Tabuteau Fletcher: Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTabuteau Fletcher: Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5252. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): I move That the Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee to consider the bill. New Zealand First is deeply concerned about the investor-State dispute provisions currently included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. Nobel laureate economists senior medical experts international law experts trade experts international human rights experts and more and more everyday New Zealanders are growing increasingly concerned as they learn more about the non-trade elements of this treaty.The reality is that this Government has kept secret from the people of New Zealand just what it is that it is negotiating and even why. For years now New Zealand First has asked this Government to make the policies in this treaty negotiation public to the people of New Zealand. It has not done that despite international precedent from the EU for example. That is why I stand here proudly in support in presenting the Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill.Tim Groser recently labelled any concerns or counterarguments as politically irrelevant. He said that the views of those New Zealanders were driven by ideology and not based on evidence. It is clearly the manifestation of “third-term-itis”. Government members ask us to trust them but they have not earned it.The ambition of the Trans-Pacific Partnership is huge. Nearly 40 percent of the trading world will be included in this agreement and I for one can actually understand why we would like to be a part of that. Our exporters compete against US firms for example which have huge protections. We would like the playing field to be levelled so that our businesses can enjoy the same access to our competitors’ markets that we allow others here already.But the Trans-Pacific Partnership is also about renegotiating global investment rules. It includes legal rules covering issues such as investor protections and intellectual property rights. These rules allow foreign corporations to sue Governments if they introduce policies that interfere with corporate profits. Even the perceived loss of potential profits is ground for suit. This is the investor-State dispute settlement provision that this Government is allowing into our trade negotiations. Even the most optimistic supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership for example have to concede that this rule may not only prove to be very costly but it will without a shadow of a doubt also reshape our democracy.We believe that those who have voiced their concerns are not only politically relevant Mr Groser but further New Zealand First believes that as New Zealand is one of the oldest continuous democracies on this earth to have a select few Ministers and the Prime Minister sign this supposed free-trade agreement on behalf of all New Zealand before it has been seen by all parliamentarians before it has been seen by the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and before it has been seen by even your National backbenchers or your support parties is a travesty that is being undertaken in the name of democracy.It is a failure—a failure—to understand where the people of this country stand.David Bennett: Where’s the conspiracy?FLETCHER TABUTEAU: It is arrogance Mr Bennett pure and simple. Why? Because the details of these negotiations are completely concealed from the New Zealand public yet they are available to over 600 United States corporations which have made in-depth contributions to the negotiation process dictating the terms and conditions that Mr Groser seems ready to accept at any cost.Further the negotiating documents will remain confidential for a further 4 years after negotiations have been concluded or abandoned. New Zealanders may therefore be subject to and bound by essentially a secret agreement that will be virtually impossible to reverse. Other countries have started to try to remove the investor-State dispute settlement provision from their trade agreements only to find it will take 25 years to do so.International trade is complicated stuff which is why I am going to go slowly for the National backbenchers. In the early years of trade the focus was on trans-boundary tariffs with a goal of actually levelling the playing field so that goods and services could more easily flow between nations. Today’s trade agreements are a wholly different beast. Instead of tariffs they increasingly seek to reduce so-called non-tariff trade barriers. These non-tariff trade barriers can be any law any rule or any Government support that may have the effect of limiting trade or reducing corporate profits. They include such basic safeguards as for example those around drinking water environmental protection and even fair labour laws.The investor-State dispute settlement provisions were originally designed to stop Third World nations repatriating assets from foreign companies. But investor-State dispute settlement provisions now allow foreign corporations that believe their profits have been hampered by a country’s laws or rules to challenge the host Government. This is the problem with investor-State dispute settlements. Foreign corporates do not have to use New Zealand law to settle those disputes between themselves and our Government. Luckily the foreign corporates that have had grievances with New Zealand in the past have actually used the New Zealand legal process. I am proud to say that my understanding is that New Zealand has successfully defended all of those claims in New Zealand courts. This is a wonderful precedent but it does not justify the head-in-the-sand approach from this Government moving forward.The investor-State dispute settlement provisions allow foreign corporates not New Zealand firms to go to a tribunal. This is not an actual court of law here or overseas. What the National backbenchers might not understand is that these tribunals consist of only three players—a corporate lawyer for the country a corporate lawyer for the foreign corporate firm and a foreign corporate presiding over the proceedings. They play interchangeable roles and clearly over time have conflicts of interest. Only the foreign corporate can sue. A Government itself cannot use the same tribunal to hold those corporates to account. I ask the Government and its MPs here today why they would happily sit there and watch while our freedom to govern ourselves is handed over to unaccountable secret tribunals that give foreign corporates an unfair advantage in circumventing laws with the privilege of suing us added into the bargain.David Bennett: Well your boss likes to sue people.FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Remember Kiwi firms Mr Bennett will not have access to the same process here at home. Investor-State dispute settlements are becoming a big business opportunity for big business. Corporations are now selling their actions against nations to investors at discounted rates and the investment companies are taking the gamble of a win with the possibility of billion-dollar payouts. The number of claims grows every year. We are told that the investor-State dispute settlement provisions within our treaties are world class. Given that we have yet to be sued they probably are. But do not forget or ignore the fact that many countries have been sued and have lost. The tribunal process is usually always secret and at the request of foreign corporates so where countries have thought themselves protected by similar exemptions and protections this has not always been the case.I anxiously now sit and wait in anticipation to hear from backbench National MPs who have not been briefed on the investor-State dispute settlement provisions in our next trade agreement and who do not know what is in it. I say that this will be interesting. Thank you.