Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): In the years following my time at university I used to have what I guess would be called an anxiety dream. I would dream that I had not studied for a really important exam that was about to take place and I did not know what the date was and I would get very stressed about this. I think others in the House may at times in their lives have had similar kinds of anxiety dreams. Of course then I would wake up and realise that in actual fact there was no exam for me to study for and it was all unnecessary anxiety. I have a feeling like that today as I stand in the House as we debate the passing of a piece of legislation to ensure that New Zealand can ratify an agreement that does not actually look like it is going to happen or certainly not any time soon. So I give a shout-out today to all of those university students who at this time of the year are studying for their exams that actually are going to happen as opposed I hope to them studying for exams that are not going to happen because if they were they would be wasting their time which is a little bit like what this House is doing today. Everybody—not only in New Zealand I would say but in fact in most of the world—is currently focused on an event that will take place in the United States next Tuesday. It is a very important event. Both of the leading protagonists in it do not support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in its current form. The TPP is going to be renegotiated. But on the National Government benches these events in the United States which most people would assume would be quite hard to ignore are being completely ignored. Those members are ploughing on—We must pass the ratification. We must be at the front of the queue." This is a continuation of National's approach to trade that goes back many decades. In the 1990s when the National Government was in charge of New Zealand's trade agenda it was a little bit like playing the card game five hundred and every time the National Government went to the negotiating table it bid misère—it bid to lose the tricks. In fact it actually went lay-down misère. It put all the cards down on the table and invited other trading partners to play our cards for us so that at the end of the 1990s we basically had nothing left to do in terms of trade negotiations because we had given away all the tariffs. We had given away anything that we could actually usefully trade on in trade negotiations and it was only with the election of the Helen Clark - led Labour Government with Phil Goff as trade Minister that we were able to get back to creating good high-quality bilateral trade agreements that delivered on access to markets for our exporters and indeed our service providers. That is what good quality trade agreements are about—access to markets for our hard-working exporters—and as the years have gone on many of those have been service providers. The problem with this agreement is it is not a trade agreement. That is the fundamental issue with this agreement. If it were only a trade agreement like those ones that had been signed by the fifth Labour Government then this party would be supporting it. But New Zealand's participation which is ratified in this agreement by this legislation goes well beyond that trade agreement. It becomes what is called in the parlance a behind-the-border agreement. But what New Zealanders have been saying consistently over the last couple of years is that they are concerned about that kind of agreement and I just disagree with members opposite when they challenge the notion of whether New Zealanders support the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA) or not. Poll after poll has shown that New Zealanders have been concerned about it. I was interested—just as recently as last week that the MYOB Business Monitor which the National Government has been very keen to promote for other reasons actually said that only 39 percent of small businesses supported the TPPA. So a—Hon Nanaia Mahuta: How many?GRANT ROBERTSON: 39 percent. So in a sector that you would expect to be supporting the TPPA less than half of it is and that is because those small businesses know that although there may be some gains in market access—and there are some small gains in market access. In dairy as my colleague David Clark has said it is the equivalent of the value of three farms but there are some gains there and some gains in some other export industries. Those small businesses know that that pales into insignificance compared with what we are giving up as a country by signing up to an agreement that goes well beyond what most of us would regard as a trade agreement. For the Labour Party we have been clear that the litmus test for us has been the fact that this National Government went into that agreement and failed to protect the right of a future Government to say that people who have no intention of living in New Zealand and who have no right to live in New Zealand could not be banned from buying existing residential property. Other countries went into that negotiation and said: "We are going to protect the right to legislate to do that."—because that is a sovereign right of this Parliament. A future Government might want to actually rebuild the dream of homeownership for New Zealanders. We have the lowest homeownership rates in 60 years in this country so a future Government might want to do that. Labour wants to do that but the National Government refused to protect the right of a future Government to do that—Australia did and Vietnam did but not the National Government—and by doing that what it showed was that this agreement goes beyond what is normal in a trade agreement. This agreement affects the sovereign rights of the Parliament in a way that would make many New Zealanders and has made many New Zealanders very very uncomfortable indeed. That is the issue here because the people in New Zealand who have gone out on marches about the TPP agreement and who have written us letters—not just the most vocal but a range of people who are concerned about the TPP—feel that it is a symptom of a Government and a society where the corporation is more important than the citizen. They feel that somehow or other our rights as individual citizens are subjugated to the rights of corporations. Whether that is true or not that is the impression that New Zealanders have gained and the complete and utter failure of this Government to actually go and talk to New Zealanders and listen to New Zealanders on the subject of trade has been one of the reasons why this agreement has been so unpopular. I will actually say that Todd McClay has done a better job of that. Tim Groser—Tim Groser was so arrogant and so out of touch with the interests of New Zealanders that he put this agreement into a position where even those who might have had some sympathy with it were unable to support it. Actually when Tim Groser briefed the Labour Party caucus members when he came back from the negotiations he said at that briefing: "Anything I say here you can use as public." When he was asked and was challenged about what was going to happen with Pharmac—was there a risk that New Zealanders would be paying more for their medicines—he said: "Well no." And when we pushed him on it he said: "Look the text has got constructive ambiguity." That is what he said—the text has got constructive ambiguity. Well I think we all know that the pharmaceutical industry will be pretty good at using that constructive ambiguity to make sure that New Zealanders pay more for their medicines. It hates the Pharmac model and what it hates the most is the idea that the Pharmac model might see other countries pick up a similar model. It does not want that and it will push hard to use that constructive ambiguity. So on this side of the House we continue to have concerns about whether or not this agreement will lead to New Zealanders paying more for our medicines. In Vietnam the decision has been made to delay ratification of the agreement while it watches what is going on. Joe Biden the Vice-President of the United States has been saying there is a less than even chance of the TPP being passed any time soon. Japan has delayed its ratification process as well. All around the world people are realising that there needs to be a renegotiation and what the National Government should be doing is standing up and saying: "We got a rubbish deal on dairy in here—we got a rubbish deal on dairy in here. We didn't protect the right of this Parliament to make laws about ensuring that we can manage who buys and sells houses inside New Zealand. We didn't do enough to ensure that the rights of the citizens of New Zealand and the sovereign right of this Parliament were respected and we're going to go to that renegotiation table." And that is exactly what Tim Groser told us he would do. If the deal on dairy was not good enough he would walk away.Fletcher Tabuteau: Gold standard.GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes Fletcher Tabuteau is right. A gold standard agreement on dairy was the bottom line for Tim Groser and we got a rubbish agreement on dairy. This is a weak agreement. It is not a trade agreement. It does not offer New Zealanders the kinds of benefits we would expect from a trade agreement and in turn it pushes back on our sovereignty. This Government needs to wake up realise that the ground has shifted on the TPP agreement get on the side of New Zealanders and get in there and start beginning a renegotiation process. On this side of the House we support good quality trade agreements that will grow the economy for New Zealand and that will deliver good jobs. What we do not support are poor-quality agreements that compromise our sovereignty and we cannot support this legislation as a result."