Locke Keith: Tariff (New Zealand - Thailand Closer Economic Partnership) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Locke Keith: Tariff (New Zealand - Thailand Closer Economic Partnership) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21402] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party has an amendment to clause 4 to insert after the words “being the produce or manufacture of Thailand” the words “whose product processing complies with core International Labour Organisation Conventions”. If we look at the treaty upon which this bill is based and that it is supposed to implement we see references to ILO conventions. Associated with the treaty are arrangements between Thailand and New Zealand on labour and the environment. The problem is that although the words that both New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand are to sign up to are very nice there is no actual implementation other than that if we have a disagreement we have another talk then another committee then another talk. There is no actual implementation which is why the statement from the Council of Trade Unions that I mentioned before stated that it was not an enforceable or meaningful process to address breaches of core ILO conventions. I think that is the case and it is the reason why we should put in the bill that we reserve the right if the tariff is to be lifted or if a preferential tariff is to be applied that Thailand at least has to meet those core ILO standards. 
There is a problem. Thailand signed up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its follow-up and it is true that there is at least one ILO convention that Thailand has signed up to—the ILO Convention 138 Concerning the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment relating to not using child labour but in wandering around the sweatshops in Bangkok one will see that people do not exactly adhere to that convention. There is quite a bit of corruption in Thailand and Government officials do not actually implement ILO conventions. Then there are some other ILO conventions like the right to collective bargaining that I understand Thailand has not signed up to. There is a very low rate of unionisation in Thailand partly because of that and partly because union organisers in some factories in Thailand may not last very long on the job; they are just put out of the door. Sometimes there are just what are called “disappearances”: people just disappear and the authorities do not do much about it if one goes to them. In fact the authorities are sometimes tied up with the people who are exploiting the workers and they are keeping the unions out or are employing child labour. That is the reality. 
Even Nike a company that has a big international reputation to protect in terms of its production of footwear subcontracted out to an Austrian-owned firm in Bangkok to produce its shoes but even there union organisers were pushed from the jobs. Demonstrations took place in Thailand and I think there was even one in New Zealand supporting the workers. However the workers did not really get anywhere because in Thailand there are no real enforcement provisions for labour laws. So the least we could do is to put in our legislation the amendments such as those that the Green Party has proposed. That would at least give us control over the situation. One of the Labour members talked about the theory of comparative advantage in trade— 
Dail Jones 
: David Cunliffe. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: Yes it was David Cunliffe. He is one of the ideologues of free trade on that side of the Chamber with the theory that somehow there is this law of comparative advantage that there are some things people in each country are good at that they will export nicely and that Thailand will develop nicely as an economy because of that. But it does not take into account the reality that in Thailand the minimum wage is NZ$0.77 an hour. So it is not a question of what New Zealand workers are good at and what Thai workers are good at; New Zealand workers are quite good at textile manufacture but they are out-competed.