Browning Steffan: Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 15 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:18057. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I want to principally talk to Part 3 of the Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill. Again I am speaking up for the owners of small and medium sized businesses who will be impacted. Some will go out of business because of this bill. These are the ones who are not the big companies like Winstone Aggregates or Fletcher Building or others which the paperwork around the bill suggests will be able to adjust. Yes they will adjust because they have got the sheer bulk and size. In fact instead of being manufacturers they will end up being theimporters that will knock out some of the small businesses that I am particularly concerned about.We have had a discussion around the forestry sector but we need to be doing value adding for our forestry sector too. The logs that I see out my window on the wharf of Wellington heading off could be being processed and value added in New Zealand. This bill in part puts even more pressure on those who would do that value adding. It actually puts more pressure on them to the point that they will go out of existence. New Zealanders will lose jobs because of this bill. They will not be losing jobs just at businesses like Winstone Aggregates; they will be losing jobs out of unique businesses doing very skilled work—cabinet makers door makers window frame makers.There is another aspect too and that is around insulation. Being here with a primary production focus I am interested in fibre as well. More and more we are seeing a move towards wool and natural fibres rather than fibreglass batts. This bill does nothing to support the natural products that our sheep producers can be part of producing. It pushes back against that initiative too. Wool is a healthier better product but it will be priced out of existence for most New Zealanders. For $3500 for a new home I do not think that the bill is worth it. It is not worth it.What the Government could be doing is supporting those New Zealand businesses to innovate and to tool up to be able to compete in the areas that they want to. There are businesses in Christchurch—and I spoke to one as I said earlier—that have actually tooled up to help with this need that the Government has at last recognised in Christchurch. New Zealand businesses can come to the party and they can be helped to come to the party.But what has this Government done? It has just opened up the borders and said: “Come on in it doesn’t matter.” There is no recognition of a border here. There is no recognition of fairness. If something comes in from one of these other countries will we be looking to see the wage structure and the conditions of the workers where it was produced? Will we be looking to see the environmental impacts where it was being manufactured? No we will not. We will just be looking at that bare-bone price and saying “That’s great. We’ve got competition and we’ve got cheap commodity products coming into this country.” We will be worse off for this because of the nature of this bill.I do recognise the need to look at big businesses when they are rorting the system and ripping off New Zealanders big time but there are other ways of doing it than this which actually costs us throughout. The Greens support aspects of the initiatives in here for sure but we do not support anything that is going to go against a fair trade and reasonable conditions for our businesses and our workers. So on this part of the bill or the third bill when it is divided we will be opposing it. Thank you.