Bridges SimonHon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources): I asked to speak on this bill and I did not do that because I am some sort of a trade expert—I am not. In that regard I am a lot like the speakers we have heard from on the Labour Party benches. And I do not know the future of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA). I do not know what the short and medium terms hold but I do have high hopes for it over the future. But what I do know is this: free trade works for New Zealand and has made New Zealand a fundamentally much more prosperous nation than it ever would have been otherwise and in the TPPA we have a massive opportunity in this country and we are much more prosperous as a result of the free-trade agreements we have done and those that are coming.Grant Robertson says: What is the plan? What is the strategy?". Well it is the same strategy we have had for the entire life of this Government. It is the same one we saw under actually the Governments of Douglas and Caygill—and actually under the Governments of Clark and Goff for that matter—and that is to maximise our international free-trade opportunities. It is not complicated as a strategy. Let me state the blindingly obvious in relation to this issue: we are not China we are not the United States we are not a big country with massive domestic markets that can sustain our economies; we are like a cork bobbing on the ocean and we need to trade. We need to be in these multilateral trade agreements to maximise the benefits for our country and to make us a freer and a more prosperous country.Here is the thing about all of that that the others do not get. You heard it in David Clark's speech where he effectively said that there was nothing in this for anyone. This is not about the bankers this is not about the fat cats whom Dr Clark likes to caricature those who somehow stand to gain so much from all of this; this is about regional New Zealand. Regional New Zealand wants the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). I know that. The member opposite said: "They don't want this. They don't—no no." But I know that it does with all the people whom I have talked to in Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty. Todd McClay the Minister of Trade and the MP for Rotorua knows that. Todd Muller knows that because we get out and talk to our constituents. We know that in regional New Zealand across the value chains whether it is in kiwifruit avocados services or high-tech manufacturing there are jobs and higher-paying jobs created as a result of free trade and would certainly be created as a result of the TPP.We have seen it in the other trade agreements that we have done. We have seen in the Korean free-trade agreement where every kiwifruit grower in the Bay of Plenty is on average $14000 wealthier and the people under them in the chain are wealthier with more job security as a result of that. Something like over $40 million per annum goes into the Bay of Plenty economy that we would not have had just from the Korean free-trade agreement. We know that the opportunities with this free-trade agreement that we are here talking about in Parliament would be much much more.Although the other parties on the opposite side of the House have consistently voted against this bill and have shown their opposition on this side of the House we know that free trade works for New Zealand. It has made us a much more prosperous nation and will continue to do so. The real beneficiaries of this are in regional New Zealand which is where the real benefits of bills like this and free-trade agreements like this come."