Groser Tim: Tariff (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Groser Tim: Tariff (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1618] 
TIM GROSER (National) 
: 
 When the chief whip asked me to fill the speaking slot—and I see now that it is only 7 minutes to 6—Mr McCully a man I hold in enormous respect expressed some doubt as to whether given my background and the nature of the subject I could express my views in anything under 3 hours. The second surprise was that I know he is expecting me to launch into a deep geopolitical analysis of this agreement in the 7 minutes before we go to get something to eat. However Mr McCully was so cooperative so diplomatic and so reasonable in his approach that I am afraid Mr Hayes and I have just had a quick consultation and we feel the need to slightly rebalance the equation. So before I get into the geopolitics of this subject—which I will address probably in 15 seconds because basically Mr Goff the Minister has analysed it in correct and orthodox terms—I just want to make a few reflections on the issue of trade and foreign policy. 
It is quite interesting to ask ourselves why we are in the situation that Mr McCully summed up in the way in which he approached this. Why is it that we are in this bipartisan space? When I first became involved in trade policy in the 1970s when working in the New Zealand Treasury I can assure members and I am sure members can recall that it was anything but a bipartisan policy. In fact we faced a bitterly divided country on those issues for two reasons. Firstly it was because we had the developed world’s highest form of import protection around our border for fear of being swamped by competition and secondly because on the other side of the equation the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade the premier institution of the international trading system was seen as completely unfair and biased against us. It had its rules on industrial products an area where we feared we lacked all chance of ever becoming competitive yet when it came to agriculture there was no sign of balance whatsoever. So this is not a policy that has been all sweetness and light historically as this debate indicates. We have moved strategically into this situation. 
Like many New Zealanders I have a view on MMP that I do not think is in any way original and it would be summed up as follows. I think that when New Zealanders voted for it they were voting not just for a change in the electoral system. I think what they wanted was a change in style as well. I think they wanted a more cooperative approach of which this trade policy is a very good example. I know that the Prime Minister finds it difficult to issue two sentences in a row without the word “inclusive” in them but I do not see apart from a few exceptions such as this agreement a great deal of evidence of a new approach. I see instead that a largely partisan “take no prisoners” approach to politics is still prevailing. 
But there is another model and if the Government had had the decency to listen to what Dr Brash was saying at the beginning of this session it would know that we are prepared as a party to look case by case at other issues—exactly as we have done successfully in this country. We put forward the issue of climate change but the Government would not even listen. But there is that other model and as we sit down here in the comfort of that nice cooperative approach it is worth reflecting on the fact that it has served this country well. It is a model to use if the Government can escape from the partisan model it is following in just about all other areas. 
Now let us have a little think about trade policy in the context of what it is. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr Peters gave a very nice speech a week or two ago followed by Mr McCully. It was a standard Ministry of Foreign Affairs speech given to a new Minister. It is the seamless-web theory of foreign policy. Let me explain what that theory is really all about. It is a correct view in my strong personal opinion about how foreign policy actually works. It is not a matter of just putting foreign policy in one box and domestic policy in another—and that applies even more strongly to trade policy; they are closely interlinked 
But of course we have a problem and I shall not comment at large on it. We all know what the problem is and we saw it demonstrated today when the Green Party asked the Minister a series of questions. All he could do was act as a postbox and in fact he was absolutely correct in my opinion in taking that approach. But when he is overseas there is no postbox beside him and he will have to defend the Government’s position. I do hope that when my former colleagues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave him their standard seamless-web theory of foreign policy they did not use those words “seamless web” because my goodness gracious me that would be an unfortunate metaphor with regard to Mr Peters. What it brings to mind of course is the ancient child’s fable  
The Spider and the Fly 
. Many of those children’s fables contain great wisdom that one should absorb by the age of 6. 
Whether Mr Peters absorbed the wisdom of that fable is a question that we might examine in the moments we have left. Members will recall the original parable: 
Will you walk into my coalition? said the spider to the fly.  
’Tis the prettiest little coalition that you ever did espy.  
The way into my coalition is up a winding stair  
And I have many curious baubles to show you when you’re there. 
The problem is that Mr Peters clearly thinks he still has his exit strategy. However the member for Tauranga—and I would refer to him by his name “Bob the Builder” if it were not a technical breach of the Standing Orders—has rather closed that option off. So we will find in due course what happens to the spider and the fly. We know who the fly is. I do not want to be too crude and suggest who the spider is in this case except we know that she likes fast cars provided she is not driving personally of course. We will find out I think that this ends rather stickily for the fly—in this case New Zealand First. 
Nevertheless the point about the seamless web theory is essentially correct. In terms of trade policy it is really important to understand that the real agenda for New Zealand in terms of its domestic agenda has moved on. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
TIM GROSER 
: The dinner break was a very disturbing development for a new parliamentarian—I mean I went to the wall and then there was a break. The whole country and the future of the Government were hanging on my words and then we stopped for an hour and a half. But I will try to get over it and I will be very brief—well I have only 2 minutes anyway so I do not have much of a choice. 
I want to make three fundamental points. First of all to be more serious the agreement is a good agreement. National has a small difference over the way in which our cultural industries might be treated. We went through that in the select committee; it is not a life and death issue at all. I think Government negotiators can look to a lighter touch in the future which is really related to a view that our cultural industries—and I have my hat on here as much as Opposition spokesperson on arts culture and heritage as on the trade side of the equation—are clearly moving from a situation of being secondary industries in New Zealand over the last 30 years and very much a defensive concern to being very efficient and very export-oriented. There will always need to be a degree of subsidisation underneath the industry—but it is neither the right time nor place to go into the reasons for that—and there are different ways of offering that other than by the broad exception used in this particular case. But I think my first point has been made—that the agreement stands as a very good agreement and that National is fully behind it. 
The second point I make is a fundamental point about all trade agreements of this nature. At the end of the day they are only opportunities. What New Zealanders make of those opportunities—or Zimbabweans or Australians or Chileans or people of any country; they all have those opportunities—is very much dependent upon the initiative of the people concerned and the policy frameworks that are there to support them. We know that New Zealanders have a high degree of initiative. So it comes back once again to the linkages back into domestic policy structures and that is why I introduced albeit with a certain light touch the theory of the seamless web of foreign policy. When negotiators are out there developing new opportunities it is very very important that at the same time they are backed up by the right type of domestic policy frameworks. 
My third point is that the long-term significance of this agreement is a little difficult to tell at this stage as is often the case. When I was a senior official working in the area I often said to Ministers that trade policy is not an area for those who require instantaneous gratification; the seed time is very long. So if this agreement works well and if international progress in the Doha round works well the agreement may not turn out to be of major importance. But if things turn sour then the opportunities that New Zealand has like this agreement will become strategically very important.