Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill in its first reading not least of all because it is—any way you care to describe it—a very sound and pragmatic way of dealing with the interests of consumers and the fair and reasonable protection of our own industries. As a small and trading nation we understand how important it is for us not only to sell to the world but—as some members opposite in recent times in other trade discussions seem to have failed to comprehend—also that it is important that trade is a bilateral thing and that we are purchasing we are importing from other nations. It is important that we meet our responsibilities under the World Trade Organization agreements that we are party to.Actually in the anti-dumping measures it is very important that we take a broader consideration. Historically what we have looked at is the protection of local industry: the idea is that we are a small country of 4.5 million people and that larger economies at a very tactical level can take measures because of their own oversupply that have little impact on them but that have a great distortionary impact on our local economy. In the short term if we allow that to happen what happens in those instances is that those companies are able to dump—to offload—the excess supply they have. It comes at very very good prices to our consumers but it is very tactical. It is a short-lived temporary measure and once they have finished with their particular wants our consumers are left—particularly in some cases where they are locked in to certain product supplies that are then only available to them under a different pricing and supply regime. So dumping is about the suppliers; it never has been about the consumers.The measures that we have had in place are reasonable in the context of protecting not only mainly our own industry but also our own consumers while living up to our responsibilities under the World Trade Organization agreements. There is always an instance or a regime. We might consider that the anti-dumping rules that we have had in place do not meet the prevailing conditions in New Zealand. The example that I think both sides of the House have used—certainly the Minister did in his speech—was around housing. It has been and remains the position of this Government that the issue with the housing challenge is one of supply. It can be dealt with mainly in the primary areas of freeing up land of reducing time and cost for consents to create new developments in making sure that we have the skills available to build those houses to deliver the supply and in ensuring that the materials available for those developments are affordable. One of the things the Government took a decision on in 2014 was to provide some relief against the anti-dumping measures because it created a means to address some of the housing supply issues by taking away some of the duties that would otherwise be imposed on goods that were considered to have been dumped.What this bill does is to take that very sound approach and work out how we can pragmatically employ it on an ongoing basis in this country; where we can make sure that we take the right steps to protect our consumer industries and the right step in the case of housing to ensure that we can support the sort of supply that we want to see but still have the ability to protect our own local interests. That is precisely what this bill will do if it is enacted. It gives us the ability to consider what is in the consumer's interest and also what is in the interests of industry. And if we take the balance between those two then we can create an almost perfect storm particularly in housing where we are ensuring that the materials are available freely and at a good price while not destroying our own local industry and seeking to deliver the objectives we have which—particularly in housing—is to make sure that we have the right supply to meet the growing demands in New Zealand. This is a very pragmatic and sensible bill and I commend it to the House.