Curran Clare: Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5263. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I want to thank Fletcher Tabuteau for bringing this bill to the House. I too am deeply worried about the contents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the inability for New Zealanders to have sufficient public debate on the contents and on the process of this agreement before it actually becomes a done deal.I do not think anyone listening to this debate tonight should be in any doubt that Labour is a party that supports free trade. Within our party we have varying views. You have heard my colleague Clayton Cosgrove describe himself as a passionate free-trader. Well I would not describe myself in that way but what I would say is that I am a passionate supporter of the right for sovereign Governments to legislate in the public interest and to also support our own industries and our own innovation industries. That is what I am here to support tonight. This is why Labour is supporting this bill to the select committee. It is because there is a void that exists at the moment in our country on the ability to have a sensible discussion about some of the provisions that people are most concerned about in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. That is why Labour is supporting this bill to the select committee: so that there can be a sensible debate and informed debate.I am really disappointed tonight to hear the National Party back-benchers displaying their blind ignorance and their rote-like message delivery when they should actually be looking more seriously at the issues and listening to their constituents. The National Party really has nothing to fear about having this discussion. In fact those members should be welcoming this discussion. In many of the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries there is a stronger debate going on and they should actually be saying “We have nothing to fear. We want to have this discussion. We’re up for having this discussion.” That is why National should be supporting this bill tonight to a select committee.Why is this bill before the House? It is before the House because there has been no ability to have the debate that needs to happen because everything that we are debating is around what might be the case—what might be the case—and it is around the substance of leaks that have come out. It is not about the actual knowledge of what we know and so the investor-State dispute settlement provisions is the thing that has been latched on to as the symbol that is emblematic of how a Government and how a country can lose control of its own sovereignty and its own ability to legislate in the public good. That is why this debate is so important and why this bill should go toa select committee.Everybody should be very clear about this: if this agreement does get to the point of being signed when it gets to Parliament it will have already been signed. The public debate may be allowed to be had but it will have already been signed and we will not have had the opportunity to have that debate before then. The ability for democracy to have occurred and the ability for a proper democratic process will not have happened and we will not have been able to have that discussion. I think that is pretty critical which is a very good reason for all of the parties to support a proper debate in a select committee process around the investor-State dispute settlement provisions.So what is it we are actually debating? Why are we worried? It is a mechanism by which the multinational corporations can go to some international arbitration tribunal and sue the Governments of countries in which they invest. I think one of the speakers mentioned that there are around 3000 of those. We know that they are not all bad. We know that there are provisions that actually do protect countries but we also know that there have been many many issues raised about some of them—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! [Interruption] Can I just remind members that they should—and I did make the point to David Bennett—address the Chair and occasionally glance in the direction of the Chair to ascertain whether the Chair is on his feet trying to quietly ask the member to finish. The member’s time has expired.