Clendon David; Tisch LindsayDAVID CLENDON (Green): I am pleased to take a short call to reaffirm the Green Party's opposition to the Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill as has been flagged earlier by my colleague Mojo Mathers. As we have heard dumping is a practice whereby a quantity of goods or products be they primary produce or manufactured goods whatever they might be gets dumped into a country from some other place usually below the cost of sale in the country of origin. I guess our fundamental objection to this legislation is that it further weakens the protection for New Zealand producers New Zealand manufacturers—the people who actually produce things and make things and employ New Zealanders here in New Zealand. I think those protections are already weak. We know that we are one of the least subsidised countries in the world particularly in areas like primary production and that in a sense is something to be proud of. Certainly I was pleased to be at the Ballance Farm Environment Awards last week—the national finals after a series of regional finals. There is some pride within our primary production sector in the fact that it is not subsidised to any significant extent and yet it manages to compete very well against producers who are. So our belief is that this introduction of a new consumer interest criterion will simply lead to a reduction in the protection afforded to our already quite exposed producers. That is OK—New Zealand producers and manufacturers expect to compete but the Greens have long argued that fair trade is different from free trade. Free trade is basically open slather. It is a race to the bottom. It is about price compared with value. We think that fair trade is actually a much broader and a more structured position to take and I think that this legislation will take us away from that notion of protection of our producers and our manufacturers—who can compete but they must be in a position where they compete fairly and on something like an even footing. Dumping obviously counts very much against that. The central debate is whether we protect local industry and jobs or allow allegedly greater consumer choice increase competition and provide cheaper goods. All of those latter three might on the face of it appear OK but it is about short-term or long-term thinking. Yes if we allow some country to dump a quantity of goods here whatever they might be then yes in the short term it means the consumer buys a product at a lower price than they would otherwise. But what about the supply chain locally? What if some primary produce is dumped in New Zealand and it effectively means that 1 year's harvest from our local providers suddenly does not have a market or at least a market at a price that assures even a reasonable return—a recovery of costs to the producer? That could be sufficient to send producers out of business. We know that primary production is not a place for the faint-hearted. A bad season due to weather or whatever then suddenly the dumping of goods on our market here could be enough to undermine the integrity the investment and the employment opportunities of a given production of a given supply chain. Similarly with the notion of competition New Zealand companies and primary producers can and do compete but it is important that they be able to compete fairly. How can New Zealand producers compete on price when they are obliged to meet the cost of the regulation that we in Parliament impose on them? Minimum wage requirements health and safety requirements environmental waste management laws—these sorts of things all impose costs on producers and manufacturers and that is as it should be. How and why ought our manufacturers and our producers be obliged to compete with producers who are not constrained by labour laws by health and safety laws or by appropriate environmental regulation? We see the weakening of the protection of our local producers and manufacturers that would emerge almost inevitably from this bill because it is a reflection of short-term thinking. It is about grabbing a cheap price now rather than thinking about the long-term consequence. It is about a cheap price rather than addressing issues of value. We will continue to oppose this bill.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call the Hon David Cunliffe—5 minutes.