Sutton Jim: Tariff (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Sutton Jim: Tariff (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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Hon JIM SUTTON (Associate Minister for Trade Negotiations) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Trade 
: 
 I move  
That the Tariff (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. This bill amends New Zealand’s domestic legislation to enable it to become party to the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement a four-way economic partnership between New Zealand Chile Singapore and Brunei Darussalam. Membership of this partnership is open to other nations in the Asia-Pacific region and I predict that a number will indeed seek to join it. 
The agreement is a treaty that liberalises and facilitates trade in goods and services improves the business environment and promotes cooperation on a broad range of economic ideas of mutual interest to all four countries. It establishes a free-trade area that spans the Pacific and joins Latin America South-east Asia and New Zealand and in doing so will open up new opportunities for New Zealand exporters. Passage of this bill will enable New Zealand to ratify the agreement. The agreement will enter into force 30 days after ratification by at least two of the four signatories. 
Initial tariff cuts will take place when the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement comes into force for a party. In the case of Chile this will result in the immediate elimination of tariffs on 89 percent of current New Zealand exports to Chile. All remaining tariffs on exports to Chile will be phased out by 2017. Brunei will bind at zero tariffs covering 92 percent of New Zealand’s exports to Brunei with the remaining tariffs eliminated by 2015. Tariffs between New Zealand and Singapore are already zero under the existing New Zealand – Singapore closer economic partnership agreement. 
To help secure these gains on trade in goods the trans-Pacific agreement contains rules governing the free-trade area. These include rules to determine which goods qualify for tariff preferences as well as rules to counter unfair trade. It also includes broad coverage of services which will make it easier for New Zealand service providers to operate and compete in the markets of Chile Singapore and Brunei. The agreement meets the Government’s aims in entering negotiations for closer economic partnerships: of providing newer opportunities for exporters and guarding against erosion of benefits to New Zealand exporters from preferences afforded to third parties. The framing of the services commitments in the agreement provides legal certainty and transparency for New Zealand services exporters while retaining New Zealand’s ability to protect sensitive sectors such as social services water and marine resources. 
Successful completion of this agreement also serves the objective of wider trade liberalisation within the APEC region as a whole. As the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee noted in its report to the House under the treaty examination procedures the agreement serves New Zealand’s objectives of broadening relations with Latin America and Asia as well as promoting New Zealand’s wider trade policy interests in APEC and multilaterally. The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement is important therefore for what it can deliver economically for New Zealand and also for its contribution to our strategic trade objectives. The Government’s confidence in the agreement is shared by a wide range of New Zealand businesses and industry groups and by educational and scientific institutions who have publicly welcomed the successful negotiation of the agreement and are looking forward to its entry into force. 
Finally I want to acknowledge and thank members opposite for the broad support the Government’s trade negotiations efforts receive in the House. Our prosperity as a nation and our ability to pay for the lifestyles and social services that are so important to us as New Zealanders are very much dependent on our ability to sell our goods and services and compete on the world market. New Zealand needs global trade rules that allow us to compete on a level playing field on our own merits and on the quality of our products and innovations—a playing field not distorted by subsidies and trade barriers that are not only economically damaging but also promote wasteful and environmentally unsustainable practices. 
The ultimate goal supported by the vast majority of members across the House is the conclusion of comprehensive global trade agreements through the World Trade Organization. The successful completion of high-quality free-trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement provides invaluable impetus towards that ultimate goal by demonstrating and modelling a commitment to the principles of free trade that stretches right across the Pacific. Ratification of this agreement once again demonstrates New Zealand’s credentials as a forward-looking open economy and a progressive free-trade partner. I commend the bill to the House.