Hodgson Pete: Tariff (AANZFTA) Amendment Bill Customs and Excise (AANZFTA) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Hodgson Pete: Tariff (AANZFTA) Amendment Bill Customs and Excise (AANZFTA) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Volume:655;Page:4913] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to take part in the third reading debate on this legislation and Labour members warmly support it. I will begin by doing what is now almost cultural in this Parliament which is to acknowledge the work of previous and present Ministers of Trade in getting quite a complicated agreement done and dusted. I will also depart a little from the culture of this country by saying that we really need to acknowledge the work of officials. They are the guys who do the hard yards in terms of the negotiation. They are pretty clever people—some of them are very clever—and we would be a poorer nation without them. Let us get that on record. I am sure there is wide agreement on it. 
A very small note of discord that I mention in passing is that the current Prime Minister of the land has said sort of negative things about the previous Minister of Trade the Hon Phil Goff. The Hon Phil Goff has thick enough skin to manage that; there is no problem at all about that. But it shows that sometimes—if we are not careful—we can be a little graceless. 
The breadth of the agreement has been outlined by previous speakers—particularly my colleague the Hon Maryan Street—so I do not want to go back over it. But I will say that in the recent burst of free-trade agreements China and ASEAN rise as very big changes on our exporting landscape. I want to contrast our approach to each of them. It is not a fair comparison in one sense because the ASEAN agreement involves many nations and China is one huge nation. But the difference between the way that we have approached the aftermath of the free-trade agreements is worth reflecting on. 
In the case of China we did pretty much all that one could or might expect to do. There was a lot of ceremony about the agreement. There were a lot of trade missions around the ceremony about the agreement. There was a great deal of media coverage of the agreement. There was a retooling of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s presence in various parts of China as it sought to extend its focus into that country in light of the free-trade agreement. A Beachheads was set up in China. There is ongoing research and development collaboration with China. And on and on it goes. 
But none of that has happened and I expect none of it will happen in respect of the ASEAN countries. That is a shame. Of course it need not happen with all of those countries; some of them have smaller economies than others. With some of them we already have a free-trade agreement; the job is done. But for many of the countries—particularly Indonesia Malaysia the Philippines and Viet Nam—we have an opportunity that we have not seized. 
The reason we have not seized it came out in this debate when the person who began the debate the Hon Christopher Finlayson reminded us of how Fonterra will make progress because of the free-trade agreements and of how the meat industry will make progress because of the free-trade agreements. The chair of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee John Hayes made similar comments. Although John Hayes managed to mention axe heads weather sensors and other businesses in the electorate of Wairarapa which he has the current privilege to represent the fact of the matter is that National assumes that business will follow function that business will follow the signing of the free-trade agreements and even measures how much it expects. What is apparent from those comments is that no further central effort is likely which is a shame. 
We heard from the Hon Maryan Street that under interrogation in the select committee the Minister responsible for the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise budget said there would be no cuts. Well whether or not that is true it ain’t good enough. It ain’t good enough. A recession is going on and it is really important that we do not let a good recession go to waste. Probably an emerging difference across the House is that people on this side of the House would be much more inclined in a recession to put emphasis on and investment into skills to put emphasis on and investment into what might be called innovation and to put emphasis on and investment into trade. 
I acknowledge the significant increase of investment in the Export Credit Office. I freely acknowledge that and congratulate the Government on that move. It is a good move. The Export Credit Office was opposed by everyone when it was set up. It was opposed by National as well as by Treasury and God knows who else. But that is in the nature of things. It is now part of our fabric and National has backed it with some cash. That needs to be acknowledged. But that is where it stopped which is unfortunate. It is really unfortunate. 
I think there is a case for trade missions I think there is a case for a programme of development and I think there is a case for increasing New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s presence in those areas. I think there is even a case for extending beachheads beyond Singapore. There is certainly a case for saying that we need to pay attention to the countries where we think the increase from the free-trade agreement in trade is likely to be the greatest and that we should not take the position that it is OK now to sign an agreement to ring up Fonterra and to tell it to make the best of it. You see this country cannot be an economy built on dairying and tourism alone. That will not work. Just as we need a broad range of markets which is why this free-trade agreement is so important we need a broad range of exports. And we do not have that. ASEAN is an opportunity for us to improve a little on that. 
Our exporters are a pretty gallant lot. They choose to spend a lot of time on aircraft a lot of time away from their businesses and from their homes. Very few of them are exporting large quantities. There are very few large exporters in this country. It is important that we give small and medium-sized exporters the opportunity to grow. Not all of them will want to take part in any trade mission will want to use the services of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise or will want to use the services of a Beachheads to be established in Jakarta for example. Not all of them will but some of them will. We in Government should be there to offer support to those businesses that want to access them but we are not doing so. 
I am sorry that this is a negative contribution to a free-trade debate but I think that we are wasting some opportunity here and that the Government ought to think carefully about whether that is a smart thing to do. Free-trade agreements of this ilk come along but once. They come along but once. There is an opportunity that goes by once but I think we are letting that opportunity pass us by. We are not seizing the totality of it by any means. So I am asking the Government—and the next National speaker may wish to respond—whether it thinks that it has maximised the opportunities of this free-trade agreement because I certainly do not.