Macindoe TimHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you very much Mr Chair. Could I just say to the Minister of Immigration who has just I think rather gratefully left the chair I was looking forward to putting some questions to him to tap into his considerable knowledge of this particular agreement and support for the bill. But it seemed to be with a degree of relish that he saw the Acting Minister for Trade and Export Growth enter the committee and swap places with him so I'll save my questions to that particular Minister for another day. I want to commend my colleague the member for Helensville Chris Penk not only for demonstrating his considerable understanding of this particular part of the bill with that contribution but also for the very fine contribution he has been making as a new member of Parliament. I hope he'll accept this with the goodwill with which it's intended. He is a very fine contributor to the work of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and when we were discussing this particular bill and hearing submissions I noted with admiration how engaged he was and how constructive he was—Hon Willie Jackson: Put him on the front bench.Hon TIM MACINDOE: —in assisting. Well if that were in my gift I'd say to the Hon Willie Jackson I would be more than happy to do that. While I'm sure the member of Helensville will be delighted to hear that nevertheless I wouldn't want to get his hopes up too much because I suspect that it may take a little while for me to be able to use my influence in that way. But it is good to know that members opposite respect the great depth of talent on our side of the House and I can assure him as he has obviously already noted that the member for Helensville is going places in a very positive way in his career.Let me return to Part 1 of this bill because now that the Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth is in the chair I do want to just point out that one of the things that was most evident as we listened to submitters in the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee was that there was real cynicism from all of the individuals—I stress the individuals not the organisations—who submitted on this particular bill about the change in name. Here in Part 1 we are just talking about the amendments to the title and commencement of the principal Act and in clause 5 section 1 is amended so that Every reference in any enactment and in any document to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Amendment Act 2016 must unless the context otherwise requires be read as a reference to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Amendment Act 2018." All of the individuals as I say who came to the committee were expressing real cynicism—and I'm looking at the Green member who is nodding her head because she also was there listening to that.Essentially what they were saying was that there is no significant difference in this agreement from that which it replaces i.e. the original Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement which was first negotiated on behalf of New Zealand by the Hon Tim Groser and that fine work was carried on by the Hon Todd McClay who had the great pleasure of seeing it come into force while he was the Minister only to see that upon the election of President Trump in America the rules changed; the agreement changed. It was then the current Minister the Hon David Parker who picked up the cudgels on New Zealand's behalf and contributed in a very constructive way—and I do want to acknowledge the work of the Hon David Parker—to assisting this new agreement to come into place. But we I think need to acknowledge that the submitters were not overly convinced by the change in name and they would want it placed on record. While I'm a very strong supporter of this bill and of this agreement I think we owe it to the submitters to acknowledge that point. So I would ask the Minister in the chair what practical changes this means for New Zealand and for all of the parties that are signatory to this agreement. It is after all an agreement which is worth a huge sum to New Zealand in dollar terms—vitally important I think to our export producers and markets and something that I believe will be very very good for us. But what is the practical impact for country is the first question of the change of section 1 the amended title. The second thing is I wonder if the Minister could enlighten probably those who are listening—I think this is one of the useful things about the committee stage of a debate: here in the House we may know the answers to some of these questions but there are many members of the public who may be listening. In new section 2 the commencement inserted by clause 6 we are advised that "This Act comes into force on a date appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council"—this is all fairly standard stuff—"on the recommendation"—in this case—"of the Minister for Trade and Export Growth." But new subsection (3) of that particular part states "However the date appointed for the following provisions to come into force must not be earlier than the date on which the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement done at Auckland on 4 February 2016 enters into force for New Zealand:". Well of course that was over two years ago now—[Bell rung] Thank you Mr Chair. I'll be reasonably quick. I must admit I had noticed that the first call seemed to have expired about a minute ago. This particular provision refers to a date that's more than two years—in fact it's 2½ years old so I'm hoping that for the benefit of those who may be listening and who will have been devouring every word of this particular bill the Minister might just be able to explain what the practical consequence of having that subsection in this bill would be.There's no question that we were advised by officials that it was important for New Zealand to be moving quickly to ratify the provisions and that's one of the reasons why we're after all debating this bill here right now—to try to ensure that it can be completed through all its stages in the House before Christmas. Clearly we're on target for that—in fact I assume if we complete the committee stage today that we'll probably have the third reading on the next sitting day. So New Zealand will comfortably meet its requirements. I'm hoping that the Minister will outline for the benefit of anybody who may be listening why that is particularly advantageous for New Zealand and I think that this is the appropriate part of this debate for him to do that. I know that some my colleagues will have some other questions as well but those are just a couple of matters that I wish to bring to the committee's attention that I hope will be helpful for the House and for the public at large. I'm very pleased to have had this opportunity to speak on Part 1 and look forward to speaking again later on in Part 2."