Williams Andrew: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:16951. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill. Back in March 2009 the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs John Hayes said: “The bill’s purpose is in particular to allow New Zealand to apply safeguard measures at the border in accordance with the WTO rules adopted in Marrakech back in April 1994.” Mr Hayes then went on to say that “The bill states that such measures are intended to provide temporary protection to a domestic industry from serious injury caused by increased imports.” Many of us can recall there was an instance concerning whiteware a number of years ago where Fisher and Paykel had concerns here in New Zealand because whiteware in its eyes was being dumped on the New Zealand market causing great difficulties for the domestic manufacturer here. It thought there was unfair advantage in that significant quantities were coming from a foreign source affecting the domestic market here. The Government at the time did investigate that situation. This bill is very much intended to protect in those sorts of situations.New Zealand First would ask as well the question why this was initiated under the Labour Government back in 2008 and is now here in 2014. If the purpose of this bill as Mr Hayes said is to protect our domestic industry from serious injury caused by increased imports in situations like that why has this Government taken the best part of 6 years to get it to the Committee stage in the House? This is an appalling situation and it beggars belief as to why our domestic manufacturers do not have a level of protection under the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules such as this bill brings in. The Hon Simon Power tried to put this bill through in 2009 and he hung his hat on it. As we have heard it was then passed on to the Hon John Banks and now it is with Mr Foss.New Zealand is a very small market. We have only 4½ million people. We have a very small manufacturing base. Those manufacturers that we do have come under intense pressure at times from very significant global players global suppliers and major importers into this country which could literally swamp and overpower many of our local domestic manufacturing sources. In that respect this is a very important bill that will give trade safeguards as the bill’s name puts it to ensure that we do not have unfair international conglomerates coming in and swamping such a small market. We are less than the size of Sydney in population and we have a fraction of the manufacturing of the likes of Australia yet Australia has far more in place to protect and assist its manufacturing base to ensure that its manufacturers have some safeguards.New Zealand has been very much an open market. In fact New Zealand is often used as a test case. Manufacturers around the world often use New Zealand to trial products because we are an island nation and we are somewhat isolated from the rest of the world. Our particular country is sometimes used by manufacturers out of Europe out of North America and out of Asia to test and trial products when they would not wish to do that in their own home markets or in significant markets where it would be far more costly.A result of them coming to New Zealand and perhaps using us as the test case as the guinea pig is that that can at times have serious consequences for fledgling manufacturers here in this country which can be absolutely swamped by such a venture. So it is very important that New Zealand has this bill in place and that we can then go to the WTO under the WTO rules and raise concerns if we feel that that is happening. If this Government walked the talk in terms of giving greater support to New Zealand manufacturing greater support to New Zealand business and greater support to try to grow this economy and provide more jobs then we would need the safeguards in place as provided under this bill to ensure that our companies in New Zealand can level-peg it with very very large multinationals globally.New Zealand First supports this bill but we support it on the basis that we get on with it we get it moved through the House and we put this legislation in place. We had a similar situation with the Rena off Tauranga.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!This issue is very close to that because legislation was not passed and had it been passed—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No no.ANDREW WILLIAMS: Well had this bill been passed already in certain instances perhaps New Zealand would have been better protected. Likewise had the legislation on the Rena been passed New Zealand would have been $30 million better off by not having to pay out to overseas interests. Tardy legislation does not help New Zealand interests. In this instance where it is in the interests of New Zealand business New Zealand First supports it and we commend it be passed by the Committee with swift promptness.