Brown Peter: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Brown Peter: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 24 July 2008. Volume:648;Page:17420. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First has taken a particular interest in this issue although we were not on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee that addressed the agreement. We sat here yesterday— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but there has been a long-held convention in the House that members do not interject from benches directly opposite a member when he or she is speaking. I think Mr Hide is being rather impolite to Mr Brown. He should let him get on with his speech without barracking him. 
Rodney Hide 
: I am afraid that my colleague the Hon Harry Duynhoven is quite wrong. Members are entitled to interject as long as the interjections are rare reasonable and witty. I think we would agree that I covered all three requirements. I am certainly allowed to interject from the seat that I have been allocated. Unlike Mr Harry Duynhoven I do not sit way up the back of the Chamber and have to move forward to interject. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you Mr Hide. I refer Mr Hide to Speaker’s ruling 59/3. When the cross benches are in close proximity to each other it is not in order to interject because it muffles the microphone of the other speaker. Mr Duynhoven is correct. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Would it be acceptable then if I moved some distance away from Mr Peter Brown and heckled rare—[ 
Interruption 
]  
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Rodney Hide 
: Now a member is interjecting on a point of order. I make my point. You are trying to shut me down for doing it by the rules and you let this guy just because you depend on his vote interject on a point of order. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Mr Hide you know better than that. You nearly got a yellow card; I know you have a yellow jacket. The member cannot interject from that seat because he is too close to Mr Brown. If he wants to move somewhere else out of the cross benches then I will permit it provided that the interjections are rare reasonable and relevant. The member can consider himself lucky. 
John Hayes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I listened very carefully to your explanation as to why the interjection was not appropriate. The ruling is that we do not interject from the cross benches because of their close proximity which causes muffling of the microphones. I would like respectfully to point out that the system has been completely revised in the last couple of weeks—the whole microphone system has changed—so the basis of that ruling seems to be removed. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I advise the member that although the system might look impressive it is not yet operating. 
Hon Member 
: I thought they were heaters. 
PETER BROWN 
: And that member thinks he will be fit to govern this country? Goodness me! I do not mind interjections from Mr Hide in the least provided they stick to the rules that he outlined: rare reasonable and witty. His interjections thus far have been disqualified on all three counts. They were not rare reasonable or witty.  
New Zealand First sat here for some hours yesterday listening totally to Opposition members thinking that they would put forward a worthwhile case for this free-trade agreement to be accepted. But we heard rather naive and contradictory statements. We heard from Mr Groser who is meant to be an expert on these things. At one point he told us it took years to negotiate; the Minister told us it took 3 years and 15 rounds. On his very next call Mr Groser said that the Chinese knocked on New Zealand’s door and said “Would you like to sell your goods in the largest market in the world?”. Those were pretty much the exact words he used. Are those the utterances of a top-notch negotiator? Or are they the utterances of a rather confused backbench MP? That is putting it as politely as I can.  
Mr Groser told us about harmonising electrical equipment noting that the standards are different in China. He said that when one harmonises such equipment usually one nation adopts the standards of another. The implication was that the Chinese from a country with a population of 1.3 billion would change their electrical standards to those of New Zealand. That is arrant nonsense. We can at this point in time get the Chinese to manufacture to our standards any electrical equipment we would like. They would do it willingly for any piece of equipment. In fact I suggest that if our manufacturers wanted to move offshore and into China employing Chinese labour to manufacture equipment for us and for anywhere else that would be allowed.  
One of the concerns New Zealand First has is the working conditions of the Chinese people who manufacture these goods—the humanitarian concerns if you like. I heard Mr Groser touch on it yesterday but he did not go into any depth. Many people in China work for very very low wages—exceedingly low wages. 
John Hayes 
: So what? 
PETER BROWN 
: Mr Hayes says “So what?”. They work long hours. They start working at a young age and work into old age. They have very poor working conditions and little or no commitment from their employers. Some employers might be a little more committed to their staff but in many cases there is little or no commitment from the Chinese employer in China. And we want to sign an agreement with people who allow that sort of thing in their country? We would not allow it here yet we are prepared to sign a free-trade agreement and say “Bring it in. We will remove the tariffs.” As Wayne Mapp has just outlined there are minimal tariffs on Chinese imports into this country. We want to remove that and say “Flood it in here; we will buy whatever we can.” on the basis of the one single reason I have heard from the National Party people which is that it will make it cheaper for us to buy Chinese goods. 
Wayne Mapp said that this sort of agreement is similar to the European Union type of agreement. But the European Union started off as the European Economic Community. It might have escaped Mr Mapp’s attention but those countries largely—there are some exceptions now—share the same land mass. When they formed the European Economic Community they realised that they could take away all the border controls between countries that are situated on the same land mass and let the road traffic and freight move freely from one country to another. Some of those countries have ever-changing borders. Hungary is one country that has had an ever-changing border for hundreds of years. If one looks at the border of Hungary one sees that it has changed on a very regular basis. Sometimes the country increases in size and sometimes it shrinks.  
There was good reason for the European Economic Community to remove tariffs and to free up trade. It is sound common sense. We would not dream—maybe some members on that side of the House would—of dividing this country in half and saying that we will have border controls between this half of the country and the other half. The European Union is a much bigger area than New Zealand. It made plenty of sense to take away all the border controls and put the border controls around the outside of the European Economic Community. Of course the countries have now become the European Union and they share a common currency. Is that where Mr Mapp wants to go with this free-trade agreement?  
I hope the National members are correct and that this agreement will lead to more jobs more exports and whatever. I hope they are right in their assertion but I doubt it. I think that we have settled for second best and this is backed up by some of the comments in the 
 Exporter 
 magazine. Let me read the opening comments. 
John Hayes 
: You did it yesterday. Don’t do it again. 
PETER BROWN 
: Nothing seems to sink in to Mr Hayes. The member has a one-track mind. He did not even know that the speakers above were not working.  
The article states: “For some exporters New Zealand’s free trade agreement (FTA) with China is a decisive triumph laying a clear pipeline for future revenues. For other China old hands the FTA’s future benefits remain illusory considering the sheer cultural divide and business complexity China poses. Anecdotal evidence suggests Kiwi business owners are not rushing to the Middle Kingdom. Those already steeped in the Chinese market say the FTA with China should not be seen as a panacea for Kiwi exporters’ aspirations to crack the Chinese market.” There are also some comments by individual exporters. One said: “I might be old-fashioned but I want some of our country left for our children/grandchildren. If they are going to eventually earn 50 cents an hour then I guess I could also go to China and make my fortune now and stuff the rest. But NO.” That exporter has the interests of this country and these people in sight.  
We have concerns about the segment in this legislation that allows Chinese people to come here on a working visa for a year. There is no reciprocal arrangement at all. They can come here on a working visa with no reciprocal arrangement—we do not agree with that. Further it is a means of providing temporary entry for Chinese business visitors installers and servicers for up to 3 months in a calendar year. 
And so it goes on. None of it is reciprocal. Mr Groser in his opening address yesterday said not to worry that this will open the door for the New Zealand winegrower. He said we will sell more wine there. I have to tell the National members that the Chinese do not drink grape wine.  
Hon Member. 
: Absolute nonsense! 
PETER BROWN 
: They do not—not in any quantities. They will sell it to their tourists and they will buy it for that reason alone. This legislation will not solve the winegrower’s problem.  
New Zealand First opposes this legislation but we do hope it is finally successful.