Rurawhe Adrian; Chen NaisiDEPUTY SPEAKER: Ā kāti rā tēnā rā tātou katoa. The House is resumed. Members before the dinner break we were debating the first reading of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Legislation Bill and also noting the international treaty examination of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. The next call is a Labour Party call.NAISI CHEN (Labour): It's a pleasure to start tonight's session with my contribution on the bill before us the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Legislation Bill. Can I start by sharing something that I read on the Prime Minister's Instagram on the morning of 15 November. She posted saying Trade is so important to us. A huge number of jobs in New Zealand are reliant on exports. That's why it's so important that while our borders are closed we keep co-operating with others to make sure our goods can keep moving and don't face costly barriers. Today after years of negotiating we signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. It covers 15 countries and the largest population of any trade agreement in the world. It means our exporters will have a single set of rules across the region and it will improve some of the rules our exporters face too. In all this agreement will increase New Zealand's GDP by $2billion and still protects things that matter to New Zealand. Today we signed the agreement 'virtually'. I hope that didn't lessen the sense of achievement for all those [that] worked on this project for so many years!" Can I just echo that sentiment to thank all of the officials for whom I know this agreement has been indeed a very long work process for them.I was really proud to see our Prime Minister the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern and our current Minister of trade and enterprise the Hon Damien O'Connor on the chequerboard screenshot joining leaders from all the other countries who represent just under one-third of the world's population.As my colleagues have already—and even Opposition MPs who have contributed before the dinner break—outlined trade is extremely important for a small economy like ours. This agreement was signed to modernise the way we do trade. Tonight I'd like to draw the House's attention to particularly the e-commerce chapter of this agreement. E-commerce—or electronic commerce we call it—offers important opportunities for a small country like ours that is distant and also a trading country that we call New Zealand; a really really important opportunity for us to connect with the rest of the world. Through the negotiations we've constantly been trying to balance that with the need to include adequate safeguards for legitimate public policy purposes including to protect the privacy and the interests of consumers and that I believe we have.This agreement gives New Zealand exporters increased business opportunities by outlining the importance of frameworks that promote consumer confidence in electronic commerce and the importance of facilitating the development of the use of e-commerce. E-commerce may to most people just simply mean internet shopping—something I definitely enjoy participating in. But this is much more beyond that. As COVID hit the whole entire world we know that a lot of our businesses especially our small to medium enterprises had to move to online in order for them to survive. So this agreement what it does is it sets up the framework for New Zealand to be able to participate our small and medium enterprises are able to participate in this online world of e-commerce to better the infrastructure so that they can actually survive. I think COVID has highlighted the incredible importance that all of our small to medium enterprises have that capacity and that capability to participate in the digital economy.The parties to this agreement have given the agenda to work together to assist these small and medium enterprises to overcome the obstacles used in e-commerce whether that's infrastructure that we've mentioned before or whether that's just simply by upskilling the people in business or whether that is to knock down barriers in terms of their participation in e-commerce those are all things to be applauded because at the end of the day—New Zealand as a small island nation—we need to rely on trade and through the internet to close that distance between us and the rest of the world.This agreement couldn't have come at a better time. During the global pandemic we saw the importance of connecting with each other and how reliant we were on technology to do that for us and for us to maintain that connection whether it was with whānau domestically in New Zealand or whether that was with the rest of the world through digital commerce and other ways. I think this agreement will now facilitate that connection for us as New Zealand.It was also reflective of the time that this was signed that the signing ceremony itself was done virtually and online. I think this goes to reflect the new and modern world that we live in and the changes that we have had to make in order to accommodate the changes and the disruptions that we are facing on a day-to-day level. As we eagerly await the Budget on Thursday we know that the Government's priority is extremely clear securing on recovery. Securing on recovery to me and in this context that we're debating today is—one of the important pillars to that recovery is our trade recovery strategy. This agreement contributes to that by broadening and deepening our trade and investment links with the rest of the world. On that note I commend this bill to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: This next call is a split call. I call Nicola Grigg—five minutes."