McClay Todd: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMcClay Todd: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2952. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TODD McCLAY (Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs):It gives me pleasure to take a call in this part of the debate and to talk about foreign affairs and trade which are two issues that are very important to New Zealand and indeed this House.I will just thank the last speaker for his support of Murray McCully and his sterling work almost single-handedly—although Mr McCully is very modest; he would share the credit with others—to get so many countries of the world to recognise the importance of New Zealand and what a fair-minded country we are how we do go out and at an appropriate time in the best way possible speak up for others who are less fortunate than ourselves and to get all of those votes so that we could become a member of the United Nations Security Council for the next 2-year period. That is where many of these discussions will take place and need to take place as well.We got so many more votes than the other countries in that first ballot because of how New Zealand is thought of. It is because the country as a whole is not like some parties in this Parliament. It is not about lecturing other people about just the rights and the wrongs or telling them that they are always wrong and that we as a country are always right. That may be the case in this Parliament sometimes I guess when you feel you must oppose absolutely everything. But I would say to Mr Kennedy Graham—and I do have a lot of respect for him on many of these issues—that I do not think changing the woodwork in this place is actually going to deliver the level of utopia that he hopes for the world and New Zealand’s place in it unfortunately. This is a place for robust debate; it does not matter which direction you are focused on. I advise him to be as critical of his colleagues as he is of the Government because that does not happen very often yet he suggests that in parliaments in Europe that is the case.The Government will do a very good job on behalf of New Zealand in representing all of New Zealand on the Security Council. I do note that Mr Shearer travelled with Mr McCully to the United Nations in New York where the final vote took place. The votes were hardly counted before he put out a press release saying how wonderful it was to be there and claiming a bit of the credit. But we do not mind sharing it and as I said Mr McCully too would share the credit where it is deserved. That press release told us who the Labour Party thought deserved it.When it comes to trade we are a trading nation. We will not raise incomes; we will not have more for the Government to be able to provide to New Zealanders by way of services—the things New Zealanders demand and deserve—by merely trading with ourselves. Indeed if we look at many of the products that we produce in New Zealand we produce too many of them to be able to consume ourselves. Just take dairy for a moment. I know that the Green Party is not a big fan of the dairy industry but if we had to consume all of the dairy produced in New Zealand we would be bigger people. We will increase and promote a better standard of living and quality of life in New Zealand only by trading with others.We are extremely fortunate to sit on the rim of what I think at least will in my lifetime be one of the largest growths of disposable income in the world and that is in the wider continent of Asia. There are a billion people in China and a billion people in India whose incomes every day are rising. We face some choices as with everything but we are a trading nation and we need high-quality agreements to make sure we have good access to these markets so that our producers in New Zealand—and more than that the people who work for these companies in New Zealand—can benefit from preferential access in many cases to a very large group of people who want to consume as their incomes increase the things we are so very good at producing. The only way we get that is with high-quality trade agreements and there have been a number of them.In fact I would recognise the work of the previous Labour Government when it came to starting moving through and concluding a negotiation with China. In fact it was Mr Goff as the trade Minister who did most of that work at that time. I actually feel for Mr Goff at this moment because he knows the importance of trade to New Zealand. He supports good high-quality trade agreements. He knows that you cannot talk about all of the issues around a negotiation at every point in time but he also knows that there is a process for this Parliament to follow when an agreement is negotiated and concluded. The reason I feel for him so much and actually have a lot of respect for him and his lifetime of work around trade is that he now finds that he is in a party that is turning its back on those New Zealand companies and turning its back on the importance of trade negotiation. The Government has been—Sue Moroney: Oh what rubbish.Hon TODD McCLAY: The member says: “Rubbish.” but actually go and look at what your leader says and stand up behind him. So largely the Government—