Street Maryan: Tariff (Malaysia Free Trade Agreement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Street Maryan: Tariff (Malaysia Free Trade Agreement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10271] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 It gives me great pleasure to rise and support the Tariff (Malaysia Free Trade Agreement) Amendment Bill. In fact if I thought I could help by taking a 5-minute call rather than a 10-minute call to get it passed sooner I would do that because there are people who would benefit from it immediately on its implementation. 
I am not a kiwifruit grower but if I were then I would be waiting in anticipation of this bill being passed because it will make an immediate difference to kiwifruit growers and exporters in New Zealand. They will receive a 15 percent tariff reduction on the implementation of this free-trade agreement. So I welcome it appearing today. But I want to take a few minutes to talk about some of the economic benefits that will accrue to New Zealand through the free-trade agreement. I will also talk about where it takes us from here because one must always have an eye on the future with these kinds of agreements. 
First of all of course the economic benefits are not inconsiderable. Malaysia is New Zealand’s eighth-largest export market totalling almost $1 billion in 2008. As communicated by Minister Wayne Mapp between 2004 and 2008 exports to Malaysia grew by nearly 80 percent which was more than double the rate of growth of exports to the rest of the world. I think the Minister may have made a slight mistake with the figures he was reading at one point; 95.1 percent of tariffs will go immediately on implementation but within 7 years it will be 99.5 percent—I think the Minister said 95.5 percent by mistake. I think that was simply an error; 99.5 percent of all tariffs will disappear by 2016. That is significant for two reasons: not only do we get the majority of the tariff reduction immediately on implementation but beyond that we get almost everything taken away almost every tariff reduced in a very speedy time frame. It will be in place by 2016 which is faster than the ASEAN free-trade agreement allows for in its terms. I think the Minister of Trade once referred to the New Zealand - Malaysia Free Trade Agreement as the “ASEAN free-trade agreement on steroids”—although I could be wrong. It is certainly faster and more comprehensive than the ASEAN free-trade agreement which was a significant development in itself. 
Of course these kinds of agreements do not come out of a vacuum; they come out of a history and after years of development. So it is pertinent to pay tribute to previous Ministers with the trade portfolio beginning with Jim Sutton but also including Phil Goff and the current Minister of Trade Tim Groser who has brought the agreement to its conclusion in good time. All the Ministers deserve recognition for the work they put in given that the negotiations around this began back in 2005. 
It was my great pleasure to accept an invitation from the Minister of Trade Tim Groser to attend the signing of the Malaysia free-trade agreement in October of last year. That is now a convention indicative of what is essentially in large measure a bipartisan approach to the trade portfolio. During the course of that trip Prime Minister John Key who was also present opened a new facility that Fonterra had developed out of Kuala Lumpur. It will be significant for our dairy exports because it is a manufacturing plant that allows our dairy exports to be turned into products that are palatable to the Malaysian diet and appetite. Fonterra is to be congratulated for its multi-million-dollar investment in that plant—and certainly the plant was very impressive. But if we did not have such an agreement as this then it would be so much harder for Fonterra to make the gains it seeks to make by advancement and investment in the Malaysian market. Kiwifruit dairy products meat and other food products services and education are the critical components of this Malaysia free-trade agreement. I welcome them. 
It is also important to draw two other things to the attention of the House. The first is that the now customary side agreements on labour and environment conditions are also attached to this because they are now conventional parts of the apparatus around free-trade agreements—and so they should be. But there are two exceptions that have been included in this agreement that I think are again apposite—funnily enough—today as we have just passed the second reading of the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Bill and the Government has been emphatic about lauding the signing of a non-binding and aspirational declaration on the rights of indigenous people. 
Here is something that makes Maori aspirations concrete. In this agreement there is an exception in relation to the Treaty of Waitangi which is consistent with New Zealand’s previous free-trade agreements. The New Zealand - Malaysia Free Trade Agreement maintains New Zealand’s ability to take the measures it deems necessary to accord more favourable treatment to Maori including for the fulfilment of New Zealand’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi. That is meaningful. I say to the Maori Party that that is the way things are done. That is the way through words on the page that are binding across nations that the Treaty of Waitangi has international status has international recognition and means something in this country. 
There is also an exception around the creative arts. That again is something that Maori will have profound interest in. The words on the page state that the free-trade agreement does not preclude New Zealand from taking measures necessary to protect national treasures or taonga specific sites of historical or archaeological value or to support creative arts of national value. That absolutely relates to Maori creative arts and the things that are important to Maori. I say again to the Maori Party that that is the way that those aspirations are concretised. That is the way that those aspirations for Maori which we share and which we support are given life status and meaning. It is not in empty rhetoric around a declaration that the Prime Minister is very keen to stress is non-binding and aspirational. That is how a Parliament a Government and a country should make the recognition of things precious to Maori real protected and absolutely embedded not only in the law of this country but in the way in which this country deals internationally with its trading partners. I hope this legislation is a lesson for the Maori Party in how to do things in a real and meaningful way. Thank you.