Shearer David: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 04 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:541. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert):That member David Bennett was obviously a little bit nervous because when you look back at the people who helped shepherd this bill through the House it started with Lianne Dalziel back in 2008. It has taken 6 long years—Hon Todd McClay: Who?DAVID SHEARER: Exactly—exactly. Lianne Dalziel is now the Mayor of Christchurch. She has gone on to bigger and better things. Then there was Tau Henare. I do not know what happened to him.Hon Todd McClay: Who?DAVID SHEARER: Exactly—who? I do not know what he is doing either. John Banks—remember him? He was here as well. He was involved with this bill. And then there was John Hayes also an extinct MP as well. So when David Bennett talks about the time it has taken to get this bill through the House he must be sitting there kind of worried that he is going to be the next on the list of the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill speakers to hit the dust down there in the Waikato.We have waited 6 long years for this bill to come through. This bill was put forward by the Labour Government back in 2008 and it has taken this long to be pushed through by this Government even though it is a pretty simple piece of legislation and it is agreed upon by just about everybody in this House. It promotes fairness and we are all into fairness—well this side of the House is into fairness; the other side I certainly cannot speak for—and it does bring us as some speakers have said into line with the World Trade Organization. It means that after nearly 20 years we are fulfilling our obligations there and of course it removes some of the problems with the temporary safeguard authority that has been set up—a big piece of bureaucracy within the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment which has had to deal with that.Really what this bill deals with is the possibility that there could be serious injury caused to some of our businesses by unscrupulous countries dumping their produce in New Zealand and obviously we do not want to see that. We have entered into a number of free-trade agreements with a number of countries and although we put down as part of those agreements that we should not have dumping unfortunately that is a risk. This bill will protect our companies that might be vulnerable to that dumping.We are as many speakers have pointed out this evening a free-trade country. If we do not trade we will certainly die as a country. We have done very well in terms of the free-trade agreements we have been able to sign. The unfortunate way that the World Trade Organization and the free-trade agreements have gone on a global basis has not transpired here and what we have instead is a number of regional and bilateral free-trade agreements.For New Zealand the most important of those to date is the one with China—China’s only free-trade agreement and the first free-trade agreement that was signed with that country. In the time since we signed that in 2008 until today our exports have increased from about $3 billion to nearly $10 billion and $3 billion of that $10 billion is actually not in the agricultural sector; it is actually in many of the higher-value commodities that we have been able to trade with China.It is important to take some lessons from what happened when we went into that China free-trade agreement negotiation. First of all there was not unanimous agreement across Parliament that we should have an agreement with China. Certainly the Green Party and the New Zealand First Party did not agree with that. But what we also did—and I want to raise this point because it is something that this Government has blatantly not been able to do—was engage with many of the stakeholders around the country. We had discussions with Greenpeace with Business New Zealand with the Council of Trade Unions. That was part of what we did in order to give people some comfort that what we were doing was in the best interests of the country.But this Government has blatantly been unable to do that with the Trans-Pacific Partnership. So what we have is a level of fear and uncertainty about the unknown around the free-trade agreements that might be signed off. We simply do not know what the Government’s bottom line really is. We have got worries about Pharmac. We have got worries about whether we will sign away our environmental issues our public health issues. All of those questions have not been answered satisfactorily for the public of New Zealand. We understand what the benefits will be and they could be considerable. But we do not know what we are giving up as a result.I just want to make the point that exports are extraordinarily important to us and today in question time it was absolutely and categorically shown that exports as a percentage of GDP have actually gone down under this Government. There is a goal that has been set by this Government—it is laughable when you think about what is actually happening at the moment—of 40 percent; that exports as a percentage of GDP will be 40 percent. In 2009 they were 32 percent. Today they are just a little over 29 percent.There is a little bit of a disagreement here amongst some of the Government Ministers. Steven Joyce came out and said just a couple of weeks ago that that percentage was actually around 30 percent. Well it is a little bit under 30 percent but of course Steven Joyce likes to round it up as he does. But Bill English today was talking about it being 33 percent which is quite blatantly incorrect and clearly out of step with his counterpart Mr Joyce.So what do we see? What we are seeing at the moment is exports as a percentage of GDP going down and Mr English talking not about value which we all want to see—we want to see the value of these exports going up—but quantity. For heaven’s sake! Have we not left this behind? Quantity was what we did in the 1960s.We want to be looking at value added and value when we look at these exports because value is what creates the jobs helps those businesses profit and enriches New Zealand. That is what we want to see not some waffle about quantity and not value or whatever the excuse was that Mr English decided to dream up when he was answering questions today. He probably needs to have a bit of a conversation with Steven Joyce so that they can at least get their numbers correct. It is embarrassing sitting on this side of the House and knowing that they are both talking about completely different things.We are an exporting country. We need to export. We need to make sure that those exports are able to get out there and into those markets but we want to see clarity around what we are getting into in the form of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We want to see a Government that really is committed to exports and not trying to fudge it and talk about the construction industry as Mr English did in question time today which depends so heavily on an earthquake. That is some great planning by the National Government where economic development is based on an earthquake!What we want to see is value-added exports being shipped out of New Zealand which can create jobs profit our businesses give people higher incomes and drive up the value of our education system.So in the spirit of that and giving our businesses and our industries a fair go we support this bill as we supported it in 2008—through every permutation and the comings and goings of party members as they came and went especially in the National Party the ACT Party and wherever as they trundled through as this legislation passed through history. It is great to be sitting here and saying: “Thank God we have actually been able to put a line under this rule it off and put it into law before Christmas 6 years after the date it was first introduced.” Thank you.