Robertson Grant: ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area Bill — First Reading 
Robertson Grant: ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2648] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I want to join in the outbreak of peace as my colleague described it earlier around the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area Bill. I think it is a good bill and it is great to see it come to the House as a culmination of a lot of hard work from a lot of people. We have already heard some of the earlier speakers talk about the officials who worked on this bill. In particular we heard about Martin Harvey and Vangelis Vitalis from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade who led teams of people who worked extraordinarily hard for extraordinarily long hours over a long period of time to bring this agreement to fruition. I note that those kinds of officials are the very backroom officials whom this Government seems so determined to cut back and cut out. These backroom officials have not just been capped; they are the very people who have actually had their jobs cut. From day to day in this House we see the important work that is done by public servants right across New Zealand. Those public servants are not being given the respect that the National Government claimed it would give them when it came into office. Free-trade agreements such as this one rely on the hard work of public servants who are seen as backroom. They are not seen as front-line public servants and they are being put into a different category by this Government. That is very disappointing because what we see today is the fruit of their labours and how important their work is for the economic and social well-being of all New Zealanders. That is work done by so-called backroom public servants. They should be valued for that work not put down and not have their jobs cuts as this Government would do. 
I also want to thank the Ministers who have been involved in these negotiations over a long period starting right back with the Singapore agreement with Lockwood Smith and also with the Hon Phil Goff Jim Sutton and also Tim Groser who brought this bill to the House. All those Ministers are people who have shown a lot of commitment to the free-trade agenda. I wonder whether Mr Groser and Mr Foss who has recently resumed his seat and said very complimentary things about the Hon Phil Goff might wish to share those complimentary things with John Key. It was only last month in this House that John Key said: “… Mr Groser is a very hard-working Minister of Trade unlike the previous Minister of Trade.” That statement is really unbecoming of Mr Key and given what we have heard today from other Ministers and members across the House it seems very out of context because Mr Goff’s role in this legislation—and indeed this trade agreement—was significant. 
I can quote from Don Nicolson of Federated Farmers who said: “Federated Farmers applauds the Hon Phil Goff for his earlier work and the National Government for bringing this FTA home.” We also heard from Stephen Jacobi from the New Zealand International Business Forum who said: “Trade Minister Phil Goff and his officials have done a superb job to conclude a particularly complex negotiation.” Charles Finney of the Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce said: “I would like to congratulate Phil Goff and his officials for their hard work and successful outcome.” 
So it seems that we have widespread agreement that Phil Goff worked hard on this bill as Minister of Trade. We heard it from Craig Foss today and we have heard it from Tim Groser but unfortunately Mr Key did not seem to want to share in that last month in this House. I hope his colleagues will return to talk to him and to say that Mr Goff was in fact a very hard-working Minister of Trade. That should be acknowledged by Mr Key—as it has been by his colleagues. 
I would also like to say that this bill represents excellent negotiation between the Governments of the ASEAN region and New Zealand although I think we all acknowledge that multilateral trade negotiations are the priority for New Zealand and the rest of the world because it is only through multilateral trade negotiations that we will achieve the objectives of removing agricultural subsidies and create a fair rules-based system for trade so the Doha round must be and has been our priority for a long time. 
We also do a lot in the absence of a full multilateral agreement around bilateral agreements and they are important as well. We have discussed in this House the enormous economic benefit that will come from the China free-trade agreement for instance and the earlier free-trade agreements that New Zealand has negotiated. But these regional agreements fill a very important gap in that trade agenda in the absence of a finalised multilateral agreement; and with the bilateral agreements we have we need these regional agreements because they start building an infrastructure around trade that all of us can benefit from and should in the end help to fulfil the multilateral agreements. The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement involving Chile Brunei Singapore and New Zealand is the classic example of that. That is a regional agreement that is seen around the world as a model of the kind of agreement that should be negotiated—that actually brings together strong rules-based agreements with networks of countries. We hope obviously to see the United States added into that agreement over time. 
