Shearer David: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 18 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16054. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): I would like to take a brief call on the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill. I just want to pick up where the Hon Maryan Street just finished off which is to do with the time it has taken for this bill to come before the House and to be considered here at the Committee stage. We are talking about the transitional measures in this part of the bill Part 2 and the transition that it has taken since 2009.I was looking back overHansardand reflecting on the progress of this bill and saw the name of Simon Power who obviously belonged to a different era of this Parliament. He was a very fine Minister of Justice and gave an outstanding closing speech when he left this Parliament—one of the best that I have ever heard. But it just goes to show how long it has taken for this bill to in fact come to the House and be considered.This bill has got the support of the Labour Party. Of course it has got the support of the Labour Party—we actually devised it. The Hon Lianne Dalziel did that well back in 2008. I will not go on about who has been trying to shepherd this bill through and the unfortunate circumstances in which Mr Banks has delayed this bill being brought forward. But the idea of this bill as it is set out in both clause 1 and clause 2 is to promote efficient transparent and objective investigative and decision-making processes around our imports. It upgrades or updates legislation that dates right back to 1987 during a Labour Government. It has not been updated since then and it is obviously well overdue. It helps us to be compliant with the World Trade Organization’s regulations as well.The current regime as we know is subject to the Temporary Safeguard Authorities Act 1987. That is the Act that I was just talking about. It needed that comprehensive review. I have to say that I acknowledge the good work of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee in being able to consider this and for the way that it has been able to come to some consensus around it particularly with the temporary safeguard measures contained in Part 2.There has been a very small number of investigations over that period of time. Remember the whole purpose of this bill and these safeguards is to ensure that we do not see dumping and undermining of our industries. We are a free-trading nation—everybody knows that. We support free trade. It is my honour to be sitting beside Phil Goff who signed the most important free-trade agreement in New Zealand’s history which is the China free-trade agreement. If this Government is able to follow that template we will be well served by free-trade agreements into the future.That free-trade agreement has meant that a $5 billion value of imports into this country from China and a $3 billion value of exports to China just in 2008 have now led to $7 billion each way—$7 billion each way. That is a 100 percent increase and China has become the most important trading nation to New Zealand. So we need to be able to move and ensure that we not only have a free-trade environment but also put in place the protections that enable our industries here to have protection from that uncontrolled dumping and the type of activity that might undermine our industries keeping in mind that we are obviously a free-trading nation as well.So the Temporary Safeguard Authorities Act 1987 needed to be replaced with a modern regime to avoid harm being caused to New Zealand industries from rapid increases in imports in this sort of dumping. The ability to impose separate provisional and final safeguard duties will allow us to do this efficiently and effectively through one Government department which was going to be the Ministry of Economic Development but is contained now within the great “gigantosaurus” of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment under Steven Joyce.The current legislation does not contain at the moment any guidance on what constitutes public interest and what sort of impact might constitute a need for action to be taken. The one purpose of this bill contained in Part 1 but which obviously transfers into the second part as well does do that. It gives us a much more clear understanding of the process that we need to follow so that what is contained in the bill is in the public interest. As I said it also shifts the responsibility for undertaking these safeguard investigations from the Ministry of Economic Development and obviously puts them within the context of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. The bill will therefore create a single Government point of contact for all the trade remedy inquiries and I think it will be a plus an advantage for our many commercial concerns and businesses to know that they have one single point of expertise and oversight that will govern this.The bill also extends the time frame for the completion of the safeguard investigation from 30 days to 75 working days or even out to 85 working days. That is a positive step. It means that it falls in line with the World Trade Organization dispute settlement body and it helps to clarify the obligations that must be dealt with before safeguard measures can be imposed. It gives us the time to do a thorough and a good job rather than try to hurry it through and not be able to come to that conclusion properly. I believe that this bill is something that will be of great advantage—