Locke Keith: General Debate 
Locke Keith: General Debate 
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KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party is opposed to New Zealand’s preferential trade agreement with China signed in Beijing this week. It makes little sense to reduce our tariffs to zero for products from the country we are least able to compete with. China is a very low-cost producer. Its factory owners spend very little on health and safety or good environmental practices. Wages are kept low by the absence of genuine trade unions. Our manufacturing sector and some of our service providers will find it difficult to survive such competition. 
The Greens are not against trade with China but we should recognise that we already have a big trade deficit with that country which is a major contributor to our overall trade deficit. If the consequences of the free-trade agreements we have signed with Singapore and Thailand are anything to go by the China free-trade agreement will only increase our trade deficit. Yes exports to those countries increased after the signing but there was more damage in the other direction—the trade gaps widened. 
It is true that New Zealand might sell more agricultural produce in China although it must be said that Fonterra is more interested in joint ventures with China rather than dairy sales for which there are already plenty of markets worldwide. But the gain in agricultural exports is likely to be greatly outweighed by increased imports here from China a further hollowing out of our manufacturing sector—reducing New Zealand’s overall export capacity—and growing capital outflows as Chinese firms take over more and more of the New Zealand economy. China has huge currency reserves that it can pour into taking over New Zealand firms and under this agreement any future New Zealand Government will have fewer lines of defence than we have now. 
Rather than the Government trying to decide for itself about a takeover as it is currently trying to do in relation to the bid by the Canada Pension Plan for Auckland International Airport New Zealand under this agreement will have to place its faith in the hands of some international arbitrators who usually come down on the side of the foreign investor. As we have seen with some other international arbitration under World Trade Organization rules environmental protections are often overridden as being protectionist. 
Human rights hardly get a look in in this agreement. It is bad enough that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Trade were in Beijing signing the agreement against the backdrop of Tibetan monks being shot in the streets which has seriously tarnished New Zealand’s image as a human rights advocate. 
The free-trade agreement’s memorandum of understanding on labour and environmental issues is little more than a joke. Those memoranda have no teeth. Occasionally officials from the two countries will have a chat about the issues. The labour issues memorandum is worse than that attached to the New Zealand - Thai free-trade agreement on which it is modelled. For example point 1.2 in the Thai memorandum which states that labour laws should be in harmony with internationally recognised labour rights has been replaced by a clause reinforcing China’s—and New Zealand’s—sovereign rights to set its own labour laws. The labour situation in China is pretty atrocious. It is not just that workers do not have the right to form genuine unions; there is also forced prison labour and child labour and a lack of political rights in the whole society which makes it very difficult for Chinese workers. 
The Greens are worried that the free-trade agreement quota for 1000 Chinese skilled workers to come here every year will undermine our wages and working conditions. There is a provision that in certain circumstances Chinese workers can come in with a lower qualification than do those of other nationalities currently getting work visas in that area. For example we do not want less qualified lower paid Chinese nurses coming here for up to 3 years. We do rightly have special Pacific access quotas for immigration from Polynesian nations but beyond that those coming in on work visas to help in areas of skill shortage should be non-racially selected. What is allowed in the China free-trade agreement is a bad precedent that has been rightly condemned in a press release by the Maritime Union. 
It certainly does not help Chinese workers struggling for more rights to see our Government from a liberal democracy cosying up to their rulers and being the first Western Government to give the Chinese Government a comprehensive preferential agreement. Our efforts should surely be to put the spotlight on human rights in China particularly Tibet in the lead-up to the Olympic Games. I think we have failed New Zealanders in signing this agreement. Thank you.