Robertson Grant: Tariff (Free Trade Agreement between New Zealand and the Republic of Korea) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Tariff (Free Trade Agreement between New Zealand and the Republic of Korea) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 22 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:6839. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): A wise choice Mr Chair. Picking up Jenny Salesa’s point about sensitive land it is not just that the Labour Party does believe that we do need to apply tighter restrictions to non-resident foreign buyers—and we do because we believe that that is a major factor in the house price inflation that is pushing New Zealanders out of being able to buy their house—but it is more in this agreement the principle that the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee could not be sure in its deliberation that a new Government could introduce those restrictions or indeed as Jenny Salesa said a stamp duty.We as a Parliament need to be very careful about passing through in this case a free-trade agreement that would limit a future Government from being able to do that. This is a legitimate area of public policy where there is a particular problem and a particular solution being proposed. We are very disappointed that the National Government did not heed the calls of the Labour Party members of the select committee and others that we take more note of giving the ability for a future Government to be able to make that kind of law and pass that kind of restriction.On this side of the Chamber we want to make it clear that it is our view that the Government should be able to do that. It is important in terms of building public confidence in free-trade - type legislation that we do not allow it to be portrayed as restricting a future Government from doing something that many many New Zealanders today would want the Government to be able to do.I want to say something about the whole way in which this agreement has been created in terms of relationships with civil society. On this side of the Chamber you have heard from all of the speakers that the Labour Party remains committed to free and fair trade and that we understand the place of New Zealand as a trading nation. I think one of the ways in which this Government has completely dropped the ball is that it has failed to build any constituency in the public for that. It has let that go. Part of the reason for this is that Mr Groser is a very active trade Minister to put it in a nice way in that he travels the world so he does not have a lot of time to spend in New Zealand talking to people about trade. But actually it runs much deeper than that. It runs much deeper than that.The National Government has finally managed to get a free-trade agreement to the House. Woo hoo! Good on it. It finally got there with South Korea. The Minister of Trade mentioned that it was a torturous negotiation. Well I am sorry that it was a torturous negotiation but that is the extent of the achievement now—we have got this one agreement. But in the meantime public understanding public confidence and public trust in what we are trying to do with trade has dissipated.The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is a whole different matter. When you read through the national interest analysis in this agreement the Korea agreement it is about market access. It is about services and the access of our services that is provided. It is core trade activity. The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is much bigger much larger than that. But the failure of the Government to engage properly with civil society on this really is very disappointing. We will not as a country go forward with a national consensus around trade in the absence of that engagement. We know from the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that there are strong concerns from groups like the Council of Trade Unions which previously has been quite involved in the way in which we have gone about our trade negotiations that they simply are not being talked to and the matter is not being discussed. We need a much better model for engagement with civil society so that we build confidence in trade.Trade matters to New Zealand yet the Government does not seem to want to spend any time engaging with the public about how those agreements work what things should be in and what things should be out. It is disappointing to note in the minority view put forward by the Labour Party that the advice from officials was that there was very limited engagement with civil society. That is simply not good enough in terms of what is such an important issue for New Zealand.So the Labour Party will support this legislation. On balance it is good. It does reduce significant tariffs. There are industries that will be able to flourish—kiwifruit being one of those in particular—out of this. It is not perfect. We are following on and getting not as good a deal as some of those other countries we are following on from in some areas—like services for instance—and we need to look again at the way we go about that negotiation. But fundamentally this kind of trade agreement is one that is easier to support because it is clear about those benefits. The Government needs to take a good hard look at itself and the way it has mucked up the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.