McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Madam Speaker thank you very much. I've left my notes behind so I won't read my speech.Largely I want to start by thanking the officials for their dedication and extreme hard work over a long period of time. You know Governments come and go in this place. Different Governments claim responsibility for start middle or end of trade negotiations. Largely though it's the officials that do the hard work the graft and they are there through successive Governments. In the case of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade I think we have some of the best trade negotiators in the world. In fact I know that's the case because when we were in Government and the UK left the European Union we arranged—or helped" or "allowed" or whatever the term may be—for one of New Zealand's most successful trade negotiators to be linked to them; in fact to go and work for them as they created a trade department the ability to negotiate.Much of what the UK now does was based on the early steps that the National Government came to support them to share information with them to open our trade negotiation trade book so that they could get ready to negotiate with the world and the European Union and with others.One of the most important things that happened during that period of time you know was the UK trade Minister Liam Fox made a commitment that New Zealand would be one of the first cabs off the rank—along with Australia—to do a free-trade agreement (FTA). I remember having discussions in the media there both with their farming groups and their politicians about how they needed to look further afield than the European Union. Surely the farmers of the United Kingdom didn't vote to leave the European Union just to be protectionist when it came to the rest of the world. And they had an opportunity to join New Zealand and any other like-minded country that believes a rules-based system with few restrictions actually grows economies allows countries to join together work more closely together creates jobs and income and lifts countries up economies up and people up. Then actually that was what they should do.I'm very pleased to say that the efforts of our officials and those officials we lent them—or that they hired away from us—have done their job very well. Because as far as this agreement is concerned and from what the UK has done they are much more like New Zealand than they are like the European Union when they were part of the European Union. I think our exporters in the future will benefit quite greatly and quite significantly from that.The Minister made comparisons between the UK FTA and the EU FTA and he talked about the percentage of goods that would be covered by free-trade agreements as a result of that going from about 50 percent to 75 percent. Sadly there is not great comparison between the quality of the UK FTA that our officials delivered and the EU FTA. The reason for that is two of our largest exports—in meat and dairy—have largely and as far as free trade is concerned been excluded from the EU deal. And that's a great shame because it means we have missed an opportunity to help the European Union understand the benefits of free trade to pull down protection and to join the UK and New Zealand and others in realising that fewer barriers when it comes to trade delivers for economies.In that respect I think the Government hasn't done the job that they might have with a Minister who also has a primary industry portfolio because our sheep farmers and our beef farmers and our dairy farmers largely have been left out in the cold with the EU deal compared to what has happened with the UK deal.We'll have an opportunity to discuss that in the House and in the committee and submissions will come in. But I think it's very important to draw attention to what the Minister tried to say—75 percent of tradeable goods may be covered by FTAs but when you come to the value of our exports in as far as the EU is concerned it won't be at that level because in the most substantial exports that we have to the EU they are largely excluded or they are restricted based on quota or still have tariffs upon them.There was one bright light there though. For some reason we can export onions to the European Union without tariff. The three onion farmers I've spoken to will be delighted but it won't do much for the dairy farmers up and down the country.And as far as trade with the UK is concerned the committee did its job judiciously. We wanted to get through our part of this as quickly as we could under your direction and chairmanship Madam Speaker. The reason for this is: the sooner we get to do our job here which is get this through the House the sooner we can get on and sign it and if there is an opportunity to do that this year we should do it. We shouldn't take our time and say "Well I guess we'll have to do it next year"—conveniently at an election year. Actually it doesn't matter; what we should do is get this under way as quickly as we can. And with the new Prime Minister in the United Kingdom—who by all intents and purposes believes strongly in free trade—we should be talking to them about speeding the process up.Forget the politics of this; the moment it enters into force our exporters get to export more. When we export more and where we have an advantage—because with the UK our exporters do have an advantage over others who will want to trade there and haven't got their FTAs yet; we will be on a level playing field with the European Union in that market—then actually what that does is it means New Zealand exporters earn more for the same amount of work it grows the economy and they get to employ more. It is a very very good thing.The final thing I wanted to say is that if we now have a level playing field in the UK market with the European Union New Zealand exporters do not have a level playing field in the European Union with UK exporters and that's the problem with the EU deal that's been done. Too much was left on the table and it's a shame that the Government didn't say "We're going to put politics aside because the Prime Minister is overseas." We need an announcement. If they had continued to discuss and talk then I think we would have got more. Time will tell—the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The Australians are holding back and are still negotiating. If Australia gets more than we got it's not in the end that their negotiators are better than ours—they're not—I think their Ministers and their politicians are better. We will see. The final thing I want to say—the Minister talked about diversifying and not being reliant upon any market. Well actually we were reliant upon the UK many years ago. They joined the European communities our access all but disappeared and we had to fight for it to get it back. We now have restored that with the UK—that's a good thing.But I've got to say it's with great disappointment that we see that this Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs have announced publicly that they are giving up and walking away on a free-trade agreement with India because it's just too hard. And here's the problem with that: if we are saying it's too hard to do a free-trade agreement with countries that are not used to opening their borders then who is going to make that case in the world? It won't be the European Union. It could well be the UK. It has been Australia who have done a deal—not a perfect one but they've got a free-trade agreement. I just don't understand why the Minister would come to the House saying that the UK FTA is one of the best that we've seen; the EU is he says as good. "It helps us diversify so we're not reliant on any one market—China or anywhere else in the world."But in the very same breath just a week or so ago the Government said they are giving up on the FTA negotiation with India. That doesn't mean we diversify more; it actually means that we are more reliant upon a few markets in the world and it sends a signal to those who choose to protect their borders through restriction through tariff and through subsidy that New Zealanders are no longer the people who are out there talking about the benefits of free trade. If it's too hard we'll give up. Well very clearly to our exporters throughout New Zealand: a National Government wouldn't give up. We would continue to argue the case for a high-quality deal with India and many other countries.And I say to the Minister it is good that our officials have been able to work hard and deliver on this. The EU deal is a step in the direction—it just wasn't good enough—but he now needs to get out on the world stage and start filling that pipeline up again. The deals that have been done over the last few years were started many years ago before this Government got here and the success of New Zealand is having that pipeline of potential deals full so we can continue to work through them. It's not very full at the moment; in fact there are very few new deals that have been announced or spoken of and that will mean at some stage our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials won't have as much to do. I guess since they are the world's best and they've delivered this high-quality agreement they could well look to go and work for other countries as some of them did with the UK. That wouldn't be good for New Zealand or the New Zealand economy. The Minister needs to go out and start filling that pipeline. Thank you."