Hayes John: Tariff (New Zealand-Hong Kong China Closer Economic Partnership Agreement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Hayes John: Tariff (New Zealand-Hong Kong China Closer Economic Partnership Agreement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13404] 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 It gives me considerable pleasure to stand in the House now in the third reading of the Tariff (New Zealand-Hong Kong China Closer Economic Partnership Agreement) Amendment Bill. I join with those who have already congratulated the Prime Minister and Tim Groser on their work in activating this bill after 8 years of stagnation following Jim Sutton’s intervention in 2001. We are doing this because it is really important that innovation provides access to world markets. Many of those crayfish that Maryan Street talked about actually begin in Ngawi or somewhere off the Wairarapa coast so this is immensely important to my electorate. It is also immensely important because the comparative advantage of this country is in exporting food whether it is dairy products meat vegetables horticultural products or even wine. That is really fundamentally important to people living in provincial New Zealand. 
This agreement is incredibly important because it is part of the Government’s focus on free trade and on improving access for our exporters to world markets. As I said earlier today that is a priority of the Prime Minister’s. He mentioned it in this Parliament in February in his Prime Minister’s statement. He knows and we on this side of the House know that it is only by lifting our economic performance that we can create jobs boost incomes improve living standards and provide the world-class services that Kiwi families deserve. 
I must say that the Green Party has got it wrong. The Green Party may have got it right in Australia but the Greens are seriously wrong here. The reason is that Green members do not seem to understand that these agreements lead to jobs employment and to the buying of things like Herceptin and other expensive drugs for use in our communities. We have to accept and the Green Party must accept that there is a huge change in the world’s geopolitical tectonic plates. China is on a growth curve and we need to understand that by 2050 China’s average standard of living will be half that of America’s. We need to understand that even in the period of the next 12 years if China’s average growth is only half what it is today there will be hundreds of millions in the middle class and tens of millions in its upper class. The purpose of this agreement is to give our producers access to those people. Even now—and I accept some of the Greens’ assertions about the difficulties of dealing with China—the Communist Party of China will have to deal with issues such as providing retirement benefits health insurance and access to health care. It will have to build infrastructure deal with a lack of drinking water and sewerage systems fight corruption and find work for hundreds of millions of people. It is fundamentally important that New Zealand stays linked to those processes and that is why I support this agreement and the Government supports it. We look forward to passing this bill at its third reading. Thank you.