Shirley Ken: Tariff (New Zealand - Thailand Closer Economic Partnership) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Shirley Ken: Tariff (New Zealand - Thailand Closer Economic Partnership) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21430] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 ACT will certainly be supporting this bill. We are the champions of free trade. We recognise the benefits that come from freer trade in the international community. In fact my colleague Kenneth Wang New Zealand’s newest member of Parliament was just saying to me that those Green Party people are mad. That is what he said. He said that because the Greens believe that New Zealand can just lock itself in a cocoon—the “fortress New Zealand” approach—when at the end of the day New Zealand is perhaps as a percentage of GDP more dependent on trade than just about any other economy in the world. If we accept the basic fact that New Zealand is dependent on trade then we can see that it is certainly in our overwhelming interest to be the champion of free trade and to look at breaking down barriers wherever we can. 
The harsh reality is that trade liberalisation is progressing at glacially slow speeds. We had the Tokyo round in the 1960s and 1970s followed by the Uruguay round which slowly crawled on. We had the Cairns group trying to promote agriculture right through that era. We now have the Doha round. It is frustrating. I commend trade Ministers from successive Governments because I think that trade is non-partisan. We as a Parliament should be supporting our trade Ministers whatever Government they are from. Some say that those Ministers are just swanning off around the world and having meetings every other week in some other place. It is actually a hard slog. I know that. Any gains we make are made very slowly. Right from Jack Marshall’s time onwards through successive Governments we have had good trade Ministers who have worked in New Zealand’s interests. 
It is overwhelmingly in our interest to get comprehensive liberalisation of trade because we have been disadvantaged proportionately very highly. The Rogernomics Government of the 1980s transformed the New Zealand economy. I was very proud to be a member of that Government. Most people in the ACT party relate to those reforms—the current Labour Government of course denies them—and those reforms are the reason for the prosperous situation this country is in today. That is the reality. The Government of the time broke down those barriers and took the hard yards back in the latter part of the 1980s and that continued in the early 1990s under Ruth Richardson until Jim Bolger sacked her. That is when the hard yards were done. That is when we took the bold decisions to take away our subsidies and to start taking away our tariff protections and to the extent that for a long period we as a nation led the world we are in a stronger position. We are in a stronger position because we have already taken away many of our trade barriers and therefore we are poised to gain proportionately more than most by getting breakthroughs in agreements. 
I understand that the tariff against our sawn timber going into Thailand is up in the 15 to 20 percent range. Officials could probably confirm that. That is a very serious obstacle to the profitability of our very important forest industry. Yes we may lose in footwear clothing and textiles because in those instances Thailand has the comparative advantage. But that is the beauty of freer trade. Both economies will be better off. Both peoples in both nations will be more prosperous. Overall the global benefits and prosperity that come from freer trade are overwhelming. That is what the Green Party and I regret to say the xenophobic New Zealand First Party simply do not understand. They do not get it. They believe in “fortress New Zealand”. They like to stoke prejudice and say that people will lose their jobs to foreigners. What utter nonsense! The benefits for New Zealand in freer trade are overwhelming because freer trade is based on comparative advantage. That is Economics 101. Therefore the ACT party is very enthusiastic in supporting freer trade. 
However I have to say that regrettably this agreement which has been signed does have some serious shortcomings and deficiencies. Unfortunately the current socialist Labour Government has imported into it all sorts of extraneous and strange concepts that actually debase the value of it—like the fact that we will have more favourable treatment for Maori. That is PC socialist nonsense—absolute nonsense. That provision is a foolish addition to this free-trade agreement. I am sure that the officials did not recommend it. It was a straight policy decision from this Labour Government—this misguided Labour Government in this instance—and I actually feel sorry for our Minister for Trade Negotiations Jim Sutton for having to tolerate that sort of pollution of what could have been a much more robust and sensible negotiated position. 
I am sure that the Minister did not support the insertion of that silly provision. What are we actually saying here? Is there something special about Maori apples? If we want to put apples into the Thailand market are we saying that if they are grown by Maori there is something special about them? What absolute nonsense—what absolute patronising pap! Who on earth thought up that provision other than perhaps some Maori militant who is going for separate sovereignty or something and sees this as part of the leverage towards that. There is no place for that sort of nonsense in international trade agreements. We would certainly oppose it if another nation tried to impose those sorts of provisions so why on earth did this Labour Government succumb to that sort of nonsense? I bet that the young member for Otaki Darren Hughes did not support that proposal. He is a rational young man from what I have seen of him. I do not know who in that Labour Government carried the day and imposed that sort of nonsense on a trade agreement. 
I have to say to the House that although the ACT party champions free trade and although we have indicated our support and will be voting for this bill that provision almost swung it for us. We find it totally objectionable that stuff like this—like the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi—continues to be perpetrated in legislation and ACT consistently votes against them. The “Winston First” party members always oppose them verbally. They go out to public meetings and say that they are opposed to bills that refer to the principles of the treaty but every time it comes to a vote in Parliament they vote for them. The ACT party walks the talk and it was on that basis that we were almost spun out of voting for this bill. It is a particularly foolish provision to have in this negotiated free-trade agreement. 
I note that there are rules of origin and we have been given some assurance that they will not be exploited. We take that on trust. We also note with disappointment that services are not provided for in this agreement. I understand that the only commitment Thailand has made is to initiate negotiations in 3 years’ time. Of course that is pretty meaningless; we appreciate that. But that is the nature of these trade agreements. The big picture is that we have taken a step. We have a commitment between two nations to move forward with a bilateral agreement. We would far rather have a multilateral agreement. Multilateral trade agreements are far preferable but because of the sluggish progress made under the Doha round—and it will always be so I fear. In the meantime we have all these bilateral agreements between nations. It is only when one gets to a collective point at which a sufficient number of these bilateral agreements exist that one gets a culture globally to swing in behind the multilateral agreement. That is the reality. So the ACT party will support the bill but again I must stress that we express our serious disappointment with these foolish extraneous clip-ons that the Labour Government for politically correct reasons has put in the agreement. They do not belong in it they are foolish and they are perverse.