Yates Dianne: Tariff (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Yates Dianne: Tariff (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:630;Page:1997] 
DIANNE YATES (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the Tariff (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) Amendment Bill and I want to thank the previous speaker for his comments and the support of the National Party for this legislation. It is an interesting process because the actual legislation is only about a page long. It is the culmination of a treaty-making process. The amount of time spent on the bill by the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee was very short indeed—in fact it was just one meeting—with the reason being that the bill is the culmination of several years of work as Dr Lockwood Smith has just pointed out. A lot of hard work was done by a number of people over a period of time so perhaps the more important debate was the debate we had on the national interest analysis some weeks ago in this House when we looked at the submissions from members of the public and the statements in the national interest analysis. In fact the committee reported the bill back to the House in one sentence and referred to that analysis. 
The bill as we have seen amends the Tariff Act 1988 to enable the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement to be brought into force. That is why it is such a short bill and why it will not take up a great deal of time in the House. As has been pointed out that agreement has been signed by Brunei Darussalam Chile New Zealand and Singapore. I wish to thank the Hon Jim Sutton for the work he has done on this agreement for the Hon Phil Goff and I also thank the Hon Annette King for the contribution she made today. I also thank all the officials involved in the whole process throughout the period of time spent both on the bill and on the national interest analysis. So a big “Thank you” goes to those involved in getting this bill back to the House in a timely fashion and in particular I thank the members of the select committee who have worked very well together in bringing that about. 
We have talked about the importance of this agreement to New Zealand’s economic growth prospects over a period of time. We have also pointed out that this is the first agreement with a Latin American country and it is New Zealand’s first multiparty agreement spanning the Asia-Pacific region as Dr Lockwood Smith just pointed out. We have noted that the majority of the members on the select committee were in favour and that there was one opinion against from the Green Party. That has been referred to in the report back and especially in the report back on the national interest statement. 
The committee has noted that the agreement is not expected to have discernibly negative social effects and that there are no adverse cultural effects although there were some questions about that. In particular on the national interest analysis it was reported back by us that we were aware that in the creative areas an exclusion was inserted to clarify that New Zealand could take action to support creative art of national value. The provision has several caveats ensuring that it does not constitute an exclusion for the creative industry sector but we noted that National Party members had a minority opinion on that section. 
When we considered the national interest analysis we noted also that there were only three submissions. Two of those submitters were concerned about the risk contained in the negative list. I will read from our report back to the House: “The negative list approach means that if a service sector is not listed in the services schedule then it is bound by the national treatment market access and most favoured nation obligations. The point was raised that these commitments will apply even if the list contains errors if new technologies alter the way services are delivered or if market failures require the government to re-regulate. Further it was suggested that the ratchet clauses may have negative repercussions by allowing the Government to introduce policies that could not subsequently be reversed.” We were assured and we understand that the negative list has been framed to ensure that future Governments can adopt restrictions in far more sectors than our laws currently require and we were also assured that New Zealand is more likely to benefit from that provision than to suffer from it. 
We point out that as there were only three submissions on the national interest analysis the committee did not call for submissions on the bill itself. The national interest analysis included a huge number of submissions and the whole issue had been taken around the country through an extensive consultation and communication programme. One of the people who came to the select committee said that there had not been enough time to look at the analysis. I wonder how much time some people need when they have actually had years to look at some of these provisions. The consultation programme on the national interest analysis included everybody from trade unions to Maori authorities to chambers of commerce and there are many pages that list people who are considered to have had input. So the select committee felt that the complaint about lack of time was not warranted in that case. 
We commend this bill on its second reading. We look forward to its speedy passage through the other stages in the House and to the final ratification of the treaty.