Mitchell Mark: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Mark: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5378. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARK MITCHELL (Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee): I have a lot to say in such a short time but I will give it my best shot. I wanted to speak about Vote Foreign Affairs first and then cover off very quickly what we discussed in our appropriation hearing in the committee. The first thing is of course the sheep farm in Saudi Arabia. I just want to say that from my own observations from my own time up in the Middle East I was very interested to watch a big stock-handling facility that was built in Boosaaso. It was sponsored by the Qatari Government. It was built so that the state of Puntland which is a part of Somalia on the Horn of Africa could start trading livestock with Saudi Arabia because of the size of the market and the demand there. It helped drive up its GDP. It was a very good project.I also want to state that mutton and lamb is a big part of the diet in the Middle East. That is not something new. It is not like we are just taking sheep into the Middle East for the first time—they are there. The markets in Basra in southern Iraq used to feed a good part of the Middle East prior to the second war and people would travel from all over the Middle East to go to the markets and the stockyards in Basra to buy mutton.We were told that no additional funds had been provided to New Zealand Trade and Enterprise to actually fund the agribusiness hub there and there are about 30 New Zealand businesses connected to the agribusiness hub that are providing goods and services. This is a big business. This has a lot of potential for New Zealand. We own a lot of the intellectual property the knowledge and the know how in order to actually create a real vibrant business in the Middle East.We spoke about the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. We asked for an update on that. The agreement is an important one for New Zealand. It involves 40 percent of New Zealand’s trade in goods and services and it involves five of New Zealand’s top 10 trading partners. We know that once the agreement is signed by all parties it will go through New Zealand’s domestic approval processes in the course of which the agreement and its associated national interest analysis will come before the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. If changes are required to New Zealand’s domestic legislation Parliament will need to pass them before ratification of the treaty.We spoke about the ASEAN relationship. The year 2015 is the 40th anniversary of New Zealand’s diplomatic relations with ASEAN countries and New Zealand will host 31 celebratory events across 10 ASEAN capitals.We talked about Niue. The Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke about Niue. He highlighted that since 2010 New Zealand has focused its support to Niue on the development of its tourism industry at the request of the country’s Premier and Government. We heard that Niue’s visitor numbers have increased considerably and that this has been a very very successful initiative which has been supported by New Zealand.We asked the Minister about our seat on the United Nations Security Council of which I am personally very proud to see him now sitting in the president’s seat. I want to acknowledge him all of our ambassadors—for example Sir Jim McLay whom we spoke to on the weekend—and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for being so successful in securing us a seat on the Security Council.We have begun our month-long presidency. In that time we are going to host an open debate in the council on 30 July in which countries from outside the council can participate. This is important. This is significant because this is one of the points that we lobbied on in trying to gain support to actually win that seat on the Security Council. They are going to be talking about the security challenges facing developing small Island States. Although such States make up about one quarter of the membership of the United Nations only three of them have ever served on the Security Council. New Zealand wants to provide an opportunity for the wider group to be heard on the council. We also plan to have an informal closed dialogue on reform of the Security Council to make it more accountable and more transparent and there is going to be a fair bit of focus around the use of the veto.The Minister spoke briefly about the Middle East peace process. He highlighted the fact that having a seat on the United Nations Security Council will affect our involvement in the Middle East peace process and that there is general consensus that after the Israeli elections and the formation of its Government the Security Council talks on Iran also need to be concluded before the Middle East peace process can be addressed. There may be an opportunity in August or September to consider the peace process and New Zealand will be alert to playing an active role in the process on which the international community agrees urgent action is needed. So you can see that the Minister and the ministry are going to be very active on the Security Council.