O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I was hoping my colleague Tim Macindoe might've thrown another three minutes into that conversation but thank you for the call. To acknowledge the Minister in the chair from one O'Connor to another I'm very pleased to talk to Part 1 of this Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (CPTPP)—as it's become known through its acronym—Amendment Bill.You'll see through the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee's report—I'm very pleased to facilitate that committee—that we've made three substantial changes. Most of them are in Part 2 so at this point I'm really just going to keep around the commencement aspects.First and foremost we should be clear that when we're talking about commencement" we're not talking obviously about clauses 1 2 and 3—particularly clause 2 which we'll get to later—which is the commencement of this particular piece of legislation. Instead we are in fact referencing the commencement of the treaty—the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) itself. I've always been at pains in the House—through all the readings and now in the committee of the whole House—to make sure that we're very clear in the understanding of the difference between what's obviously the ratifying of a treaty and then the placement of domestic legislation to bring that into effect.So today we are discussing here in Part 1 and through into subsequent parts the domestic legislation. But importantly in clause 6 we are bringing about the commencement of the treaty. In other words this domestic piece of legislation this amendment bill is empowering if you will—though probably not just "if you will"; it is empowering—the Minister to ratify. I've probably got the exact nomenclature wrong but basically it is empowering the Minister to make the treaty come into effect. Let's just use some plain English for a second before I get into trouble and your officials start throwing things at me—and quite rightly probably: after having sat through this for a long time I should have it right. But in effect let's not confuse the two forms of commencement.Clause 4 in Part 1 is a renaming of an Act of Parliament that was passed in 2016. It won't be lost on this House that we went through quite a rigorous discussion of what was then known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. That was agreed by the previous executive and in many ways affirmed by the Parliament and passed into law prior to the 2017 election. So there is actually an Act of this New Zealand Parliament in 2016 to bring about the TPP. Two factors in particular but not exclusively came into play. One was of course that we had a general election and let's just say things changed. I won't ask the Minister in the chair to offer an opinion on that; it might cause me to have to keep talking more than five minutes. The other as was alluded to was a substantial change in American politics but I think it's quite important to understand it wasn't simply a change from the Obama administration to a Trump administration. Any change had it been to the Democrats and Hillary Clinton was also going to see America step away from this pluralistic agreement which I think is unfortunate but being a Westphalian I really believe that each sovereign nation can choose to do what it wants.But we are changing the name of that 2016 piece of legislation. That makes sense and I might come to it later or other colleagues might as well but importantly that piece of legislation still exists. The TPP legislation even though it is to be renamed still exists and is sort of a preview if you will. It's probably more academic than anything but strictly speaking that legislation that previous TPP agreement could strictly and probably academically be started. Maybe this would encourage my Green colleague to speak to it. It is just a change of title but an important one there. So that's in clause 5.Then we move to new section 2 around commencement. I just want to spend a little bit of time on the commencement. This is in clause 6 replacing the commencement provision: "(1) This Act comes into force"—so this piece of domestic legislation not the CPTPP—"on a date appointed by the Governor-General"—which makes sense—"by Order in Council on the recommendation of the Minister for Trade and Export Growth." Now intuitively that makes absolute perfect sense but there is actually a question in this Minister. It's natural if you will that obviously the Minister in charge of trade and export growth would be the one to talk to the Governor-General but it's my understanding too that actually any Minister of the Crown could strictly speaking ask and authorise the Governor-General to act. So it makes sense in terms of a partnership agreement a trade agreement that primarily the Minister of trade would be that person. Again it's probably just a curiosity or a small element but I'm pretty sure any Minister can or should be allowed to advise Her Majesty's Governor-General to make that decision. So I suppose what illustrates the point is that if the Prime Minister decided for some reason that she wished to provide the recommendation could she? So I suppose then it ultimately comes to two questions Minister: one should this be slightly broader? Should it just really be saying the "date appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council on the recommendation of a Minister."? Does it have to be absolutely specific? So that's one element to it: should we just widen that out? The second is: does being so specific about who the Minister is preclude another Minister making that advice to the viceregal representative here in the Realm? The other is—and look it's completely minutiae; it's unlikely to happen—that Governments and it would happen on this side too are very wont to change titles. Very very quickly—we've obviously just had a new ministry around urban development opened. This is a fairly new title to be the Minister for Trade and Export Growth. If perchance there was to be a change in title would that affect the efficacy of that particular Minister? So to illustrate the point if the Minister for Trade and Export Growth turned into the "Minister for Trade and Comprehensive and Progressive Export Growth"—it's always good to throw a "c" word and a "p" word in there these days—would that affect the Minister's ability to act? Would we invalidate this? Yep I know at some levels it can be seen as tongue-in-cheek and so forth but I've been in this House long enough now—Kieran McAnulty: Too long. SIMON O'CONNOR: Some would say too long Mr McNulty but fortunately not the good people of Tāmaki who—Kieran McAnulty: It's "Mc-A-nulty" O'Connor. SIMON O'CONNOR: Is it "McAnulty"? Kieran McAnulty: Thank you. SIMON O'CONNOR: I withdraw and apologise. You're a good man regardless sir and the great thing is from that new member—and he is going to learn—that when they do an interjection across the Chamber it gives the person speaking just a few extra seconds to talk which is fantastic. So thank you very much. Look it's a small thing but actually when these changes come through we need to be ourselves quite comprehensive. The other point is and we're moving now into new section 2(3) that it is noting—it's probably more for information but I think it does make sense that not all the provisions are coming in at once. The important context here is that New Zealand wishes quite rightly I think—and I will acknowledge the Government's approach on this as would have been the National Government's approach had it remained on the Treasury benches which is that we want as the lodging country for this trade agreement to also be one of the first signatories. There are benefits to the country for us to sign early which is one of the reasons the committee has worked cooperatively and quickly on this. Again we were not overriding what people had to say but in moving quickly we understand we should get in early. There are benefits to New Zealand and our economy in particular for being some of the early signatories or adopters of this treaty but it's really important to note that some factors will not come into effect immediately. In other words once the Minister for Trade and Export Growth advises the viceregal representative of a date to sign the treaty comes into effect but it's important in new section 2(3)(a) and then into new section 2(3)(b) that certain elements will not be coming into force. That's primarily around patents and copyright. Again we'll probably have to touch on that a little bit later but there are elements of what New Zealand needs to do. I suppose when we are working in a trading environment New Zealand is always looking to other and new treaties and agreements and it's my understanding that we have some changes to make first. Look I'll begin to wrap up there. Elements around the Copyright Act and others come up particularly in Part 2 but yeah my fundamental aspects at the moment—working backwards—are just those little questions or minutiae if you will to the Minister in the chair around the specificity of a particular Minister. As I say should it just be broadened to "any Minister" in order—you know be it symbolically or otherwise the Prime Minister wishes to be the adviser. Equally could it be any Minister—is there a convention that if that Minister is not available another Minister could step in? Obviously there's just some indications of why there's a staged approach to the dates and then just a hint at this point of obviously the name change of a previous Act of Parliament but indicating—as I understand things but I'm very happy to be corrected—that simply changing the name does not actually change the fact that—strictly speaking it's purely academic and I think highly highly unlikely but I will not be racing to the TAB—that previous Act that previous Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement could come into effect. So I'll leave it there for now."