Hutchison Paul: Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Hutchison Paul: Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:656;Page:5291] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill in the name of Maryan Street. 
I think the last speaker Chris Carter was a little shrill particularly in saying that the Labour Government was responsible for opening up a lot of trade. That is absolutely true but when we point to China which is one of the countries that has been identified as being associated with enforced labour we see there is a problem with his argument. 
It is important to state right from the beginning that the altruism behind this bill is absolutely correct: slavery or coerced labour is totally repugnant. However the reasons that National is not supporting this bill relate to the fact that ministry advisers and the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee report on a petition brought to it in February this year have suggested that a bill such as this is unworkable. 
I note that there are varying estimates of how many people around the world are subject to slavery or coerced labour. It is most likely to be in the millions. I was quite shocked to see a recent US State Department report suggesting just how close to home the problem is. The report of 2008 noted 14 countries where Governments do not fully comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so. Sadly two of those countries are Fiji and Papua New Guinea. I think that is of great concern to us here in the South Pacific. But as members will know New Zealand is one of the many countries that have a proud record of standing up for human rights. It is also a signatory to the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery. 
However as I said earlier on one of the important issues behind this bill—and why National members are opposing it—is its unworkability. That was brought out very clearly in the report on the petition of Geoff White on behalf of Trade Aid and 17000 others. Firstly in relation to international trade rules the report states: “We were told by the ministry that in the context of international trade rules New Zealand would need to consider a number of technical issues if it were to impose a trade ban on goods proven to have been produced by slave labour.” My colleague Tim Groser certainly explained the complexities of the problems in relation to goods that have multiple derivations from different places and are made up from different parts. 
I understand that New Zealand would need to prove that any such trade ban was not a disguised restriction on trade and that in itself would be quite a difficult thing to do. The other important point is that enforcement of a ban technically would be difficult. There was a section in the report though on corporate social responsibility which suggested that corporate enterprises could voluntarily apply a label to their products stating that they were not produced using slave labour. This is a practical suggestion that I think could be applied on a voluntary basis to companies throughout New Zealand. 
The report’s conclusion noted: “We received a briefing from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade that set out the difficulties in implementing legislation in New Zealand along the lines of the United States or the Belgian legislation.” I believe that the suggestion made in the introductory speech on this bill that we could do this was somewhat misleading. The report states: “The purpose of the US Alien Tort Claims Act is not primarily to combat the trade in slave labour products; rather it is a historical piece of legislation to enable tort claims to be filed in the US for breaches by US multinational corporations of international law … The Belgian legislation established a government-endorsed voluntary ‘social label’ …”. 
The altruism attached to this bill is absolutely correct but the applicability of it technically is difficult.