Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): In line with my other colleagues I am rising to speak against the Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill. From the point of view of the Labour Party this is not out of a sense of pique or rigidity or anything like that because in fact we supported this bill through to the Commerce Committee so that it could receive thorough consideration. It is as a result of the consultation of the submissions and the discussions that have occurred at the select committee level that we have determined that we simply cannot support its passage any further.In my comments I want to focus in particular on the changes made at the select committee in respect of building materials. I want to talk about the impact on business viability which was raised by a number of submitters to the select committee and also what this bill says about the overall approach of the Government towards trade.I am starting off with the changes to clause 16 which is about extending the suspension on building materials by 2 years from the current date of 2017 to 2019. This to me seems to be a case of the Government wanting to look like it is doing something about the cost of housing. Really if we want to determine whether this is going to have any impact whatsoever we simply need to look at what has happened in Australia because in Australia you can go over and effectively buy the same kinds of building supplies for 30 or 40 percent less than you can buy them for in New Zealand. But what has Australia done in respect of this issue? Has it gone down the same track that the Government is proposing to here? Has it softened its approach to anti-dumping and countervailing duties? No it has not. The reason that it has got cheaper building supplies is because it has had a Government that has been more active in terms of ensuring a competitive market.So what I would say is that if this Government is really wanting to make a difference in terms of the cost of building supplies we need to look at the structure of the industry and its competitiveness not to look at measures like this which if anything will serve only to undermine the development of a competitive industry domestically.In respect of the select committee changes there was one small wording change—and I am referring here to new section 10F(3)(e) inserted by clause 13 which changes the word viability" to "performance". I think that is on balance a positive change because of course the wording "viability" would be quite a stiff test to consider. Effectively if we had left "viability" in there we would have been saying that you could consider the matter only if the entire viability—the entire ability—of an industry or a business to continue happening was at risk as a part of the consideration. "Performance" gives a bit more flexibility.But again this goes to the point that has been made by a number of speakers in this debate about the subjectivity of this test. What do we mean when we refer to the word "performance"? There is a huge scope within that word. Do we just mean short-term financial performance for the current year of operation by that particular business? Do we mean performance across the wider sector? Do we mean the long-term business performance in that sector? These matters are commented on by the submitters to the select committee.I want to refer to the submission from Mr Bruce Mackay who submitted on behalf of peach growers and also other fruit growers supplying Heinz Wattie's Ltd. The point that he makes is a really valid one and I think every member needs to think about this seriously before voting further on this bill. What Mr Mackay is saying is that particularly in respect of the agricultural sector the effect of dumping on the industry is not a short-term effect. If produce is dumped in New Zealand and if it undermines growers and producers here in New Zealand they have to walk away. Trees get ripped up. It is not like they can come back and suddenly grow peaches again the next year; that is a 5- or 10-year proposition. What Mr Mackay says is and I quote directly from him here: "The significant risk to growers is that any adverse impact is terminal." He goes on to talk about the fact that if businesses go under trees get ripped up: "If we have to remove them they will not be replanted and it will be another 6 or seven years before any other new tree crop planted will start to make money again."He goes on then to talk about the fact that there is a huge downstream effect in terms of other businesses that support the agricultural sector. It is not clear to me whether we actually get consideration of those downstream effects—all of the supportive industries that support the original grower—in the consideration that is written into this bill. It would be good to hear from the Minister in the chair about that.A number of submissions have been referred to. The one from Business New Zealand I thought also gave good food for thought to the Committee. This is where this bill really cuts across the grain of a lot of what the Government is saying about business simplification—about wanting to make things easier for New Zealand businesses to do their thing. The point that Business New Zealand makes amongst other matters is that this is going to lengthen the time that it takes for considerations to be made about whether we are going to apply duties and countervailing measures by another 90 days another 3 months and potentially for businesses that face investment decisions whose viability is on the line that is a really significant blowout in terms of the time that they might need to factor into their business decisions.A submission from Horticulture New Zealand—this is a really important one because it actually goes to the core of the issue to me. New Zealand is already one of the most free and open trading nations in the world and that is as a result of decisions made by successive Labour and National Governments over about the last 25 years. It produced evidence to show that. New Zealand industries are not protected. New Zealand industries are not particularly asking to be protected but what they are asking for is for a Government to have their back when there is unfair and sharp trade practice being leveraged against them. Because the evidence that Horticulture New Zealand has presented to you and that most of us in this Committee are aware of is that in fact most other countries do have significant subsidies going into their farming and agricultural sectors. We have all of that sort of soft support.Up to 50 percent of farm receipts in places like Norway Switzerland Japan Iceland Korea and Turkey come from subsidies—they come from subsidies. We have got producers here who basically have none of that sort of extra support and we are relatively proud of that and there is not too much of a contest about that in this House. But what this bill does is remove the ability of a Government of New Zealand to provide some level of protection to our producers who face that sort of unfair competition particularly when those foreign producers try to dump their products at below source cost in our country.In line with the other speakers from this side of the Chamber in this debate we think that this bill is naive. It presumes that New Zealand should open itself up further when in fact we are one of the most open trading countries in the world as it stands. In line with the other speakers on this side of the Chamber we oppose this bill and would recommend that other members in the Committee consider voting against it as well. Thank you."