Groser Tim: Tariff (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Groser Tim: Tariff (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2119] 
TIM GROSER (National) 
: 
 I was unaware until recently of course that there was a brand new procedure when we moved into the Committee stage whereby one could take a second call—I am like a kid with a new toy. I was explaining before that I was goaded into making a presentation on the strategy and on the intellectual foundations of the theory behind the strategy. When I saw Michael Cullen come into the Chamber a distinguished New Zealand economic historian I was goaded for the second time to want to take the floor and carry on in that theme. 
In respect of the first of the landmark departures from the multilateral process the European Union used a customs union rather than a free-trade area approach. The European Union set the whole strategic concept off on the wrong footing from the very start for precisely the reason that it incorporated the concept of the community preference as the very foundation stone of the European Union. If one goes back to the mid-1980s the period when Margaret Thatcher would arrive in Europe waving her handbag and demanding her money back— 
Darren Hughes 
: Why don’t you ask for your handbag back? 
TIM GROSER 
: No I never ask for my handbag back. I am quite comfortable in the space I am in actually. 
One must remember that in the mid-1980s the European Union was not much more than a shonky system of agricultural subsidies. Approximately 70 percent of the entire budget for the European Commission was spent on agricultural subsidies. I recall very well that at that point the Europeans would ask people like me what else we could expect and say the subsidies were the glue that kept Europe together. In a sense they were correct. Twenty years ago that was all that the European Union was. It depended entirely upon a shonky system of agricultural subsidies to hold together a fledgling European Union. 
The main point is that it has moved on from that point. From about 1988 and 1989 when the European Union moved into the European economic space when it came across the concept of the single economic market and when it adopted the euro and put aside the German mark and the French franc—monetary instruments that had stood for 1000 years or more—it was in a position to move forward with the economic agenda in a far more comprehensive way than previously. Therefore it was not nearly as dependent on what I said before was “a shonky system of agricultural subsidies”. The reform of the Common Agricultural Policy which was initiated in its first serious form by Fritz Gundelach and followed through by a series of commissioners subsequently was in fact made possible by those broader shifts. 
So now we are now seeing—and this is a very important strategic function of agreements of this type—the most important agreement of them all the European Union return to its original political origins which were to be an instrument for peace and democracy. As the union spreads from the original six to nine 12 15 and now to 25 members I see that as being a very positive force for New Zealand. I think we will see in the future an environment that will suit New Zealand’s interests both politically and culturally— 
Eric Roy 
: Take another call. 
TIM GROSER 
: I am being encouraged to take yet another call which I will certainly try to get away with. The future that lies ahead of us in terms of our relationship with the European Union will be a very much happier one than it was in the past quarter of a century. What does that mean for the whole concept of free-trade areas and customs unions? Well I wish to run the clock down here so I will try to be as extensive as I can. The main point is that the United States started to shift its policy into those reciprocal free-trade agreements and closer economic partnerships. 
I have a small problem with the term “closer economic partnership”; it is a Labour concept that is politically correct. We are not allowed to have wives—we have partners—so we are not allowed to have free-trade areas. 
Darren Hughes 
: That is not what the member’s biography states. 
TIM GROSER 
: I have specialised a little in that area myself and I think one or two Government members have not been far from me in it. The point is that there is a substantive point behind the term “partnership”. It is not just about frontier policies that we are trying to harmonise and move forward together; it is also about a series of policies that lie behind the frontier. The new-model trade agreements—and this is a reasonably good example of one—are very well suited to exploiting further advantage from those economic cooperation agreements.