Clark DavidDr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): Labour opposes the ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and we do this with good reason. The first Labour Government in 1938 pushed for increased market access in the UK and Labour Governments throughout New Zealand history have pushed for increased access. It was not easy or simple for us to get to a position where we would oppose a trade agreement—it had to be bad. We had to have a principled discussion and when we did we realised that the TPP is not something that this Labour Party could sign up to.I think that that makes our opposition to this bill all the more significant. This Government is trying to push through a bill that is inadequate. It is not serving New Zealand's long-term interests as it should. The opportunity was there to negotiate a trade agreement that really would be in New Zealand's long-term interests and it has sailed by. Chris Finlayson the Minister who just spoke was not prepared to address the issue of non-resident foreign speculators in any depth. In fact I asked him a question in the House just before during question time which related to the Ernst & Young advice on the tax at the border on foreign speculators which this Government has touted as the solution to the problems in our housing market. The Minister admitted he had not even read that advice. This is the Government's answer to the housing crisis and the speculation from non-resident foreign buyers. It has been ripped to pieces and the Minister has not even done us the courtesy of reading that advice.The reason that the Labour Party in Government will reject non-resident foreign buyers in our market those speculators—the reason we will place a ban on them—is that they are creating a distortion. It is a huge distortion to our economy—that investment in the non-productive speculative housing sector. The Government said: Oh well it's fine. Minister Groser didn't ask for that like Vietnam did Minister Groser didn't ask for that like Australia did Minister Groser didn't ask for that like other countries did because New Zealand doesn't need to ban non-resident foreign speculators. Nothing to see here. Mr Groser knows better than everyone else." He said: "I'll ask for a tax instead." Well the tax experts say that you cannot impose at the border a discriminatory tax on foreign speculators. This is the Government's answer and it has been ripped to shreds by the experts who said that if a tax was imposed it would have to be imposed on New Zealand citizens just like it is on everyone else.The Government has failed to stand up for New Zealanders' long-term interests and it seems not to care. The housing market continues to grow as a bubble and that is hurtful to New Zealand's long-term interests and Government members know it. That is why their heads are down opposite. That is why they are not proud of this deal that they are doing.I think it is also important to point out that this is a Government that has pushed through a process without respecting New Zealanders' objections to it. At every point it has rushed the process. We had set up an opportunity for people to submit on the treaty process that preceded this bill—this bill enacts that treaty; it is necessary for the enacting of the Trans-Pacific Partnership—and we curtailed the process so that the Government could rush this through before Christmas because it did not want this legislation to rush into an election year. The Government knows that the agreement is not popular with the public. It knows that it should have consulted fully. It knows that it should have given the public a decent opportunity to consider fully the 6000 pages of this agreement which were negotiated in secret over 5 years so that they could make full representations before the committee. It also knows that it should have given members of the committee longer to come to a view on all of those submissions and also the departmental officials who advise us.We know that this agreement could have been so much better. It could have been negotiated in New Zealand's long-term interests in a way that did not break the bipartisan consensus that has existed for so long.Labour continues to be a party that supports free trade. That is in our DNA. We believe in the value of trade. We are a small trading nation. I do not want to give up coffee and I do not want to give up bananas but I do not want to sign up to a deal that harms New Zealand's long-term interests. We have to say that the economic analysis on this deal has been incredibly poor. We know that in the end the equivalent access gained for dairy is about three large dairy farms for New Zealanders—by 2030. That is about nine jobs that that dairy deal creates. And at what price—at what price for New Zealand? This is not the deal that it should be. New Zealanders' interests should be at the fore not the interests of appeasing the American negotiators nor the interests of anyone in the corporate sector above ordinary middle New Zealand.But this lot they are out of touch. They are now so arrogant that they think they can push this through and nobody will notice. Well I have to say that the public of New Zealand is noticing that this is going through without full consultation processes. The public of New Zealand is noticing this increasing trend from the Government to try to do quick deals. We saw it just yesterday with this Saudi sheep scandal report coming back from the Auditor-General—this payment that was made that was declared not to be a facilitation payment because facilitation payments are only small payments. We have seen a Government that is willing to do deals that do not appear to be in New Zealand's long-term interests.Labour has adopted a principled position. We have examined in detail the treaty before we took our position. It has not always been easy publicly to say we are going to actually read it before we take a view but that is what we have done. And where we have examined the detail we have seen that this deal could have been so much better for New Zealand.I want to thank those New Zealanders who have raised the profile of this issue who have made sure that there has been a public debate on it. We saw some of them marching to Parliament today walking all the way from Christchurch and I take my hat off to them for their service to democracy in raising this issue into the public sphere.I think the members opposite will try to argue that this is a defensive piece of legislation now. They will try to say it is about preserving access or something else. They have given up on arguing that it is actually in our long-term interests and that is because the economic modelling that the Government put forward said that it creates less than 1 percent benefit by 2030. That is actually quite a bold estimate given that most of those dairy things that they were counting on in their economic analysis are no longer in the deal. Business as usual would generate a 47 percent increase in GDP if we did not sign the agreement. So we are talking about the margin of error here. Everything that New Zealand is giving up when it signs this deal is to get a less than 1 percent increase in GDP in decades' time. That cannot be a good deal in New Zealand's long-term interests.The Tufts University analysis the only decent analysis available about employment prospects says that this may well cost New Zealand 6000 jobs by 2025 as a direct consequence. Well if that is the case you want to have a big boost to your economy. You want to have had some money that you can spread around to retrain people and so on. But with this infinitesimal boost which is in the margin of error we cannot be confident that there will be anything at all and we are talking about 6000 jobs potentially lost.We are also talking about harm to the Pharmac model. We are talking about the public health impacts that could result from the TPP deal. We heard from submitters on that and submitters called for an independent analysis of these things—employment impacts public health impacts and so on. These are very reasonable requests. That was in the prior process. There has been plenty of opportunity for the Government to analyse those things ahead of this legislation going through and it has not lifted a finger. It is so confident about ramming this through before Christmas before election year that it has not looked at the detail of this agreement and it has refused to be transparent with the public. Well it is consistent at least. We are still seeing the Government hiding so much about that Saudi sheep deal. Government members say that it is not in the public interest for them to see the legal advice. Well we have pretty much seen that there is nothing. The Auditor-General has seen what there is and she says that she can really make nothing of it.It is consistent at least from the Government. It is so out of touch so arrogant that it thinks it can push this through and New Zealanders will not care. Well there is a rising tide calling for change. There is a rising tide that says: "We need a Government that's going to be transparent and that's going to look to everyone's interests." Previous trade agreements have been negotiated with input from the business community from unions and from academics. Mr Groser said: "I don't need any of that. I know the answers. Don't tell me. Don't tell me. I don't even need to know the questions; I know the answers." And I bet no one will get up and say that that was the optimal approach. No one from the opposite side will get up and say that the approach taken to negotiate this deal was optimal and I think the outcome has been that New Zealand has got a poorer deal than it should have.We cannot support this deal. We do not see that it is in the long-term interests of New Zealand. It is not the deal it should be and so Labour will not support this bill going through the House."