Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I want to address the issue of Vote Foreign Affairs and Trade and particularly to focus on trade. In the report back from the select committee it records that the Government is trying to convince this Parliament to vote $20 million extra over the next 4 years towards trade. Why would we do that for a Government that is failing so abysmally on trade?I am going to recount some of the disastrous performances on trade that we have had from this Government which 8½—close to 9—years ago was elected on a platform of increasing exports from 30 to 40 percent of GDP. It has gone backwards—26 percent this year. To the end of its Budget forecast it gets to 28 percent—still less than the 30 percent when it took over. The Government is so far away from its ambition to raise exports to 40 percent of GDP that its members do not even talk about it. They say they have not dropped it but there is no reference at all in this select committee report.What is there reference too? Well it says it is going to have this new target: Trade Agenda 2030"—never-never land again—"launched earlier in 2017 sets a target of about 90 percent of New Zealand's merchandised exports to be covered by free-trade agreements by 2030." Do you know how they will do that in the National Government? It will drop exports. That is what it has done in respect of its last target. That might get it to 90 percent—what a meaningless target. You could drop exports and meet your target of 90 percent of them being covered by a free-trade agreement. It is a nonsense target and those members have only picked it because they are so embarrassed about their pathetic performance on trade.What are some of the individual components? What is happening with our trade agreements? Well Korea what did the Government do there? Oh that is right it gave away the right of a future New Zealand Government to ban South Korean purchases of New Zealand houses when South Korea retains that same right for itself and when Australia the prior year retained that right for itself in its agreement with South Korea.Hon Member: That's not true.Hon DAVID PARKER: It is true—it is true.Paul Foster-Bell: What about stamp duties?Hon DAVID PARKER: You should have read them. You should have read the agreements because Mr Foster-Bell it may be that your last record in Hansard is as incompetent as some of the earlier ones. It is true that you had that one-sided deal with Korea.What about the Gulf Cooperation Council? You know this is the one—the Saudi sheep deal where you know the National Government wasted $10 million paying off a Saudi sheikh—as described by the Auditor-General. What has happened there? That deal is dead in the water. Qatar one of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries is you know on the outer with the other countries at the moment and yet that is one of the things the select committee Government members report on as to how Gulf country trade could be going to improve. The Gulf agreement is nowhere to be seen.What about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? TPP—dead in the water.Todd Muller: Oh you need to be more optimistic.Hon DAVID PARKER: I need to be more optimistic! Well look you know "Pollyanna" there on the other side—actually Pollyanna has hair. Sorry—ha ha!Korea TPP Gulf Cooperation Council exports down as a percentage of GDP compared with a target of going up—and those members have the audacity to come here and tell New Zealand taxpayers they want another $20 million over the next 4 years to do more of the same. I think the performance of this Government on trade is absolutely poor and part of the problem is that this Government causes investment in the economy to go to the wrong parts of the economy. Per capita GDP in New Zealand is down. Productivity in New Zealand per person is going down—why? Because we spend far too much money bidding up house prices in Auckland and those extra billions of dollars that are being invested in existing houses—not new houses; existing houses in Auckland—are not being applied to the businesses that grow new jobs and new exports and productivity. That is why this $20 million if this Government is re-elected will be wasted because—"