Hudson Brett; Tisch LindsayBRETT HUDSON (National): I rise in opposition to this bill. I would like to find something good to say about it but quite frankly I cannot—it is completely unnecessary. I will traverse two main areas. One is that this bill is not required. The measures you take—its overarching one—of improving the well-being of New Zealand and success of New Zealand businesses are already covered by the work this Government has done. The second point is it actually puts New Zealand in harm's way in respect of our treaties and obligations to the likes of the World Trade Organization (WTO). So let us deal with those.Firstly this Government has reformed the rules for Government procurement. They permit and require that New Zealand Government agencies when making procurement decisions look at the total cost across the lifespan of the product or service that they are purchasing. So let us just look at a New Zealand business and the natural advantage it will have against a foreign business—particularly a foreign services business. New Zealanders who live in New Zealand are coming to do work. Any foreign-domiciled workers who are coming in will have travel and accommodation expenses—that is just one simple area. The idea of taking a total lifespan approach to cost makes sure that New Zealand businesses are given a fair shot at that work and more importantly it does it without breaching any international treaty obligations.Mr Robertson tried to say that New Zealanders are being excluded from opportunities such as the Inland Revenue Department's Business Transformation programme. That is 100 percent false. There are many employees of the Inland Revenue Department who have been brought on for that work. There are contractors that the Inland Revenue Department has brought on for that job. There are New Zealand contractors that Accenture has brought on for that programme and there are New Zealand contractors that the vendor of the new system has brought on—in New Zealand—to work on that programme. The member would be better to allow the facts to weave their way into his grandiose story because he is 100 percent wrong.Let us look to the second part then which is about how doing what this bill proposes might affect our international treaties—international treaties and agreements that for instance give New Zealand companies a right of access to a market worth $2.3 trillion. With the World Trade Organization procurement model that we were able to get access to last year our businesses have the right to access up to $2.3 trillion worth of opportunities—so many more orders of magnitude than they could possibly hope to achieve if they were only doing business in New Zealand. Let us look at what happens when we start to favour New Zealand businesses in a way that threatens those treaties. The Opposition has this ridiculous proposition that if we do not buy from our foreign trading partners and instead we place rules to lessen the likelihood that we will buy from them they will still buy from us. In the very connected supply chain that the modern world is that is absolutely ludicrous. If we are going to put barriers up to our trading partners doing business in New Zealand there is no way we can hope let alone expect that they will be seeking to buy goods or services from our companies. It is quite frankly just astounding that people might think it is possible. But it gets worse—hard to believe but it does. Mr Little as he introduced this bill gave the example of Boeing as some shining light as to how a country and a company can ensure that business and jobs are retained in that country. He held it up as some sort of a paragon that we could emulate. Well it just so happens that this week it was announced that the World Trading Organization has found against—Hon Annette King: Trading" Organization?BRETT HUDSON: The World Trade Organization has found against Boeing for illegal subsidies. So Mr Little is proposing that New Zealand emulate Boeing presumably with illegal subsidies putting ourselves at risk of breaching our WTO obligations. Mr Little: you are absolutely reckless. You would be a disaster for this country. It is absolutely ludicrous. This is an atrocious bill. It should be thrown out. I do not commend it to the House. [Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! [Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! That will do. I want to call the next speaker—James Shaw."