisages comprehensive free trade into New Zealand 25 years ago we would have had anything but a lethargic debate. In fact it would have been a very bitter debate and we might well have found once again the two main parties agreeing with each other but for precisely the opposite reasons for which we stand here tonight. 
I am new to Parliament and I was a little surprised when I got to work this morning to find a message from the whips saying that I was expected to speak on the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement. I thought that maybe they had the date wrong because I gave a speech last night. I thought: “Well I have two options.” One ignores the whip at one’s peril of course. 
Hon Member 
: A terrifying whip. 
TIM GROSER 
: Oh a terrifying whip. One option was to give the same speech which would bore everybody but most important would bore my own self to death. The other option was to try to find a new twist to it. 
I have been provoked. I have just received an anonymous note. I know where it comes from—it is not from my side of the Chamber. It states: “Are you going to subject us to heavy foreign policy thinkers every Wednesday night?”. So I have been provoked into that and if this brief analysis is a little abstract or a little pointy-headed that is my justification—I have been provoked into this. 
I talked about the strategy last night. Tonight I want to talk about the political and economic theory behind the strategy. 
Dianne Yates 
: Oh no! 
TIM GROSER 
: Yes—I have been provoked. The first thing to recognise is that these agreements—there are some 300-plus around the world—are actually a relatively modern phenomenon. If we go back to 1980 we find that essentially there was only one important agreement of this type and it was the European Union. 
We in New Zealand and Australia had another deeply flawed agreement the New Zealand - Australia Free Trade Agreement which I talked about last night but that type of agreement was not the weapon of choice as it is today. The reason for that is that all countries and most important the United States were firmly wedded to the theory that the multilateral option was the best way. There were two underlying principles of political economy behind that calculation which are quite valid in fact. One was the economic theory of trade diversion and the other was the political theory of discrimination. 
Of course New Zealand as a very small country would always want to source its imports from the lowest-cost source which is the issue of trade diversion. And as a small country with very little political leverage internationally we would also be very concerned about this type of mechanism in terms of discrimination because if we were not invited to the party we might not be invited to dance. But in the 1980s that changed abruptly when the United States sick of the lack of progress in the multilateral arena said it would no longer refuse to enter into bilateral agreements. 
The process has accelerated from there and in the meantime the European Union which in its original form I would categorise as having been the most pernicious of all of those agreements is in the process of radically reforming itself into a much more multilateral-friendly policy instrument. When we look at the original community we see that it was a political vision inspired by those two great thinkers Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman who wanted to stop the European tribal wars which had involved this country. We paid twice for those tribal wars. We paid in blood in 1914 and in 1939 and then we paid afterwards in terms of our trade. Although special arrangements were made for New Zealand they were vastly inadequate to protect us from the flaws in an agreement of that type—admittedly a customs union but not a free-trade area. 
We have moved in the last 15 years towards somewhat better alternatives. The bill is an example of those and we very much support it.