Banks John: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Banks John: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 02 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1931. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon JOHN BANKS (Associate Minister of Commerce) 
: 
 I will be leaving the Chamber soon and my friend Minister Joyce will be looking after matters. I want to answer the sensible questions raised by the parliamentary Opposition tonight—a number of sensible questions. I will start with Dr Graham the Green Party member of Parliament who has been listening intently to this tonight.  
Dr Graham asked some time ago what the meaning of safeguards was in clause 17. He also asked questions about public interest and he asked questions about strategic importance. I can tell Dr Graham the parliamentary member for the Green Party that the strategic importance relates to the domestic industry and protection of the domestic industry and the significance of the industry to our ability to trade from that. Can I also say to Dr Graham who asked a question about confidential information as did his colleague sitting beside him—he asked the same question as well—that I can say to the two Green members at the back of the Chamber that clause 10(4) answers many of those questions.  
 Making information available would give a significant competitive advantage to a competitor and that would be a problem. We do not want to give significant competitive advantages to domestic competitors and we certainly do not want to give significant competitive or uncompetitive advantages to international traders from export industry led by and represented by the member Dr Paul Hutchison—for instance those great people in his electorate around Pukekohe who export to the world in a critical fashion. The bill states: “making the information available would have a significantly adverse effect upon the submitter of confidential information:”. I want to make that clear to Dr Graham again; that is the important part of the bill: “making the information available would have a significantly adverse effect on the submitter of the confidential information:” and that I refer to him is clause 10(4)(b). And paragraph (c) states that the information should be treated as confidential for reasons as submitted by the submitter.  
It is important that we have some confidentiality around these things. I do not intend to answer any of the questions from the parliamentary Labour Party because I have answered all of their questions—many of them quite convoluted misguided poorly informed and poorly articulated. But I will say I hope I have answered all the questions from the member for Wairarapa Mr Hayes who has done such a sterling job in leading the parliamentary select committee. Tau Henare has got a really good grip of these commercial things and it is good for a westie to have a very good grip of commercial matters affecting the tradable sector. It is great to see Tau Henare make a significant contribution on that important parliamentary committee. Dr Hutchison “Mr Reliable and Common Sense” on the select committee is all the way from Pukekohe and is looking after those exporters.  
All of the provisions that I have outlined in Part 1 of the bill are the significant parts. I will just say before I ask my friend Minister Joyce to take the chair at quarter to ten this night in Parliament that the second part of the bill is Part 2 and it provides for what you might call tidying-up— 
Grant Robertson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. We have had a number of points of order tonight about the importance of talking about Part 1—the part that we are on. I believe that the Minister was straying into a different part and I am sure you will pull him into line. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you. I had noticed that. I ask the Minister to refer to the part. 
Hon JOHN BANKS 
: Of course. Well let us refer to Part 1. I want to thank the members of the parliamentary National Party. I want to thank the members of the Green Party for their very pithy questions—the significantly pithy questions they asked about this bill. I want to finish as I began before I leave the chair. This bill is about providing the ability of our tradable sector within the New Zealand economy to compete fairly with all-comers on the global trading exchange—to compete fairly without interlopers coming in and trading unfairly in the domestic market place.