van de Molen TimTIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you Madam Speaker. Look I'm very pleased to be able to take a call on the European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill. It's exciting to see this piece of legislation coming before the House and it will have a meaningful impact. We've heard already the importance of trade in the New Zealand context and from the EU-NZ perspective that is one of our most critical relationships—our fourth-largest covering about $20-odd billion worth of two-way goods and one-in-four jobs in New Zealand directly related to that trade importance in our economy. So it just highlights that these sorts of deals are absolutely vital to the ongoing prosperity of our country. I would encourage members speaking to this to get their facts correct before they stand up in this House and make accusations that are actually quite inaccurate and not particularly helpful to the debate.Having said that we will be progressing—as the Minister for Trade has already said—quite promptly through the scrutiny of this piece of legislation through the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. When it comes to us we'll be looking to go through that as efficiently as possible. It will be a truncated process. We've heard already around the need to progress this with some haste given that the EU has ratified it quite rapidly—and we would like to thank them for that. That happened late last year in the European Parliament and that's fantastic to see that happening. Of course now it is waiting on us to ratify our end before then it can come into effect a month or so later. So it's incumbent on us to do that as efficiently as possible but of course we want to make sure that we are going through the democratic process and giving submitters the opportunity to have their views heard—on the benefits of this trade agreement to them or indeed to raise some concerns that they may have.Some of those that I've been hearing on both sides Madam Speaker in strong rural electorates like yours and mine where we have a lot of dairy farmers a lot of red meat producers—they've voiced some level of disappointment at the access that has been achieved for them which is actually similar to the level of disappointment I heard from European farmers when I was over there last year as well. I think in that context as much as we would have loved to have seen greater concessions made or achieved in that regard if there's a level of dissatisfaction on both sides of the trade agreement then you've probably got the balance about right. So in that context it is a very good step that we are taking here in progressing this. One of the other areas of concern was around the geographic indicators and I've heard there are just under 2000 of those that will be incorporated by this. I look forward to hearing views from submitters on that particular aspect as well.But of course there are many benefits. That is far and away the most important aspect for us: understanding what benefit this brings how that adds to our economy and to our food and fibre sector in particular. I'm very encouraged by the progress that has been achieved there in the horticulture sector especially for our honey sector and for our seafood sectors who are all going to see significant benefits once this EU-NZ free-trade agreement comes into force. So those aspects in particular I think are a really good step. We're excited to hear from submitters as I say and to progress this through promptly.It has been encouraging to see both Labour and National working diligently on improving trade access particularly achieving that with both the EU and the UK free-trade agreements that came in last year. But this Government is actually really focused on having a strong external engagement because if we do that then we help to grow more opportunities for New Zealand. As we've heard those one-in-four jobs that are directly connected to trade for New Zealand are vital for our economy. When we have some economic headwinds then we need to be looking at all opportunities to improve New Zealand's trading market access and agreements. On that basis we're very pleased with this step that's happening but also very determined to continue engaging externally to look for more opportunities to help take us forward not only for the trade that it brings but actually the alignment of relationships that you get from ongoing dialogue from reaching agreement whether it's trade or other aspects—that level of relationship building that goes on alongside that. So it's a strong focus for us to be externally oriented. We're looking forward to considering this bill in an efficient and prompt manner over the coming weeks.