So this agreement which brings together the ASEAN nations with Australia and New Zealand is just that kind of regional agreement and all those involved in negotiating it deserve to be supported. As Mr Goff said earlier in the debate today the immediate benefit for New Zealand exporters will be that the $50 million in tariffs that New Zealand exporters face in the ASEAN free-trade region will be gone. So there we go—immediately there is a $50 million benefit for New Zealand exporters. 
But also these kinds of regional agreements are the basis on which to build further and deeper trade links and it is incredibly important that New Zealand exporters now grasp the opportunity put forward by this agreement to be there in the fastest-growing regional market in the world. It is incredibly important that we recognise that it is not just about the tariffs that will disappear overnight—$50 million—but it is also about the base to expand our new export market. 
The free-trade agreement will eliminate the tariffs on all key items of trade interest to New Zealand in the markets so that is where the $50 million comes from. We also have to acknowledge that the bill also involves and facilitates free trade in services in the region. The services market is an important and growing market for New Zealanders overseas; we are well regarded for the kinds of things we can provide in terms of areas like engineering and environmental science—areas where New Zealand has service expertise that is liked all over the world respected all over the world and will now be able to be used throughout the region as part of this agreement. 
The bill in its technical sense amends the Tariff Act 1988 and the Customs and Excise Act 1996. In the Tariff Act it will enable the application of preferential tariff rates that will enable transitional safeguard measures to be applied in appropriate circumstances on imports originating from party countries. That is the bit that will lower the tariffs. Amendments to the bill relating to the Customs and Excise Act will create a system of certification bodies that are authorised to issue the necessary certificates of origin for goods to be exported to party countries. They are the technical matters that are actually dealt with in the legislation here but as a number of speakers have said the important thing is the money that will be earned by exporters and the jobs that will be created for New Zealanders by this agreement. It is anodyne legislation but it is incredibly important in terms of New Zealand’s economy and the jobs for New Zealand people. 
I want to talk about two things that other speakers have not dwelt on greatly today. One of those is the side agreements that go along with this particular free-trade agreement. In this case it is the trade and labour agreements and the trade and environment agreements with the Philippines. It is good to see National supporting and encouraging these; it has not always been so. These side agreements began to come into play around the time of the Singapore agreement and they are useful additions because they start to address some of the concerns that Dr Kennedy Graham raised earlier in the debate about how we move the focus beyond some kind of strict economic development role. These agreements help to fill out the relationship that New Zealand has with the countries concerned and I know having done some analysis in another job around New Zealand’s side agreements with Chile that they certainly deepened an understanding about environmental cooperation. They have enabled New Zealand and Chile to share a great deal in terms of ideas about how to protect and enhance our environment how we can use tourism and ecotourism in ways that support the environment and support out economy and our jobs. 
So these side agreements are extremely important and they add to the ones we already have with Brunei Singapore Thailand and China. I personally would like to see those agreements continue to evolve and expand. They go alongside the trade agreement at the moment but they are negotiated just as hard and I am sure all the officials I mentioned before would acknowledge that a lot of work goes into developing these arrangements. 
I must now call on National to go through and fulfil those agreements—to fulfil their meaning so they are not just left off to the side but form an important part of our relationship with ASEAN countries by improving labour standards in those countries and by improving environmental standards in those countries. But New Zealand can also learn as well and the experience of Chile tells us that we have learnt a lot from our environmental cooperation with Chile. 
The last matter I want to mention is around process and my colleague Pete Hodgson has already addressed a lot of these issues. The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee in considering this treaty before it came to the House discussed the fact that the process around how New Zealanders engaged with free-trade agreements is something we could look at more. These kinds of agreements are not really fully understood out there in the community their implications are not always fully understood and the benefits are not always fully understood. I think we need a process that opens up these agreements so people can understand them more there can be input from a wide range of sources and all New Zealanders can ensure that they understand the benefits that this kind of legislation and this treaty bring us. Thank you.