Dalziel Lianne: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — First Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1868] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I rise to support the first reading of the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill and I congratulate the Minister Simon Power on making a fine speech. I could not have read it better myself. [ 
Interruption 
] I read along with him actually because I happen to have a copy of the speech with me. 
It is unusual for a commerce bill to be referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and I think that is worthy of some comment. The fact that this bill is being referred to that select committee and not to the Commerce Committee really shows that the bill is as much about international trade and World Trade Organization (WTO) compliance as it is about protecting New Zealand’s commercial interests from dramatic increases in import competition. 
John Hayes 
: Are you reading this too? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I have just jotted these notes down. I am happy to table them for the member if he likes. 
Trade safeguards are very important as it is vital that domestic manufacturers and producers are protected during a period of adjustment. Of course that period of adjustment is as the Minister has highlighted in his very learned contribution to this debate exacerbated by increased trade and trade agreements. The bill replaces a 1987 Act and although there are older statutes on our books much has been occurring in the field of international trade that really requires us to refresh this law. So the bill is very timely indeed. 
The process for bringing this bill to the House has been very robust and I am disappointed that the Minister did not mention that fact. I guess that is because this bill unlike many of the others that were introduced by National in its 100 days of action has an excellent regulatory impact statement. I of course prided myself on bringing bills to this House that had excellent regulatory impact statements in them because a good regulatory impact analysis undertaken at the outset can resolve a lot of issues before they become problems further down the track—after the legislation has been introduced into the House and subsequently passed. This bill has been preceded by a very in-depth consultation process which has included the release of a discussion document to ensure that input was as broad as it could be. 
I have heard a number of people in different fields express some abhorrence of the principles of free trade but I hope they can feel comforted that this bill is actually a measure that they can support as it supports fair trade as part of free trade. 
This bill enables the Minister to act on his or her own initiative as long as there are reasonable grounds for an investigation. The select committee will probably want to pay some attention to what are reasonable grounds for the Minister to initiate this particular investigation. 
The work as the Minister has highlighted will in future be undertaken by the Ministry of Economic Development rather than a temporary safeguard authority for each investigation being established. It has always struck me as being somewhat inefficient to have individual temporary safeguard authorities established in order to deal with each individual case as it comes to light. It is true that very few have been established so in one respect it probably does not matter. However it makes sense to me and it certainly made sense to those who were providing advice in this regard that the expertise of the trade remedies team within the Ministry of Economic Development could be brought to bear on what is a very parallel process. It already investigates allegations of dumping and I myself had experience as a former Minister of Commerce of being in receipt of reports on more than one dumping investigation. I am sure that the current Minister still has something really good to look forward to in his role—that is when the pile of papers comes to his office for him to read in great detail! 
Not only does that detailed analysis identify the true cost of production—in a country where sometimes the producers do not want to be as open as they should be over the actual cost of production because of course they want to protect themselves against the claim of dumping in New Zealand—but also it has to show the damage to the New Zealand industry which has to be both significant and widespread. So it is obviously quite an enormous task for the officials which is why I support the idea of bringing that expertise into this consideration of trade safeguard measures. I think that is something that the Minister will have to grapple with when he gets to one of those because they really do present quite a detailed analysis and that does require some time to go through. 
Then there is the decision as to the measure to be applied so if dumping has been found to be the case—in this case if a trade safeguard is required to be applied—then a countervailing duty may be the answer. When we think about it we see that that is the same process to all intents and purposes that will be applied in relation to this bill. 
I just reinforce the fact that this bill makes a sensible organisation of work in terms of transferring work from a temporary safeguard authority to the Ministry of Economic Development trade remedies team. When I was the Minister of Commerce I was concerned about the extent of work that had to be undertaken by the affected industry in bringing forward a complaint and I would like to place on the record that concern this evening. I urge the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association—and I will probably send a copy of my  
Hansard 
 to the association—to take the opportunity to make a submission to the select committee on this bill because it covers many of the issues that the association had raised with the previous Government and I am sure it is raising those issues with the current Government. This will ensure that those concerns are put before the committee. 
There is an opportunity with this bill to look at whether we have in our desire to be consistent with WTO rules pushed the boundaries out as far as we legally can within those rules. It may be that those boundaries can be pushed a little further in respect of this measure being brought before the House. On that basis I support the first reading of the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill and its referral to the appropriate committee which in this case is the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee.