Ross Jami-Lee: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoss Jami-Lee: General Debate[Sitting date: 04 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10761. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): Earlier today the report of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee on the treaty of—Hon David Cunliffe: Ni hao.JAMI-LEE ROSS: Thank you Mr Cunliffe. Gong xi fa cai. Earlier today the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee’s report into the treaty examination of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was presented to the House. That report was a culmination of 2½ months’ worth of hearings—650 oral submissions were heard and a further 6000-odd submissions were received and considered by the select committee. It is by no means as much of a feat as those who negotiated the agreement but it was quite an effort and I acknowledge the chairman of the select committee Mark Mitchell who is here at the moment.The committee considered many many aspects of that treaty and ultimately came down to the view that the TPP is of considerable benefit to New Zealand and considerable benefit to New Zealand exporters. It is going to be a trade agreement that will go down in history as being a leader around the world for trade for the world. It is a trade agreement that covers a third of world trade. It is a trade agreement that covers 800 million people living within the countries that are there and 40 percent of the world’s total economic output goes to the countries that are part of the TPP.Throughout the hearings it became clear to us that there was a huge amount of misinformation being peddled by groups around the country. The largest group that was peddling misinformation I believe was the New Zealand Labour Party. A party that has had a proud history of supporting trade and supporting exporters in this country has abandoned New Zealand exporters and has abandoned those people trying to produce products to export around this world. I see Mr Cunliffe Mrs King and Mr Parker in the House who were Ministers in the last Government and who quite rightly should have been proud to stand on their feet and support the free-trade agreements that Labour supported but they have abandoned New Zealanders in this case.Submitters came to the committee and talked about the need to allow the Government to legislate in the public interest. The TPP does not stop that. Submitters came to the House concerned that the investor-State dispute settlement provisions would harm New Zealand. In fact they protect New Zealand investors. They do not harm New Zealand at all and there are a lot of protections built in there. Submitters were concerned about the Pharmac model being threatened. Well the Government protected the Pharmac model. They were concerned about the Treaty of Waitangi having an issue taken with it. Well the Government protected the Treaty of Waitangi. They were concerned about jobs potentially being lost. Well there was a very poor report produced that was hung on to by many submitters but in fact we can say with our hands on our hearts that through trade agreements that Governments have negotiated in the past it only leads to more jobs more growth and more opportunity for New Zealanders and the TPP will do that as well.There were a number of minority views submitted. I acknowledge the Green Party and the New Zealand First Party for their very principled minority views but there were some inaccuracies in some of the reports. The biggest inaccuracy in the minority view from the New Zealand Labour Party was a statement that said: “The Labour Party is the party of free trade.” That is the biggest inaccuracy I saw in any of the minority views. After the introduction the first five paragraphs of the Labour Party’s minority view were not about economic gains or about trade but about housing. The second two paragraphs after the housing paragraphs were about process. It was not until the ninth paragraph of the Labour Party’s minority view that it actually talked about trade. Labour Party members have abandoned the country on trade and they no longer support exporters. In fact to stand up in the House and write into a report that they are opposed to $2.7 billion worth of economic gain because the National Government did not negotiate the ability for them to in the future ban foreigners based on the sound of their last name is terrible.They say in their report that they have a long-held Labour policy of banning foreigners but it was not so long held that they were hanging on to that when they were in Government and started the negotiations on the TPP. But they are using that to say no to hundreds of millions—in fact billions—of dollars’ worth of export opportunities for this country. The select committee did a good job in considering many of these matters. It is undoubtedly in New Zealand’s best interest to ratify the TPP and I am pleased to be on the committee that supported it.