Reti Shane: Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeReti Shane: Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 12 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:11073. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will benefit New Zealanders and will benefit Māori. Listening to the many public submissions several themes came through and today I want to focus on one primarily; that is TPP and the impact on and for Māori. I want to discuss that under several headings: first of all Māori engagement and consultation Māori economic benefits and then Māori protections. As we look at specific TPP engagement and engagement with Māori engagement started way back in 2008 with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade when it put out public submissions. It also did the same in 2011. Back in 2008 Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporation was one of the first to reply to public submissions followed over the time with meetings with the Federation of Māori Authorities and Te Ohu Rata o Aotearoa. Specific TPP engagement clearly occurred with Māori but the ministry had wider engagement with the Māori business community which of course took into account TPP as well. In fact as part of that wider outreach programme the ministry had engagement with Miraka Ltd Tuarōpaki Ltd Sealord Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd Waikato Milking Systems Te Ohu Kaimoana Te Awanui Huka Pak Ltd Tainui Group Holdings Ngāi Tahu Holdings Corporation Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Te Tumu Paeroa—the Māori Trustee. Clearly a wide spread of Māori businesses were engaged in a general capacity with the ministry in quite a short time frame—between 2013 and 2015 so quite contemporaneously. So I would make the case that where we heard from some submitters that Māori engagement and consultation did not occur quite clearly it did.I want to move on to Māori economic benefits. Business and Economic Research Ltd’s Māori Economy Report 2013 commissioned by Te Puni Kōkiri valued the Māori asset base at $40 billion. Significant amounts of Māori assets are orientated towards the primary sector and the export sector; therefore Māori can expect to benefit from a free-trade agreement like this. In fact Māori own between 10 and 40 percent of key primary sectors including red meat dairy kiwifruit forestry and seafood. Māori will benefit from this free-trade agreement from tariff savings and from the other benefits that come from it.Turning to Māori protections the Treaty of Waitangi carve-out TPP Article 29.6 states in clause 1: “nothing in this agreement shall preclude the adoption by New Zealand of measures it deems necessary to accord more favourable treatment to Māori in respect of matters covered by this Agreement including in fulfilment of its obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi.” Clause 2 further goes on to say: “The Parties agree that the interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi including as to the nature of the rights and obligations arising under it shall not be subject to the dispute settlement provisions of this Agreement.”—that is investor-State dispute settlements. As we also look at further protections the Waitangi Tribunal looked at this agreement and made several statements. Its findings of course were generally in favour: “The Treaty of Waitangi Clause in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) should provide a reasonable degree of protection to Māori interests”—straight from the Waitangi Tribunal—and that “The inclusion of Treaty clauses in the TPPA and earlier trade agreements was to the credit of successive New Zealand Governments.” The Tribunal did note other issues I accept that but they made no findings against them.I have focused on just one part of the TPP primarily of importance to Māori and Māori are in a global context generally seeking distribution of assets and their own self-autonomy. To that end we had a submitter who said something quite poignant I thought. We heard him in Christchurch and it may not be his original quote but it is a good one so I want to quote it back: “Before you can distribute wealth you have to create wealth.” This agreement does that. This creates wealth it creates wealth for Māori it creates wealth for New Zealanders and I commend this bill to the House.