Brownlee Gerry; Rurawhe AdrianHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): The proposition just put forward by Golriz Ghahraman the previous speaker is utterly ridiculous. PACER-Plus did take 16 years to negotiate and only some of the Pacific nations have come to the table but those who have have recognised that their small economies are going to be best served by getting greater access to the markets of larger economies. It never ceases to amaze me that there are many people in this world who believe that tiny little countries are going to be somehow swamped to their detriment by larger countries who trade with them. The usual way these things work is that smaller countries with their smaller markets actually are able to expand their economic base by getting access to those bigger markets and that's exactly what PACER-Plus does in one part of it as an agreement.There are many aspects to it and those aspects all are about favouring smaller countries in the Pacific. The speaker previously mentioned that both Fiji and Papua New Guinea have not joined. Well it will interest her I'm sure to speak to relevant Ministers inside the Government that they are part of to find from them that Papua New Guinea does want to progress to the signature stage and that part of the reason why they didn't previously was because they were in the middle of a general election and somewhat uncertain about exactly who it would be that would go and sign the agreement. Further when you look at a country like Fiji you'll see that it is an economy that is much bigger than most others in the Pacific but they are also a country that has for a time been slightly closed to their other Pacific neighbours. Up until very recent times there was a case there of them being ruled by you'd say a military rule anyway but now of course they have come into the fold of democratic nations by having their elections. You will see also over time Fiji wanting to be part of this agreement as well. It is a good agreement; it is to the betterment of small Pacific nations and it is only right that a country like New Zealand that spends currently some $700 million a year in the Pacific on aid looks to maximise that sum of money by trying to focus on development in the Pacific as opposed to just aid. It's interesting that the Rt Hon Winston Peters recently gave a speech which he entitled Resetting New Zealand's engagement with the Pacific." There is nothing new in that speech at all. It has been the policy of the previous Government and now continues to be albeit with a flash new title the policy of the current Government to make sure that the significant aid funding that we put into the Pacific has some enduring effect and it's not just there project by project but it does have a long-term focus. I'd actually encourage the Minister responsible for regional development in New Zealand to have a look at what's happening in the aid space and then perhaps revert to a similar position where he's looking at development in the regions of New Zealand as opposed to the aid programme that appears to be going on at the present time. So this is an agreement that is one that will work very very well for those small Island nations. It's one that will give them a bigger voice in all sorts of fora around the world and one that I'm very pleased our party supports.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call—five minutes the Hon Willie Jackson."