O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am not sure whether to be appalled or entertained; I am sort of vacillating between the two. The farcical attempts at reason and logic here tonight have been relatively astounding. Actually there has been only eloquence from this side particularly from my colleague Paul Foster-Bell. There is always room for more French—of course it is the language of diplomacy—in this House. I will not attempt though any other language.Look the arguments put forward have been again—I could do it in Latin but the Hon Chris Finlayson is here and I would be told off very quickly. We just heard from the member who sat down Michael Wood about the nature of liberalism. He seems to have missed the fact that this bill is actually about closing the door to free trade. This is the whole point of it. It has come through very clearly and off the back of the whole Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiation. It is a reactionary bill. It wants to close the doors. It is from a party that is very well known for its anti-trade anti-globalisation—and then the last speaker had the audacity to talk about this as being somehow liberal when it is not. The other thing about being liberal is that it comes out of a tradition and in particular liberality comes out of a Westminster tradition or has been well protected by it. This works within the Westminster tradition where the executive has the power to make these treaties. Tracey Martin: Power! Power!SIMON O'CONNOR: Oh yes power! And now the feminist critique comes out that all power is bad of course until they get it and then they love it but that is a whole other debate.We have also had the great lecture on democracy and the classic failing that often comes from the left that democracy is simply about representation. Now that is a real—I do not know; it is not even a stage 1 understanding of what democracy is. The idea that everyone has to have their say at all times is not the whole point of democracy.Even if you go right back in history democracy is about representation in order to achieve a particular end. If all your end is is sitting around talking all day which might be familiar to the caucuses on the other side of the Chamber then that is not democracy at all. Democracy is about making things happen for the people. My colleagues on this side who have been in business who have been in negotiations who understand what business is about know that this democracy—this New Zealand democracy—is all about actually making sure that everyone is looked after and we do that by trading. We do that by having our executive members who have been voted for by the people in New Zealand go and negotiate a treaty then bring it back to this House to be ratified.I would love the other side—unfortunately they are not going to have the chance—to wonder when we look analogously at the carers' agreement that we have just signed: did they want the union or their mates to come back here and negotiate constantly with the House the terms they negotiated with the Crown? No they did not. They negotiated that carers' contract quietly as you do. They talked about it. They brought it back here. The agreement was signed by the Crown. There was none of this discussion and they are not calling for that in this situation here and I just think it is fascinating that they do not.This bill is ultimately as I said at the start about restricting free trade. It is about needless complexity that is not required. I have spent years doing negotiations—not granted in the treaty or overseas area—and I can tell you that a person does not go reporting back every 5 minutes to everyone about what they are doing. I certainly did not. You are trusted to go and do the negotiation and bring it back. That is fundamental to any contracting process let alone a treaty negotiation.Again this is a matter for the executive. It is a long-standing tradition. And actually and fundamentally important—and I think it has been missed most in the contributions here—the House has to adopt a treaty as part of its domestic law. That is the process that we go through. The Parliament can choose to block a treaty becoming part of our domestic law if it chooses.Fletcher Tabuteau: You signed it before you got here.SIMON O'CONNOR: And now the member says: Oh you signed it before we got here." You have missed the fundamental distinction: it is the right of the executive—and it is proper—to negotiate and sign that agreement and it is right for this House it is right and proper for the non-executive the members of Parliament to ratify that bill to pass the law.They are two separate processes and it is very clear from the member's last comments that they are conflating the two. And so from that basis of ignorance there is no way that I can support that bill along with really as I said the farcical understandings that have been going on around this. It is time-consuming and tiring."