Sutton Jim: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Sutton Jim: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1186] 
Hon JIM SUTTON (Minister of State) 
: 
 Listening to the Opposition spokesman on the abolition of political correctness I was moved to reflect that in actual fact it is very hard to get rid of political correctness without at the same time removing all vision all principle all philosophy and all charity as well. There was no sign of any of those in the member’s speech and certainly in his case he had also removed any trace of either wit or wisdom as well. I thought that I did not want to get into that. I thought that I would just leave it and get on with the things that are necessary for a humble back-bencher like myself to do. 
Firstly I want to pay tribute to the junior Government whip. It always behoves a member of Parliament to be onside with his or her junior whip because the whip controls the leave book and the time will come—no matter whether or not members believe in political correctness—when a member will need leave. Hence I want to make clear my admiration and respect— 
Darren Hughes 
: My favourite colleague. 
Hon JIM SUTTON 
: There we are. One of the things I have learnt in my 20-odd years in politics is that one can never overdo the flattery. Even when people know perfectly well that one is shamelessly flattering them they still enjoy it. One should do it and one cannot do it too much. 
But instead of doing that I want to talk about something I can claim to know a thing about having worked at it for 6 years—that is trade negotiations. The last 6 years has been a period of unprecedented activity in the trade negotiations portfolio. During that time New Zealand has completed three trade agreements including one with Singapore started by my predecessor in the job the Hon Lockwood Smith. We have started and completed one with Thailand which will have many more actual consequences in trade statistics because it is a large emerging economy where our sorts of products were heavily protected by high tariff levels and so on. Getting that done will do quite a bit of good. Already the statistics are showing a substantial increase in trade in both directions after just a few months which is exactly what should happen. Trade agreements should make the people of both participating countries better off. 
The third trade agreement—which has been completed but which is still to complete its parliamentary process here and in Chile where some delays have been caused by the intervening presidential election—involves Chile Brunei Singapore and New Zealand. That is the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement. That agreement’s significance is that it is a strand in the spaghetti bowl that goes across the Pacific and not too many strands do. 
The world might be considered to be in some danger of ending up with three—not one but three—spaghetti bowls and essentially three big trading blocs: the Americas; Europe with perhaps Africa attached; and Asia. That is truly an Orwellian prospect—a bit late but nevertheless—three increasingly uncomfortable power blocs that are forever deciding which two will deal to the third one. We could do without that. 
I think that the strategic economic partnership we are involved in which crosses the Pacific will hopefully attract more countries to join it. It is an easy way to get into an existing regional trade agreement and there has certainly been some serious inquiry from other States both in Asia and in South America so there is some future in that one. Apart from that there are four more agreements in negotiation with China Malaysia Hong Kong and ASEAN as a whole together with Australia. 
On top of that—and the Government’s highest trade priority—is the overarching multilateral trade negotiation of the Doha development round of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The WTO negotiations would have to be the most stimulating and at the same time most frustrating exercise that I have ever been involved in in politics. They are stimulating because the benefits that can accrue to hundreds of millions of people around the world—in fact to a huge proportion eventually of the world’s population—are so great that it is certainly worth putting a lot of effort and enthusiasm into them. 
New Zealand has a negotiating team of not just Ministers who come and go but also officials who are absolutely stacked with talent and it has been a privilege and a pleasure for me to be associated with such a strong and dedicated team. New Zealand should be proud of its diplomatic staff officials and specialists in a wide variety of our Government departments who contribute to “team New Zealand” in the trade negotiations exercise of leaders of private sector organisations such as our producer boards and their successor institutions and of some of our major corporations that also play a real part in this enterprise. I have complete faith in New Zealanders when they act in a cooperative team-like way and “team New Zealand” can take on the world really because we do act as a team. I say at this stage that although sometimes the bipartisan or the multipartisan accord on foreign policy particularly on trade policy wobbles a bit because of course there will be disagreements over this policy or that policy in general the bipartisan accord holds. 
I pay tribute at this moment to Tim Groser who has just come in. Some people might have thought that Tim Groser and I could not stand the sight of each other but that is not the case. I think that Tim has gone some way to getting his colleagues back in line again and supporting the national interest. 
Finally I point out that no WTO round has ever failed but of course there has been a wide variety of degrees of success. However if we can get an agreement that includes a commitment to abolish all export subsidies and makes a bit of progress in other areas we will have something on which we can build in the future. Whether it be bilaterally regionally or multilaterally we will have done something worthwhile for New Zealand. The abolition of export subsidies alone would make the round a winner for New Zealand. We will keep trying for far more and we will get something more but this round will not fail. There is no reason for it to fail and all I want to do is to urge members of Parliament—whichever party they are in—to keep the faith and to keep working for a deal that is in the best interests of this country and of others.