McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Thank you very much. May I start by thanking the Hon David Parker for his praise of me. Now I'm going to move quickly on to say that the only thing longer and more boring than that speech is the renamed revised Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) when you put Comprehensive and Progressive" in front of it because largely the only real difference between the original TPP and this revised agreement is number one the US is not there and number two two parties opposite are now supporting it because they are in Government. We need to be very clear and their supporters need to be very clear and the very people that Mr Peters and Mr Parker and their colleagues protested with against the original deal on many many occasions need to be very clear—Mr Parker's list of one to five priorities; what he forgot to tell them was number six: "But if we're in Government of course we are going to support it and we will end up supporting it no matter what." Now the largest issue that Mr Parker had he said was around this Parliament's ability to pass regulation and we can't be sued by these very very bad multinationals from all around the world. He's come up with a novel solution. It wasn't to get rid of it as he said that he would from the revised agreement; it was to sign side letters with a number of countries. You may remember the Minister and the new Prime Minister in Vietnam making a very bold claim that they had fixed the investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) so that 80 percent of foreign direct investment into New Zealand was no longer covered and the Government couldn't be sued because of a side letter with Australia. What they wouldn't tell you until pressed was that actually it was exactly the same side letter with exactly the same words but just a different date on it as what had been signed originally. So when we look at the original TPP Labour and New Zealand First and the Greens strongly opposed it—in fact voted against it in this House—because foreign companies could sue us sue the New Zealand Government and take away their democratic right. When they marched up and down in New Zealand they joined them in Queen Street against that. Actually what they've said is they've fixed it with a side letter that was also there originally so nothing changed. But I will give Mr Parker credit. He did get our officials to go and talk to every single other country that was a member of TPP and say to them "We want to sign a side letter with you as well to exempt New Zealand from the ability to be sued." and he was successful. He got five other countries to join them. What he didn't tell you was that's about 0.2 percent of 1 percent of all foreign direct investment in New Zealand. So you've been able to find the countries whose companies invest the least in New Zealand—the very least in New Zealand—and get them to sign that letter. What he's also then gone on and said is actually Canada—who are a very big investor here—have also signed a letter of good intention that says "One day we should do something together." But I ask a question of Mr Parker: can Canadian companies sue the New Zealand Government under the ISDS? We don't need to wait for his answer because it won't come but the answer to that is yes. So what about Mexico? Can Mexican companies who invest here sue us? And the list is very very long. What about Singapore? Did they sign one of those letters? Well they didn't. Now what Mr Parker also said was actually there are some challenges around supposedly some foreigners that are coming in here and buying houses that he probably wanted to buy and he said that actually he was misled before the election. Well that's not correct and the reason it's not correct is if he has a look at the bill before the Parliament it is not a ban. What the bill before Parliament says is that there are more criteria under the Overseas Investment Act about who can buy what and every single house in New Zealand is now a sensitive asset. So what he's done is he's taken a sledgehammer to a problem that he's blown to the size that he's said it needs a sledgehammer but actually every single house in New Zealand is now a sensitive asset. That means that for every single house sale where a foreigner—one of these bad bad people that Mr Parker has protested against—wants to buy a house in New Zealand it actually comes down to a ministerial decision as to whether that will happen. So again a question for him: if somebody from Singapore wants to buy a house in Queenstown—let's say they want to buy a $10 million house in Queenstown because I assume there's a lot of the people that he was protesting with lined up in Queenstown to buy that $10 million house—can they still do it? The answer to that is—we don't need to wait—yes they can enter into a purchase agreement. They can go and put in an application to the Overseas Investment Office and it will go through a process. It will then come to the Minister and the Minister will have to say yes or no to that. Now I assume what he's saying is a Minister's going to say no every single time. But that's not a ban; that's more bureaucracy.