Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. Thank you. I'm pleased to take a short call for the Green Party on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Legislation Bill. I also note an element of irony that the Hon Todd McClay was talking about Ministers spending a lot of time overseas in the interests of New Zealand exporters and yet the National Party has criticised the Hon James Shaw for going overseas to represent New Zealand and get a decent climate agreement. Somehow trade agreements are more important than climate agreements. That's certainly something I don't agree with. I also like to acknowledge Golriz Ghahraman the Green spokesperson on global affairs and trade in lockdown in Auckland who would normally be speaking on this bill. To make it very clear: the Green Party supports trade. We are a small island nation. Trade is a crucial generator of our economic wellbeing. We need to import a whole heap of things that we don't manufacture here—from electric vehicles to medicines personal protective gear—and we benefit from that bigger global market for the food fibre and other products that we produce. Half the jobs in Aotearoa New Zealand are in the tradable sector and as the Minister noted our trade has been really critical to New Zealand's economic performance in relation to COVID. The Greens want trade that is fair that is inclusive and that is sustainable. We want trade rules that protect and allow us to reinforce our climate commitments workers' rights human rights and Te Tiriti o Waitangi; not agreements or trade rules which cut across those. The Trade for All agenda which the Greens have engaged with does have a basis for a new way of negotiating these agreements but it's unfortunate that there are very few of the principles in the Trade for All agenda which are reflected in the RCEP agreement. And it's critical that we move to that new way of negotiating agreements and the provisions in them because as the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (CPTPPA) and the massive demonstrations around the world and here in Aotearoa showed there is no public confidence in agreements which are negotiated in secret where you've got big corporate interests having access to the negotiators in a way that the public doesn't have where those who aren't participating have to rely on leaked texts rather than a transparent way of negotiating. So that sort of an arrangement does not provide a basis for public confidence. This RCEP agreement which is across a region covering almost a third of the world's population and a region which takes more than half of our exports—because India has withdrawn we don't get the market access there because India saw some of the disadvantages of this agreement. The major benefits therefore because we already have free-trade agreements with a number of our trading partners in the region will potentially be in the non-tariff areas—areas like the more consistent rules for customs so that for our perishable products like horticultural goods flowers seafood there's a commitment to move them on within six hours of being landed so that those are fresh when they go to market.The Green Party opposes this bill for a number of reasons. The type of economic growth which trade agreements have encouraged to date is not sustainable either in an environmental or a social sense. You've got a very complex range of chapters so there are very complex trade-offs which impact on Government. In her submission to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee law professor Dr Jane Kelsey quoted the Asia-Pacific arm of the International Trade Union Conference and they said of RCEP and I quote the RCEP [will] hinder our efforts to build back better after COVID-19 towards a sustainable inclusive and resilient world by escalating the division of labour in global supply chains privatisation of essential services and the dominance of corporation on our governments. Public services as well as the government's ability to regulate in the interest of [our] people would be weakened. Therefore the agreement is clearly against our prosperity in future." So there's nothing in this agreement which guarantees any benefits to small and medium enterprise to indigenous peoples to women or to workers. Yes there is the standard Te Tiriti o Waitangi carve-out but the Waitangi Tribunal has highlighted that that is not adequate and Government needs to go further. The Greens oppose it because there is no chapter on environmental rights. In terms of our criticisms of the CPTPPA we criticised that because the language in it around environmental issues wasn't able to be enforced in the same way that the chapters were that protected the privileges and rights of investors. Here Aotearoa New Zealand when the negotiations started in 2012 did seek to include a stand-alone environment chapter but the other 15 countries—there couldn't be agreement on that so there wasn't the stand-alone chapter. So we have only passing references to environmental issues. Certainly there are some reservations to protect our ability to regulate for our own domestic environmental objectives to manage our exclusive economic zone conservation areas biosecurity and food safety but we only have a really weak promise from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade that they will continue to seek outcomes for trade and the environment in its ongoing trade policy work across the region. No commitments to actually seek to strengthen environmental objectives and the environmental rules around trade so that we're not impacting on nature.So yes this doesn't include the heinous investor-State dispute resolution clauses which have been so problematic in other agreements; yes we can still use the Overseas Investment Act to screen overseas purchases of New Zealand land and assets; but this whole thing around the investor-State dispute resolution procedures—that is the only one of the Trade for All principles that has made it through into this agreement. So this whole lack of a commitment to strengthening international rules to protect nature to protect workers' rights to protect the rights of indigenous peoples to better safeguard Te Tiriti o Waitangi—that is missing and those are some of the reasons why the Green Party is opposing it and finally because there's been no public or public sector input. Certainly there's been an examination in retrospect by the select committee but no public input into the negotiations no transparency around the drafts so no ability really to ensure that it was in the wider public interest so the Greens oppose this bill."