Groser Tim: New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement Bill — In Committee 
Groser Tim: New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:17373] 
TIM GROSER (National) 
: 
 In the discussion on Part 5 which we have just heard Mr Brown said he had not heard one reason from National as to why we need a free-trade agreement with China. He then added—and I wrote it down—“Tell us what is in it for New Zealand.” I know that it was probably not intended as a serious question and I am even more certain that it does not deserve a serious answer. Nevertheless ignoring those simple facts I will proceed in the assumption that there might just be a New Zealand First person listening to this debate who is still wondering what on earth the New Zealand First problem with this bill is. I will try to answer the question as if it were a serious point. 
I think we have to start with an appreciation of the fundamental challenge facing New Zealand economically. The fundamental challenge is to raise real wages. The fundamental solution is to increase total factor productivity and the fundamental best way to achieve that is to increase the export orientation of our economy. We know that New Zealand far from being a small but great trading nation is actually at the absolute bottom of the heap of the 15 small developed countries with a population of 10 million or less in terms of the ratio of trade to GDP. It is of fundamental long-term importance even to those 4 to 5 percent who vote for New Zealand First that we change this over the next 20 years. 
A variety of things must be done in this country if we are to address this underlying economic challenge and one of the issues is to provide markets for New Zealand. Anyone with any actual appreciation let alone any real-world experience of the international trading situation facing New Zealand in the last 30 years is well aware that of all the developed countries in the world large or small this country—our country—has been more constrained by the lack of access to markets for the products we produce competitively than any country in the world. There are myriad studies to back up that judgment. 
So against the background of 30 years of frankly bitter struggle by “New Zealand Inc.” both the major political parties have been in charge of the country and we have had Prime Ministers trade Ministers farming leaders and all manner of New Zealanders—including people like Dr Walker and myself in my former job—trying to find a solution for access for New Zealand markets. Then what happens? A giant emerging economy which is responsible for 24 percent of the population of the world comes to New Zealand’s door and asks whether we would like essentially completely free access in about a decade for whatever we can produce. I am sorry but if one’s answer to that is no one would have to be a prime candidate for village idiot of the year. That is the underlying point of this agreement and it related right back through that logical train to the need to ensure that the young people coming up in our country can make a future for themselves in this country. The right way to do this is to provide competitive opportunities. This is fundamentally important to New Zealand. 
We have a situation where we know that the Chinese people are moving up in the income world. Thirty-four percent of Chinese people are nowadays in the $1 to $2-a-day bracket. This is miles ahead of the other giant developing country India which still has something like 70 percent of its population in the $1 to $2-a-day bracket. We know that China will manage its way through the super-fast growth problems the inflationary issues and the issue of churn in its employment markets. China will continue to grow at a stellar rate. It will need this country—this small country of which we are all so proud—to provide the high-quality foodstuffs that Mr Brownlee just referred to in the first response to this frankly very ill-conceived attempt by New Zealand First to provide a thin rationale for its position.