Hayes John: New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement Bill — In Committee 
Hayes John: New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:17368] 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 I am now speaking on Part 5 “Amendments to Electricity Act 1992”. This is very similar to—it is almost a mirror of—Part 3 which deals with radiocommunications but this part clearly influences issues around electrical machinery. The point of it is to create regulation-making powers to enable legal action to be taken against persons who do not fulfil the requirements of international obligations while purporting to do so and to provide for the seizure sealing or impounding of products in cases of non-compliance with the requirements of the two Acts. This also operates through an Order in Council and surely my colleagues in New Zealand First United Future the Green Party and the Maori Party would understand that it is in the interest of New Zealand consumers of electrical products— 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: We’re in favour of the bill. 
JOHN HAYES 
: —sorry; I thought the member’s party was voting against it—and exporters of those products to have that legal safeguard.  
As my colleague Mr Groser has pointed out we are dealing here with a tier-two issue. The trade remedies section of the free-trade agreement has preserved New Zealand’s rights to apply safeguard measures within the World Trade Organization’s umbrella arrangement. That allows either China or New Zealand to address situations where serious injury to a domestic industry is caused by increased exports due for example to reductions in a tariff or non-tariff barrier. China already has a very significant share of our export market and our import market and the drops in our trading barriers really since the mid-1980s have meant that none of the provisions in this bill will have a significant impact on small to medium-sized businesses in New Zealand. So I think there are really significant strategic gains for our country to be had from the adoption of Part 5 and the legislation in it.  
I really urge my colleagues in the Green Party to think about what they are voting against here. They are actually voting against the interests of New Zealand companies and New Zealand citizens. Why would they do that? New Zealand citizens elected them to come here to this Parliament to represent their interests. I cannot see that in a technical matter like this those members can possibly vote against what is being suggested.  
The technical cooperative mechanisms will be needed to minimise the impact of regulations on trade and this process will also enable dialogue between our countries. Both countries will get a much better understanding of arrangements between them because they will have mechanisms for discussing issues that may be concerning them. So I think that Part 5 is effectively a mechanism that will reduce transaction costs for our merchandise trade because both countries will harmonise their requirements or make their requirements the same. In the process of recognising an equivalence of the other party’s technical regulations our regulations and the Chinese regulations will become the same. That conformity between our two countries has to be good; it actually has to be to the benefit of our communities.  
I think that Part 5 provides a particularly good example of that second-tier benefit to our community and I urge the Green Party the Maori Party and the New Zealand First Party to support this part of the bill even if they cannot support the overall concept of the free-trade agreement. Thank you.