Lee Melissa: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLee Melissa: General Debate[Sitting date: 26 November 2014. Volume:702;Page:853. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MELISSA LEE (National):I shall start my contribution by not offending that senior member of the Opposition Winston Peters—I am a good Korean girl. But I shall just say as Mr Peters actually started that children listen: that is not how you actually do it. That is an example of how you should have quit a long time ago. That is what happens if you stay here a little too long. He is a little too long in the tooth and he should have perhaps actually quit when he was out the last time. As I said I am a good Korean girl and I do not like to actually insult an elderly gentleman.I just want to say in support of my colleagues from this side who talked about Mr Little and the leadership of the Labour Party that I would just like to actually start by saying congratulations to Mr Little and commiserations to Mr Robertson. But Mr Robertson take heart. Here on this side we actually love wearing our T-shirts saying “I’m a Key person”. I do not know too many of you who might actually like to wear “I’m a Little person” so perhaps you would be forgiven for not wearing one of those T-shirts.This side wants to talk about what is actually good for our country. This side is actually focused on growing our economy and this National Government has actually delivered for New Zealanders. Our economy has grown by more than 3.9 percent in the last term and we have actually provided more than 72000 jobs in the last year. But when we are talking about all the lovely trade we have overseas one thing somebody reminded me of was that we do not as a nation become rich by trading by ourselves. We need to trade with overseas nations. I am very very proud of the work done by our Minister of Trade our Minister of Foreign Affairs and our Prime Minister—and also I have played a little part in it as well—in bringing together the free-trade agreement with Korea.There are 50 million people in South Korea alone who could be eating our food and using our products. Immediately once we actually sign it the $65 million in tariffs we pay will be gone. We currently pay more than $200 million in tariffs alone. It is unproductive for our producers to be competing against EU countries Chile and the United States which Korea already has free-trade agreements with. So it is not just about trading with Korea but trading and competing on the same footing as those nations who already have a free-trade agreement with Korea. Kiwifruit growers’ tariffs are 45 percent going into Korea and that will be a saving of millions and millions of dollars. And for milk producers Korea is one of the biggest importers of our cheeses. As a Korean who is actually a little bit lactose intolerant I do not know why but they do actually take a lot of our cheese. We export a lot.Also I want to say that when we have this kind of free-trade agreement with a country like this we actually reduce the cost of the products we use in New Zealand. I know that many people will be using Samsung whiteware such as washing machines and dryers. I know that many people use Samsung telephones. Samsung even sponsors lots of our sporting codes as well. But many years ago before the free-trade agreement I remember having to pay $6000 for a mobile phone.Tim Macindoe: How much?MELISSA LEE: $6000 for a mobile phone. I was a bit silly paying that—actually my mother paid for that. Nowadays it costs way less than that. I remember when the MicroTAC II first came out—and it did nothing like the technology we have now—people were paying $6000 for a mobile phone. Now we pay a heck of a lot less and that is all due to the free-trade agreements we have managed to get so it is way cheaper for New Zealanders.The relationship we have with foreign countries has also developed things like technology. In the Selwyn retirement village in Mount Albert robotic technology was trialled. It was a joint venture between Auckland University and a Korean technology company. I celebrate that and this is as a result of the good work that the National Government is doing.