Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to be talking on the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill and the Apple Transitional Export Quota Bill in their third readings—what a great name. I know that the original bill was split into two bills and that's why we we've got both of them. But first of all I just want to say what a good thing this is: a long time in the making and obviously a long history of trade with the UK. We've been there and we've been away and now this agreement brings New Zealand back into a direct bilateral relationship with the UK rather than having to deal through the EU. It is a real milestone as the Minister talked about in his speech. England of course when you look at the markets around the world is one of the crucial markets for New Zealand exports and an important one particularly is New Zealand products. Whilst we have a strong agricultural focus and always will in New Zealand and a lot of that goes to the UK as the New Zealand economy diversifies into new areas I think the opportunity to deal with more high-tech advanced manufacturing products whether that's in food or in related industries of advanced manufacturing—to trade with places such as the UK is an absolutely fundamental outlet for New Zealand. It's something that we value very significantly and I think reflects the strong and enduring relationship that New Zealand has had with Britain over the years. It's interesting; I was just looking at the stats and I was trying to work through the specific details and obviously when the agreement comes into force 62.5 percent of dairy products going in will be subject to tariff. But with the changes what's going to happen is that within five years butter tariffs will be removed and that means that we can start sending bigger volumes of butter tariff-free; 10 years for beef; and of course the more thorny issue that has always been very difficult for UK farmers is the issue of lamb. New Zealand lamb which obviously is an absolutely premium product and one that's very marketable and wanted by the UK consumer—that has a 15-year lead-in period. So initially it's most of our products going in but over time—within five years—99.5 percent of all products currently exported from New Zealand to Britain will be tariff-free and by year seven it will be getting close to 100 percent. So it's very important in terms of reducing the tariff which is obviously quite a barrier and means that New Zealand producers have to carry that cost but it also opens up the British market. As the Minister said I'm sure that the value of this free-trade agreement valued currently at between $700 and a couple of billion dollars will grow over time and let's hope it does because New Zealand is a trading nation. It's absolutely essential that we have good trading access to many jurisdictions around the world. Like any company we need to have diversified markets. We need to have good quality markets and markets that offer security continuity and the opportunity to sell product at a high value and that comes back to selling a product that consumers want and demand that their retailers offer particularly in places like the UK. So I think that's good. Obviously the speaker before mentioned some of the other aspects and the Minister referred to this agreement capturing the issue of Māori rights and protecting those in the free-trade agreement which is significant. The area that I do just want to talk about is first of all the copyright rules. As we move forward the use of intellectual property—the capturing of the value of intellectual property—is so fundamental to the future of New Zealand. Most companies listed on the stock exchange—if we look at their value most of it comes from the use of intellectual property and the value of their intellectual property or intellectual assets and this bill does deal with copyright issues. What it does is first of all it introduces a new artist resale right; within two years that will be put in place. But it also extends copyright and related rights terms to 15 years and obviously that's legislation that will have to go through the House complementary to this free-trade agreement. There are a number of bills that will have to go through to put all the elements of this free-trade agreement into force but protecting the copyright rights of artists in particular is an important part of it and I think that in New Zealand we need to make sure that we are focusing much more importantly on intellectual assets because they are the real drivers of value in the future and will increasingly be so. The other aspect is allowing investment from UK firms into New Zealand. There's going to be a change. Currently Australia has the special exemption. If you are an Australian company wishing to invest in New Zealand you have the right to invest without broadly going through the Overseas Investment Office approval process up to a value of New Zealand assets of $500 million. There are some complications if it involves land but in the main what it does is give Australians preferential opportunity to invest in New Zealand companies. Everyone else has largely been operating under a $100 million threshold if they want to invest in New Zealand. This bill introduces an increased threshold for UK companies coming into New Zealand at $200 million. I think this is really significant. If you look at renewable energy we have a number of UK solar companies now trying to invest in New Zealand. They're captured under the foreign investment rules at the moment and one of the perverse things that's been starting to occur as we're trying to attract solar investment in New Zealand both domestically—we've got a lot of domestic firms that want to invest in solar as one particular area of renewable. But with foreigners the current requirements are that you have to assess the lease cost that's paid by a foreign firm such as a UK solar investor and gross that up and if it exceeds $100 million of rental income over the period of the lease agreement for the land where the solar installations are based then that's captured under the Overseas Investment Office rules currently which is increasingly a bit of a barrier. By increasing the threshold to $200 million this is hopefully going to allow for more investment from overseas because it's investing capital. That's not to say that New Zealanders can't do it as well but we need renewables in New Zealand and I think this is going to be a helpful aspect in terms of helping to grow New Zealand investment in that area. The apple quota management is a separate part. As I mentioned before it allows for the New Zealand Apple and Pear Board to create and operate a quota system for New Zealand exports. It is important that we have the right sort of system in place. Obviously apples have been a very significant issue for New Zealand in terms of exporting and particularly—Anna Lorck: Absolutely fantastic. They're grown in Hawke's Bay.ANDREW BAYLY: I hear the member for Tukituki referring to the Hawke's Bay. We've got some fantastic exporters of apples round the world and we need to make sure it's a growing industry and a very important industry. So look this can only be described as a great outcome for New Zealand. We need to diversify our markets. We need to continue to find good markets. This is a good market it's good for New Zealand it's good for the UK and it builds some strong relationships. I commend both the Minister and his team for completing this trade agreement but I do also acknowledge my colleague the Hon Todd McClay and officials that have been involved in this process. It's a good outcome and let's hope that we're going to see more of these high-quality trade agreements put in place between New Zealand and other countries around the world. Thank you very much.