Donald Rod: International Treaties Bill — Second Reading 
Donald Rod: International Treaties Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:606;Page:3603] 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 It is quite simply outrageous for this Parliament to retain the Crown prerogative for international treaties in the MMP era. Indeed the committee accepted that European countries with proportional representation have parliamentary involvement in the treaty-approval process. Yet despite that the majority view is to maintain the status quo. That was bad enough under first past the post; then at least Governments had the semblance of majority support because they held a majority of the seats if not a majority of the votes. Now we have a fair electoral system and it is transparent that this Labour Government is a minority one. It has only 52 votes guaranteed out of 120 plus another two that are likely but not always. That is not the majority of a mandate. The era of minority coalition Governments is the very reason that Parliament should take over control of the treaty ratification process because then decisions could be taken by real majorities in this House. However I am afraid that the first-past-the-post dinosaurs—and I have to cite both Mr Goff and Dr Lockwood Smith who were working hand in glove to defeat this bill—will not let go of the Crown prerogative.  
The process surrounding the Singapore free-trade agreement was mentioned by a number of speakers. It is actually an example of what is bad about the present system and what would be possible if Keith Locke’s bill were passed. The Singapore bill was debated in this House. It was a strong debate and passionately held positions were expressed. A vote was taken—which was a Clayton’s vote because it had no meaning though it was a vote all the same—and there was a solid majority in favour of the free-trade agreement because predictably National voted with the Labour Government. Equally predictably I guess the Greens opposed that bill as did the junior coalition partner to Labour at the time the Alliance—may it rest in peace. But the real decision took place in Cabinet and that exposes the current process as a sham. The Labour part of the Government had only 49 seats at the time yet it commanded absolute power.  
It is extraordinary to hear Matt Robson say that he would vote against this bill when it was originally drafted by him. One would have expected him to support something that he was the author of. I have to give him credit for standing apart from the majority report and for the fact that he has proposed his own halfway house—the special treaty select committee which would at least be a timely step forward. However as Mr Robson says himself: “In a globalised world treaties and conventions have a greater and greater impact on the ordinary citizen. Their representatives in Parliament require adequate information to be able to protect the interests of the electors.” That sounds to me like a compelling argument for supporting a democratic treaty ratification process. It is very sad that Mr Robson has decided to come down on the side of the status quo; at the very least he could have abstained on this bill.  
The current improved—to give Mr Goff some credit—select committee process is still inadequate. The Government can still ignore what the select committee has to say. It gives it only 15 days in which to do its work; there is no debate in Parliament and no vote. I hope the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee stands by its indication that it will make a special report to the House on the treaty examination process because there are issues that need to be dealt with. The Green Party has already made a submission to the Standing Orders Committee to improve public and parliamentary participation in this process but that is very much second best. Reform is long overdue not ahead of its time.  
It is not just the Greens who are calling for greater democracy in the treaty-making process. I need go no further than our eminent Clerk David McGee who is one of the strongest proponents of reform. I recommend to all members that before they cast a rash vote on this bill they read his paper  
Treaties: A Role for Parliament?  
which was published in the  
Public Sector Journal 
 of March 1997. There are one or two selected quotes I would like to make from that paper just to highlight the importance of the need for change. David McGee says the need for change can be illustrated by the treaty establishing the World Trade Organization in 1994: “This is one of the most important international agreements that New Zealand has ever entered into but Parliament was never asked to vote for or against membership of the WTO.” He continues: “The system whereby many treaties never come before Parliament for consideration and those that do are considered only indirectly for the legislative consequences is a deficiency in the parliamentary process.” Under the heading “Treaties and the Courts” he says: “What has turned a less than satisfactory parliamentary situation into a thoroughly unsatisfactory one are the related judicial developments illustrated by litigation.” He goes on to give some examples.  
When it comes to a parliamentary role Mr McGee poses the question: “It is where this leaves Parliament that demands a reconsideration of the treaty-making process. Is it justifiable any longer to leave this as an exclusively executive function?” He answers his own question by putting in detailed proposals for a regime requiring parliamentary endorsements of treaties to Parliament’s Standing Orders Committee. As he says “If these proposals are adopted parliamentary endorsement of a treaty would be required before the treaty could be ratified.” Of course he wrote that several years ago and we are no further ahead.  
I would like to hope that we could have made progress with this bill. Some might say that we don’t need it because of course the Singapore Free Trade agreement is faltering the trade deficit has gone up enormously since that came into effect the Hong Kong deal has failed to fly because of rules of origin and the one with the United States is seriously flawed. The Government was certainly floored by Philip Wall the US Embassy head of mission who said only last week: “I have to report that as of now the United States is not prepared to commit to bilateral trade negotiations.”  
But seriously despite the apparent stalling of the Government’s fixation on free trade we need this bill. To give members a couple of examples Food Standards Australia New Zealand is an agreement that should have come before this Parliament. It was set up by legislation in Australia and there is no parallel legislation in New Zealand. In the end we have one vote out of 10 on that council. If Parliament had had a say I doubt that we would have agreed to such a subservient position which is equivalent to that of an Australian state. Right at the moment Parliament should be debating what New Zealand will be offering under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Instead the Government has given the public 25 days to make submissions on what public services will be opened up to corporate control. Once the Government cuts deals under GATS there will be no come-back. The Government could agree to scrap the Overseas Investment Commission and all the rules it is meant to apply; and the kiwi share for Telecom and to open up water health education and local government to privatisation. Such decisions will bind future Governments which is why Parliament should make decisions that will affect our sovereignty as a nation. Instead Parliament will have to pick up the pieces of GATS by being forced to pass amending legislation to give it effect—whether or not we agreed to the decision in principle that the Government had taken in the first place—because of that last vestige of the old first-past-the-post system the Crown prerogative.