Foss Craig: Cheque Duty Repeal Bill Climate Change Response (Unit Restriction) Amendment Bill Dumping and Countervailing Duties Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoss Craig: Cheque Duty Repeal Bill Climate Change Response (Unit Restriction) Amendment Bill Dumping and Countervailing Duties Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings[Sitting date: 15 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:18060. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Commerce)on behalf of theMinister of Finance: I moveThat the Cheque Duty Repeal Bill the Climate Change Response (Unit Restriction) Amendment Bill and the Dumping and Countervailing Duties Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. The Cheque Duty Repeal Bill repeals cheque duty from 1 July 2014. The Climate Change Response (Unit Restriction) Amendment Bill prevents reregistration arbitrage by post-1989 forest land participants from 16 May 2014. The Dumping and Countervailing Duties Amendment Bill (No 2) temporarily suspends dumping duties on building and construction materials from the day after the bill receives the Royal assent.The Government’s decision to suspend anti-dumping duties arises from a market study that found that anti-dumping duties are having a chilling effect on competition inbuilding materials markets. So suspending these duties will increase competition and reduce the cost of constructing new houses. The bill is intended to provide an immediate benefit to the Christchurch rebuild and to increase residential construction elsewhere particularly in Auckland by reducing the cost of building materials. As well as preventing the imposition of any new anti-dumping duty on a broad range of building materials it suspends the anti-dumping duty currently in place on standard plasterboard from Thailand reinforcing steel bar and coil from Thailand and wire nails from China.The Government’s decision to suspend anti-dumping duties was made together with a decision to temporarily introduce tariff concessions on a wide range of building materials. I expect these decisions to reduce the cost of building materials both through a direct reduction in duties and tariffs and through increased competition in the residential construction sector. Reducing the cost of building materials is part of the Government’s wider approach to improving housing affordability which includes work being done on standards and regulations to increase competition and reduce the price of New Zealand building materials freeing up new land for development improving sector productivity and reducing compliance costs.To sum up Part 3 of this bill aims to reduce the cost of building materials used in residential construction by temporarily suspending the application of anti-dumping duties to those materials. This will provide an immediate benefit to the Christchurch rebuild and allow sufficient time for the development of a bounded public interest test so that consideration can be given to amending the Dumping and Countervailing Duties Act to provide for the wider public interest to be taken into account before anti-dumping and countervailing duties are imposed or extended. I commend these bills to the House and move that they now be read for a third time.