O'Connor DamienHon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Labour): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. Can I firstly start and acknowledge the Government's enthusiasm I guess to progress this as quickly as possible and to ensure that benefits do flow through to as many sectors as possible for this coming season. As the Minister for Trade acknowledged all parties in this House were happy to facilitate that through and so I acknowledge that. Trade is a challenging area. We as a nation rely absolutely on it. In fact there are few other nations in the world—few other developed nations—that rely so much on trade: 85 percent - plus of everything we produce in the primary sectors and all other areas in fact is traded offshore. We are facing some challenging times and I have to acknowledge Vangelis Vitalis the chief trade negotiator who is spending quite a bit of time travelling around this country actually raising the realities of the world in which we face with people in all sectors not just the primary sectors. It's a world of increasing geopolitical tension and growing protectionism and that's not going to change in the near future. So as a trading nation we face some headwinds. This negotiation was conducted through some challenging times: COVID initially and then of course the Ukraine War which was a huge distraction to the whole of the EU but in particular the commissioners. One of them is neighbouring the Ukraine and is acutely aware of the potential for that conflict to escalate and move out into the EU. None the less in spite of that they remained committed to work through with negotiators from New Zealand—from a little Pacific nation a long way away from Europe—to come up with an agreement that saw value for both of us. It is value and values and I've said that before in this House: 450 million people negotiating with 5 million would probably seem to be rather unbalanced and unfair but what we negotiated was a very balanced agreement in my view. There was some disappointment in the dairy and the meat sectors that we didn't get everything we wanted; indeed you never do—not you Mr Speaker but us as a nation. Mr Speaker I'm sure you get most of what you want in this House. The point is that we got an eightfold increase in the volume of high-value beef into the EU market; we got increases in the volumes—significant increases in the volumes—of some of our milk powders and products and high-value products in particular; and in sheep meat we've got a huge quota allowance that arguably we will struggle to fill. So the opportunities are ahead of us and the reduction of tariffs across the board means that actually we will become more competitive and more exporters will look to that particular market alongside that of the UK—which we've opened—as a balance to what is a high reliance on China. We acknowledge that reliance and the value in that market but none the less because of geopolitical tension because of pandemics because of transport interruptions or who knows what we need to have a number of opportunities for our exporters and indeed this goes a long way to open the door to real potential as we move into the future. I'm not going to go through the many areas that we needed to change through this legislation. The consumer information standards country of origin—we acknowledge the EU's request that anything that comes from any of the 27 member States should say that it's coming from Europe which makes it easier for them to produce something within the EU and then sell into our markets. We changed the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act around the quota access there—very important. Geographical indicators was a particularly sensitive issue at the select committee where a number of innovators—particularly cheese producers—were concerned about not being able to use some of the traditional terms. That has been acknowledged and legislated for and protected in the EU for a long time. That was a bit of a challenge but indeed the negotiators got it down to just a few—feta being one of them and I won't go through the others—terms or geographical indicators that we will not be able to use in the future. So we're going to have to come up with our own ones and I think that's quite an exciting opportunity for our primary sectors. We had the Overseas Investment Act and so we had to extend the quantum from $100 million to $200 million where those people seeking to invest under that level would have right of access subject to a few constraints into our market. That was a significant increase as I say—a doubling of the threshold—which allows investment from the EU into this country. There are always some poor protections though and we've had them for farmland. The previous Labour Government introduced protections so that we wouldn't sell all our farmland off to foreigners and we've had it in core areas of Government infrastructure. But I have to say that I was somewhat concerned to read this morning a statement from the EU ambassador and I'm hoping that he wasn't made some promise or given some promise from the coalition Government or any of its partners that this is open slather for investment in our country. He said that the free-trade agreement of course was very valuable but he also said We're looking forward to the Government's upcoming privatisation of public infrastructure." We did not negotiate in Government this agreement so that there were open investment opportunities into Government infrastructure; it was so that we would have good quality investment into new and innovative things and partnerships. But if the Government is going to use this to sell off State assets then I'm really concerned and I don't think those were the values and the aspirations of either party when we were negotiating. That's an area where we in Opposition will keep an eye on the Government but there are many other areas of opportunity for Europeans. In the area of science in particular we have a wonderful agreement that as a small nation allows us to work with the science fraternity and industry in the whole of the EU in a way that I think is unbelievable. It was something that perhaps we didn't take on board as one of the key objectives but it's one of those things that rolled out of what was a high-quality negotiation because we share the same values. Our aspirations towards open economies towards democracy and to the protection of labour rights the protection of animal welfare standards the protection of biodiversity the prevention of deforestation—these are the same aspirations that we have as a nation that the Europeans share and that's why they signed the trade agreement with us. Valdis Dombrovskis as I say is someone who was trade commissioner and before him the trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström who worked earlier on with my colleague David Parker were both enthusiastic but more particularly Valdis Dombrovskis had an absolute commitment to drive this through to conclusion and to a success. So I want to thank him once again as I have done. As I say to the agricultural commissioner who was somewhat squeezed—if you have a look at what is happening in Europe now farmers are out in the streets doing some pretty outrageous things really. This I guess is a sector that is highly subsidised. The Europeans appreciate the value of food security and we should understand that. We don't always agree with the level of subsidisation but that was something that was put aside along with not us demanding equal standards but equal aspirations. So we didn't want to have the same standards in animal welfare or the same standards around biodiversity protection because we have different countries and different environments. But to aspire to a better outcome: lower emissions decarbonising our economies—those are the things that we have committed to work on together through science through commerce through Government procurement and through goods and services trade. So it is indeed an honour to have been part of this agreement and be able to participate as a Government Minister and now in Opposition to sit opposite the Government that wants to pass this through and ratify this as quickly as possible so that our exporters our importers as well and those who aspire to grow their goods and services trade with that high-value market can get on and do the job. So Labour supports the ratification of the EU New Zealand free-trade agreement and we'd like to celebrate its ratification. Kia ora."