Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Ni hao. Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I'm pleased to take a call on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Legislation Bill and can I acknowledge the Greens' global affairs and trade spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman who'd normally be taking this call. The Green Party will be voting against the bill. RCEP is of course a multilateral trade agreement which focuses on reducing tariffs and improving market access. We've got a number of reasons for voting against the bill which I will explain. The agreement has taken nearly 10 years to negotiate and we certainly acknowledge that it's got a market size five times larger than the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (CPTPPA). Of course member countries must ratify the agreement before it comes into force and this bill is providing for that ratification process through amending the Tariff Act creating some transitional provisions and legislating for rules of origin and some product specific rules for goods from RCEP countries. So in terms of the commentary around the bill because we've already got free-trade agreements with other RCEP countries which have led to the removal of tariffs this bill won't be creating access to a larger market that other free-trade agreements have because the tariffs have already been reviewed and removed except in the case of Indonesia where I understand it will remove the tariffs on beef and sheep meat and fish products. So the commentators have suggested that the largest benefits from the agreement will in fact come from non-tariff measures—things like phytosanitary measures to protect against pests issues around import and export licences and as the Minister noted making customs procedures much easier which will certainly benefit exporters in the horticultural sector enabling things like fruit and vegetables and flowers if they have to be transitioned through customs within six hours to arrive fresh at the market. So those sorts of practical things will certainly be of benefit.We'd also just like to put on record because some in other parties claim that the Greens don't favour trade that we do. We've recognised that we depend on trade—it's a crucial generator of our economic and social wellbeing—as far back as the late Rod Donald who came to be co-leader of the Greens from a background with Trade Aid Aotearoa. But we don't like neo-liberal trade agreements. We want trade agreements that focus on protecting human rights. They're all about sustainability and they protect climate justice and inspire climate justice. So that's why because we wanted a new regime for trade we were strongly engaged with the Government's trade agenda last term and the work that was done by the Trade for All Advisory Board and its comprehensive 2019 report which recommended quite significant changes in how Aotearoa New Zealand both negotiates and ratifies our trade agreements and the Trade for All agenda recognises that we need really strong social foundations to have widespread and enduring public support for trade agreements. They must reflect our country's social and cultural values and the full range of our economic environmental and social interests and particularly our partnership with Māori under Te Tiriti. The widespread opposition that we saw to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA) reflected the fact that New Zealanders didn't think that that agreement reflected our values as a country and that it cut across our democracy in undermining our legislation. So that's why it's really good to see in the RCEP agreement that we don't have the heinous investor-State dispute resolution procedures that we see in the CPTPPA because those are very controversial settlement clauses. They allow foreign investors to sue the Government for adopting a law or a policy that may uphold the public good but may impact on corporate profits. So that was one of the key things in the Trade for All agenda—not to have those clauses—and it is good that Government has now got a policy of opposing such clauses and there is not one in the RCEP agreement.One of the ways that Government could improve public confidence in our trade agreements is to just negotiate a new framework for them that is based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that recognises the urgency of the economic transformation that we need around climate change and that facilitates the development of international trade rules which meet indigenous peoples' rights and aspirations particularly in terms of intellectual and cultural property rights and so this agreement we don't think matches up there. But one other positive thing is that it does exclude pharmaceuticals. So that protects our Pharmac model of securing public access to affordable and publicly regulated pharmaceuticals and that's particularly important because of the context of COVID of course.The other reasons we're opposing the bill is that RCEP has no strong chapters on environmental or workers' rights and as such is based on the same neo-liberal paradigm that gave us the TPPA. If anything RCEP represents a step back from the CPTPPA because it doesn't have that strong carve-out to protect our environmental legislation and the regulation that that puts in place. There's no environmental chapter at all. Similarly the agreement doesn't include a workers' rights chapter. Even the TPPA had a very loose workers' rights chapter which recognised that trade agreements could impact on workers' rights and those rights needed to be protected and that's particularly unfortunate in this agreement because of the amount of manufacturing that occurs in the Asian region and the need to protect workers' rights. Another reason we are opposing RCEP is because the Trade for All Advisory Board recommended that trade agreements be negotiated in a much more transparent and democratic way and that didn't happen with this agreement. As a House of Representatives elected to represent the people of Aotearoa New Zealand we have a 500-page 20-chapter agreement that was negotiated in secret that had input from multinational big corporations but didn't have that same input from the public or civil society—that same substantive input that the corporates had. The people of Aotearoa New Zealand should have known what was going on what was in the mandate for the negotiating team and what was being negotiated and should have had a say on whether or not it was in fact a good trade agreement. They were denied that opportunity. So the Government needs to be pushing for much more transparency around these negotiations as the Trade for All agenda provides. We wouldn't obviously disclose our bottom line but negotiating text should be released and there should be much more inclusion of representatives of non-governmental organisations and civil society in the negotiation delegations.The other issue is the whole thing around national assessments and Trade for All recommending that there be independent national interest assessments undertaken of trade agreements. At the moment you have the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) determining whether it's in Aotearoa's interests and identifying those interests before negotiations start MFAT leading the negotiations and then MFAT evaluating the results of its work. That's not appropriate and given the marginal economic benefit to Aotearoa of this agreement because it is largely around non-tariff measures and because India isn't currently included with the large market it would provide for agricultural products it's even more important that there should have been such a national interest assessment undertaken.The final reason we are opposing this is while there is a carve-out clause to protect the Crown's obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi it's the standard clause which the Waitangi Tribunal has said does not fully recognise the Crown's responsibilities under Te Tiriti. So the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says it does but then it's the ministry that drafted the clause so it's a bit rich to accept their assurances that the commitment is adequate. So for those reasons the Green Party will be opposing the RCEP bill. Kia ora.