McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Mr Chair thank you very much. Here we are at Part 1 of the debate and if one reads the press release from the Minister last week or had just paid attention to question time on Thursday the Minister for Trade and Export Growth was speaking about how inclusive his Government wanted to be and how widely they wanted to consult on issues of trade. It's appalling that after four or five interventions on Part 1 we've got a member of the Government standing up to try to close the debate down. There's a lot more to be said here. At least that counts as one speech from that member Kieran McAnulty in this debate and what he has done is he's saved the public from four minutes and 55 seconds of his ranting. But he can take another call I suppose if he took the time to read the bill. Now the point here is in Part 1 it goes directly to what the Government said and to its credibility on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) because they've come forward and they've said wholesale that it is a different agreement. It's virtually completely different from the original TPP and the Government has taken a lot of credit for that. But if we look at Part 1 largely all it does is says to do a search and replace where if the original Act says the TPP—the Trans-Pacific Partnership—replace it with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership" (CPTPP). So I ask the Minister whether he could explain to the committee and to those listening in exactly why he believes it's important to go through and change the title of the original Act—the title of the original Act; not the parts within it but the title of the original Act—to demonstrate it is comprehensive and progressive. I heard a story many years ago about African countries that were ruled by dictators. They would change the name to be called the "Democratic" such-and-such country. Well they say that if you have to put the word "Democratic" in the name of your country you might not be democratic and in this case if all Part 1 is largely doing is changing the name of the principal Act from the "Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Act" to the "Comprehensive and Progressive …"—if you must put the words "Comprehensive and Progressive" in it perhaps it's not. Now the second thing here that I think is very important for the Minister to answer for this committee and for the public is exactly what happens to the original TPP legislation. We know that it actually remains there on the books but can the original TPP enter into force or is the comprehensive and progressive TPP legislation we see today taking it off the book so that it never can? And if it can enter into force—well we know it's ratified but can it enter into force? So we have an agreement that's ratified that hasn't entered into force around the world yet: can it enter into force? If the answer to that is no be up front and say that very very clearly. If the answer is that it can enter into force—if the TPP comes into effect—what happens to the comprehensive and progressive TPP if it too is entered into force? Now perhaps what the Minister is going to say is "Well the CPTPP is better. It's comprehensive and progressive. It actually does many many things that the original TPP didn't." If that's the case I would invite him to make that case and to be very clear with us because what we do know with the original deal the TPP under the agreement that was reached to get to CPTPP—isn't it lucky they didn't put more letters of the alphabet in it? It would have been very very hard to actually roll this through—the changes the bill itself would be longer. But what we do know is that there are a number of clauses in the original legislation the original agreement that are being suspended and that word "suspended" is the important one. I would believe that there are many many New Zealanders who campaigned against the TPP who marched in the streets against the TPP and who have voted for parties in this House at the last election because they were told that they would stand against the TPP that have now been told that the clauses that they were concerned about have been suspended. But I say to the Minister exactly what does that mean for them to be suspended in so far as the CPTPP is concerned to make it so comprehensive and progressive? Secondly what does it mean in so far as the TPP is concerned should it be able to enter into force at some time in the future?"