Mathers Mojo; Tisch LindsayMOJO MATHERS (Green): I rise to take a call on this bill. As it stands the Green Party is not supporting the bill and I want to take the opportunity to outline some of our concerns. So from our perspective what we see this bill doing is weakening current protection for local New Zealand producers and manufacturers under the guise of public interest. What we already have is an Act that as it stands provides some protection for when goods are imported that are way cheaper than locally produced goods because they are heavily subsidised by Governments overseas in their country of origin or because they are being dumped here at a price that is well below what they are selling for in their country of origin. Both of these situations do not create a level playing field for New Zealand businesses and that is recognised as such by the World Trade Organization. It thought that the existing Act and the existing duties that are in place under this Act are compliant with the World Trade Organization rules.So the question would be why we would want to allow it to be possible for heavily subsidised goods or for goods to be dumped here in New Zealand. Why would we do that? We know from international experience that the practice of dumping very low-priced goods on to local markets can have far-reaching and highly damaging long-term consequences for local economies and sometimes they can take time to eventuate. This is because there are very few industries that are able to withstand the impact of dumped products flooding the market. In the long term it is not in the public or national strategic interest to allow local industries to be undermined in this way. It is actually anti-competitive practice these kinds of things.Once we have lost manufacturing expertise in a particular area it can be very difficult to re-establish that at a later date when that particular product that had been dumped is no longer available at rock-bottom prices. So for example the Hawke's Bay Fruitgrowers Association has warned that peach growers in Hawke's Bay are likely to have to pull out their trees and get out of the business if extremely cheap canned peaches from Greece and Spain are allowed to be here. At the moment there is a duty on them; they cannot be dumped here. But if they are allowed in the consumer interest of allowing people to have extremely cheap peaches then what that could mean is that we undermine the peach growing industry in Hawke's Bay. If they have to pull out their trees they are very unlikely to reinvest and plant the trees and wait 5 years for them to start producing fruit again at a cost to the economy.At the moment the peach industry in the Hawke's Bay region contributes $15 million to Hawke's Bay and employs thousands of people. We could put all of that at risk for short-term consumer interest. But in the long term when the peach trees are wiped out and gone and then suddenly maybe there are no longer rock-bottom priced peaches available all the way from Greece and Spain we could have a shortage. It is not in our national long-term interest to allow these sorts of situations to happen. Why would we risk sabotaging a viable industry that contributes so much to the region for the sake of short-term consumer interest? We will be looking very carefully in the select committee at what this public interest test is and how this will be implemented and we will be asking whether there is any question of things like the peach industry being put at risk by changing the Dumping and Countervailing Duties Act in this way.As we push out these alternative manufacturers and producers what we end up doing is concentrating all our economic eggs in one basket more and more into dairying. We already have an economy that dangerously relies on and is vulnerable to the ups and downs of dairying. The last thing we need to do is to undermine other viable industries that are currently viable. We also need to remind ourselves that cheaper is not always better especially when it comes to building or construction materials. Poor-quality materials can threaten people's safety and homes. That was all too evident recently when 1600 tonnes of steel from China was found to be too weak for the bridges in the Huntly bypass project.It was interesting to see the legal commentary from Chapman Tripp that pointed out there is no reason in principle why anti-dumping duties could not continue for as long as injurious dumping or a subsidisation is occurring. If that is occurring overseas then let us keep the playing field as level as we can. I think it was interesting noting that officers have already acknowledged that adding a new public interest test will make the Act more complicated to enforce reduce the overall effectiveness of the New Zealand anti-dumping regime and make things much more uncertain in the long term about how it is going to be and how the process is going to play out. So I actually really want to know exactly what the problem is that this bill is trying to fix.A couple of speakers have mentioned that the mechanism to justify allowing imported building materials to be dumped in the New Zealand market is a mechanism for somehow making building houses cheaper. But we only have to look at either the Huntly expressway or the leaky building fiasco to see where a race to the bottom can lead us. We do not want that scenario to be repeated. Opening our market to dirt-cheap imported goods is somehow supposed to be a solution to the housing crisis. In our view it is an inadequate solution that risks creating more problems than it solves and shows a lack of ideas for how to make sure that New Zealanders have a roof over their heads and is a grasping at other mechanisms. What the Green Party would do—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 10 p.m.