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Like the water. Hon TODD McCLAY: That's more process. It's a little bit like the promise that we heard before the election certainly from Mr Peters—and Labour were at the front of it and certainly the Green Party—that there would be a moratorium there would be a tax and there would be restriction. No foreign enterprises or interests would buy water rights in New Zealand any more. I've got to say—Hon Ruth Dyson: Yep that's what we've done.Hon TODD McCLAY: Well we hear Ruth Dyson say they've done it. Well actually not this week you haven't Ms Dyson. You want to put that bottle down—of water. I'm coming to a point. You want to put that bottle down of water and the reason for that is that what we've seen is another broken promise but also a fudging of statistics and a way forward because we've seen in the Bay of Plenty the Green Party Minister sign off with a Labour Minister an Overseas Investment Office request about water. [Deputy Speaker gestures] Well actually it has the same thing Madam Deputy Speaker. It is within scope because what they're saying here is they've banned something over foreigners being able to purchase property here but it's not a ban. The reason it's not a ban is that it's just more process. Just as they said they were going to ban foreigners from buying water interests in New Zealand to bottle water and send it overseas—and along the way put a levy or a tax on them—they've failed in that this week as well. Chlöe Swarbrick: What would you have done?Hon TODD McCLAY: What I would have done is what we promised that we would do and that's not what the Green Party have done. That's why they're ripping themselves apart at the moment. So actually what the parties in Government are going to find is it's very easy in Opposition to say one thing and very difficult—very difficult—to deliver in practice. Now I want to say finally to Mr Parker: of his list of five things actually virtually all of those bar this little fudge he's talking about at the end are identical to what happened in the original TPP because the market access for the remaining countries has not changed—nothing at all. The labour protection hasn't changed at all. The environment chapter hasn't changed although on the side there is a little bit around fisheries which is work that New Zealand started in the World Trade Organization with others and had under way for a number of years. It's good that it's in there but it is not material to New Zealand. It makes no difference at all. If he's hanging his hat on supporting this agreement because it has the highest environment standards in the world as his Prime Minister said of any agreement it's what was negotiated originally when David Parker Winston Peters and Jacinda Ardern voted against that original agreement.I started by saying—and I repeat it—the only substantive change is that they are now enlightened. They want to be a comprehensive and progressive Government. If they weren't in Government they wouldn't be voting for this; they would be voting against it. They would fight any reason. I think that New Zealanders understand that and the New Zealand business community.Mr Parker spoke a lot about how actually there wasn't a consensus for trade and New Zealanders were very unhappy about it. Well that's because he kept protesting against it all of the time with all of his colleagues. You know trade spokesman after trade spokesman on that side of the House were against it. So largely what you have is all but one party in Parliament now supporting a deal that was very good when it was the original deal; it remains a very good deal as the revised deal and the change in attitude of New Zealanders is around the complaint from New Zealand First and the Labour Party has stopped because all of a sudden they've seen the light—they are free traders. Well I congratulate them for that but as with many things that we are seeing there are others outside of this House who voted for them supported them that see that as hypocrisy.Now he says actually there are some people that are unhappy with him and it's the work that we did to rark them up. Well I sat in the committee when the submitters came before us and the businesses of New Zealand of course came and supported it. They virtually to a word as his department his ministry said there is virtually no change here at all. Actually it can go through the House very very quickly. You've already had a vote on it. You know vote on it again; it's the same thing.But where he hasn't provided a correct account of what happened with the committee to this House today is that there are many people who are former Labour Party MPs Labour Party members supporters and co-protesters who came and they said they are disillusioned by what the Government is doing. They believed them when they said they would oppose this deal and that it was bad. They believed them when they said that actually it would ruin the Pharmac model even though there is no change at all in the language he and his Prime Minister are using around Pharmac being protected. It's identical to what it was before and if you go and look at the impact assessment that's been put together by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade they too say it's the same. It was a good deal before and it's a good deal now. We proudly voted for it in the last Parliament; we will this time. I'm sorry that they have to be hypocritical about supporting it too."