Hayes John: Tariff (Malaysia Free Trade Agreement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Hayes John: Tariff (Malaysia Free Trade Agreement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10273] 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 I was reflecting as my colleague Maryan Street was speaking about history. It is a word she used in her speech and it took me back to my days at university. Most people of my vintage will remember the Colombo Plan and Malaysian students studying in our classes. A fellow called Ong was in our class at Lincoln University when I was doing my degree there. Moving on from that my first-ever job was actually up in Alor Setar looking under our aid programme at the location of an abattoir. The fact that I had never been in one in my life did not seem to matter. 
After that I got a job with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and I remember very clearly the briefings we used to get in Singapore at our High Commission on the activities of the communists during the period of Konfrontasi which of course underpinned the reason why we kept a battalion in Singapore and why we did a lot of exercises in Malaysia as we are doing today in Afghanistan. Today is a far cry from those days when people lived in attap huts and Malaysia was generally regarded as an underdeveloped country. Today we meet as equal countries signing a trade agreement which leaves us in an equal relationship on both sides. 
Rather than traverse some of the territory that has been covered so far by previous speakers I will speak particularly to my constituents in the Wairarapa and outline to them the importance of this trade agreement to their day-to-day work. Specifically we are exporting about $350 million of dairy products into Malaysia. We are producing a couple of million litres of milk a day down in South Wairarapa—much of that will end up in Malaysia. We export something in the order of $50 million worth of meat a year—sheep meat and goat meat particularly. That is a product that we have a lot of in the Wairarapa and in Central Hawke’s Bay. 
We are exporting $30 million worth of fruit and nuts to Malaysia and we have particularly plenty of fruit in my electorate. We are exporting $20 million worth of machinery. People like Metalcraft Industries in Dannevirke are producing and exporting to the global market things like wheelchairs and we have just hit our 500th unit. Other significant products that Malaysia takes from New Zealand include about $20 million worth of paper and paperboard $16 million worth of wood pulp and $15 million worth of timber. All of those products come from my electorate so this bill will be hugely important to the day-to-day market opportunities for many people in that area which stretches from Ngawi to Waipawa. 
I think it is also important to keep in mind that the global economic crisis had very little impact on the growth of GDP in Malaysia and on the growth of our exports to Malaysia. Our exports have continued to grow really strongly. Food as I have said comprised roughly 50 percent of our exports annually to Malaysia over the last 5 years. The real additional growth is not so much in commodity products but in prepared foods. We are adding value to what we are able to put into that market and that is also because as incomes are rising in Malaysia people can pay more for our produce. 
I think the other thing that has not been mentioned today and is very significant is that particularly to eastern Malaysia much of our exports are actually transhipped in Singapore. We can probably guarantee that our exports to Malaysia are $60 million to $100 million a year more than the official statistics show because a lot of our product is actually getting caught through the Singapore net. 
Another area of great importance to us is tourism. Every hotel bed represents three jobs. Nearly 20000 Malaysians visit New Zealand each year. Both New Zealand and Malaysia will benefit from this agreement and from the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement which has entered into force. The profile with Malaysia will be really high amongst our export community and our tourist industry. I think that increasingly New Zealanders will be off to visit Malaysia as tourists as well. 
I think this bill is a very good bill. There is no point in my continuing on about it. I look forward to it coming to our select committee and we will be reporting back to the House in due course. Thank you.