McClay Todd: Trade Marks (International Treaties and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
McClay Todd: Trade Marks (International Treaties and Enforcement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2489] 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 It gives me pleasure to rise this evening to speak on the Trade Marks (International Treaties and Enforcement) Amendment Bill. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Briefly. 
TODD McCLAY 
: No this will not be a brief speech; this is an exciting issue to talk about. It was a bill like this that drove me each morning last year during my campaign in Rotorua to get out of bed knock on doors and talk to people of Rotorua so that I could come here and support such an important measure. 
Hon Member 
: And in Miramar. 
TODD McCLAY 
: And in Miramar most certainly. This is another bill that brings us closer to other countries of the world and importantly to meeting international standards. Indeed I congratulate the honourable Minister Simon Power on giving this bill priority and for bringing this measure before the House in such a timely fashion. When I was talking to local people in Rotorua last week people said that they were not yet sick of hearing about that Minister Simon Power and all the good work he is doing for New Zealanders—these important bills he is bringing to us and the priority he is giving them so that he can deliver them on behalf of New Zealand thus making New Zealand businesses manufacturers and consumers safer in the process. I believe we will hear much more about the Minister in the coming months as he delivers more for New Zealanders. 
Are trademarks protection of rights and intellectual property important? Well there are a large number of counterfeit goods in the world and indeed in New Zealand. They have the potential to do great harm to New Zealanders and importantly to local businesses in this country when they are imported. I am talking here about some of the medicines that we receive advertisements for through email and that we can see on the Internet. People might think such medicines are cheaper and better. In many many instances of course they are not and can do great harm to New Zealanders. Let us also look at bad-quality pirated DVDs that are easily available via the Internet. An unsuspecting New Zealander might think he or she were buying a product that had been produced by the manufacturer and the rights-holder and would be quite disappointed when that product turned up in the mail. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: How long did it take you to perfect that accent? 
TODD McCLAY 
: What is a trademark? Very importantly a trademark is any sign or combination of signs capable of being represented graphically or distinguishing the good or service of one person from those of another. Examples of this can be found in my electorate where the people of the wider Rotorua area not only understood my accent last year but also enjoyed it and voted for it in great great numbers. 
An example of a trademark can be found in Te Puke. Of course we know Te Puke is the kiwifruit capital of New Zealand. The kiwifruit are big and strong and they are good. People all over the world want to buy them. The brand the trademark that is used there is Zespri. It will come as a shock to members opposite that others in the world grow kiwifruit of inferior quality that do not taste as good and that they try to pass off as kiwifruit from my electorate under the Zespri name. This does great harm to kiwifruit farmers who invest large amounts of money time and energy. They employ people and create many jobs. These kiwifruit of inferior quality are passed off as Zespri’s fruit doing harm to Zespri’s business and therefore to the New Zealand economy as a whole. 
 We also have Fonterra and Anchor butter. We have many fantastic dairy farmers in my electorate in areas like Reporoa Rerewhakaaitu Galatea Paengaroa Pongakawa and many other areas of the electorate where people get up early in the morning and work hard. They are great farmers they are proud to be farmers and they produce fantastic products for Fonterra under the brand name of Anchor. Anchor butter Anchor milk-powder and many other Anchor products are known all over the world. They are known to be of high quality to have been produced by hard-working New Zealanders and to be enjoyed very well in different parts of the world. It will not surprise members opposite if they have been paying attention that indeed others in the world produce milk products and try to pass them off under the Anchor brand. They do this so they can get greater funds and piggyback on the back of our farmers’ great names. This bill will help to protect our farmers and to protect Fonterra and therefore the Anchor brand. 
I will tell members opposite about another great product that comes from my electorate from the town of Rotorua. It will surprise many of them to know that we have a lot of mud in Rotorua and it is therapeutic. People come from far and wide to enjoy it buy it and take it home with them. We have a new hotel that the Prime Minister opened when he was Leader of the Opposition—of course he is no longer Leader of the Opposition but the Prime Minister—and it is the Wai Ora Lakeside Spa Resort. It is a fantastic new hotel in Rotorua and it is great for tourism. It produces a product that people around the world are already buying and taking home with them. The word is spreading about this product which does wonders for people’s complexions. We also have the Polynesian Spa in Rotorua which is another place where people can spend a few enjoyable hours—or days—and buy wonderful mud products to take home. We all know but of course I have to say that Rotorua is the geothermal capital of New Zealand. Others would like to say that their mud comes from Rotorua so that they too can make money from our great name. This bill will help protect employers and producers in Rotorua. 
Trademarks are important because they protect creative rights. I have already mentioned that this intrinsically relates to the registration of trademarks when they denote intellectual property and personal property rights. This bill allows New Zealand to accede to and ratify three conventions. The first is the Madrid protocol to enable New Zealand trademark owners to protect their trademarks overseas by filling in an application for registration of that trademark. Then we have the Nice agreement which provides a classification system for goods and services for the purposes of registering trademarks. Finally there is the Singapore treaty named for a wonderful place. I say to the chairman of the select committee that when this bill comes before us we had better go and look at some of these places and see why such wonderful countries get to sign such importantly named bills! The Singapore treaty makes the system more user-friendly. It reduces business compliance costs and therefore I suppose bureaucracy—something that our Government knows much about the reduction of and something that members opposite care little about. 
Once a trademark is registered the owner has exclusive rights to use that trademark. This means that another person is not permitted to use that trademark the trademark identification with it or the trademark as it is clearly identified. Trademarks of course can be protected for up to 10 years and this bill will mean that the protection of trademarks within New Zealand will be recognised in other countries. The treaties before us have previously been consulted on by the Ministry of Economic Development in its international trademark treaties discussion paper. Nine submissions were made and they were all largely supportive. The International Trademark Association when talking about the Madrid protocol went into some detail to stress the financial benefits that would be available for New Zealand businesses exporting to at least two or more overseas markets if they were able to use the Madrid system and of course this bill will allow that. 
 The Madrid protocol signed by 80 countries was ratified by only 78. It is a great shame that New Zealand is not on that list. I notice the other two countries that have signed but not ratified are Egypt and Senegal. We are not in the same league as them but as we look at the other countries on the list we see that it is right and proper and fitting that New Zealand features with them. Eighty-three countries have signed the Nice agreement and 83 countries have ratified it and it has entered into force. Of course New Zealand’s name is not on that list. The first signatures came in 1972. Finally of contracting parties to the Singapore treaty 55 countries have signed including New Zealand and 11 have ratified and it has entered into force. Australia is signing in March of this year and New Zealand because of the good work of the Minister Simon Power and the work that the committee will do will be one of the next on the list. 
I have a moment left to summarise and I want to tell a very short story for the members opposite. I know they will pay attention as I know they enjoy listening to me.