van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. It is my pleasure tonight to rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of the first reading of the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill. It's not often that I find myself standing here in support of a Government bill and it's not often that the ACT Party are agreeing with the Government on an issue. But we do agree on free trade because free trade is very important to everybody who lives in New Zealand. Now we are a very small island nation at the end of the world and we are a trading nation. ACT has always been the strongest proponent in this Parliament for free trade because we see the benefits that come from having markets for our New Zealand producers to export to. And so we should always be seeking to increase the number of countries and markets that we can have our exporters export to. So that's why the party is in support of this bill tonight.We're happy it's being ratified into the law but we must make sure that this isn't the end of free trade and the end of us looking around the world for more opportunities. I'm happy to see that we've recently signed an agreement with the European Union. There are parts of that deal that the ACT Party believe could have been better but on the whole we're very happy that we have signed another deal for more trade and more benefits for New Zealanders. We also look forward to seeing any potential movements in a US free-trade agreement in the coming years. So it's important that we're signing this deal and it's important that we're signing it for the benefit of New Zealanders but also because we're in a time where we're seeing a lot of countries turn inward and closing off from the rest of the world. We need to seek out other countries that are likeminded who share our values who want to benefit from trade with each other.Our foreign policy for the ACT Party is a belief that we need to uphold the safety of our citizens and that we also should be signing deals to reflect our interests and our values on the world stage. That is why in particular we are very happy to support this UK fair-trade agreement (FTA). Because the UK is a liberal democratic country that we share a lot of history with but importantly we share democratic values and that is of huge importance to New Zealanders.Every day New Zealanders get up and they create jobs and opportunities for each other and that's in a whole range of different industries whether it's dairy sheep goat meat beef fresh fruit all the way through to wood honey wine aluminium and even computer machinery and software development. There's a lot of industry happening in New Zealand and there will be many more that I haven't touched on. But these jobs provide stability for New Zealand families and they give people purpose and a pride that you know if they're working for themselves or starting a company or even working for someone else they can get up and provide for their families provide for themselves and provide for their communities. I think it is wonderful that people every day get up and provide those opportunities for each other. But as a Government and as a Parliament it is our duty to provide even more opportunities where we can find them. Having these free-trade agreements allows us to help New Zealand businesses grow to help us find more opportunities to create more jobs create higher paying jobs. It's also good for consumers. It's not just good for the exporters it's good for everybody who's really struggling through the cost of living crisis and anybody who is finding it harder and harder to get food and goods for their families.Every time that we sign an FTA or every time that we see tariffs drop it is good because it reduces prices. And you know the ACT Party actually goes further than this Government and we say that we don't actually need an FTA to do this. In our recent cost of living document that we released on the economy we said that we should just remove all of the existing tariffs that we have because there's about $200 million of tariffs that are being imposed on New Zealand consumers now even without these FTAs that is increasing prices on basic items like clothing chocolate biscuits and Chardonnay. There's a whole range of different goods that we can make cheaper for all New Zealand consumers by removing all existing tariffs across the board. Importantly these free-trade agreements also increase productivity and that's extremely important for the future of New Zealand and the development of more businesses in our country.I want to pick up on one other aspect of this free-trade agreement in which the ACT Party once again goes further than the Government and that is in investment from foreign countries. This bill in particular says there will be an increase in the investment screening threshold from NZ$100 million to NZ$200 million for non-Government investors from the UK. I think it's wonderful that the Government and the negotiators on behalf of the New Zealand Government have acknowledged the importance of bringing foreign direct investment to New Zealand because it increases productivity in our own country. The ACT Party believes that we should allow this for all OECD countries that we can have more investment to boost productivity in New Zealand. One of my colleagues—Damien Smith—currently has a member's bill in the ballot ready to go and it's called the Overseas Investment (Exempt Investment from OECD Countries) Amendment Bill. I would urge the Government to support this bill not just the UK FTA which increases foreign direct investment coming from the UK but to acknowledge that this is important for all OECD countries so we can have more investment from overseas in New Zealand to boost productivity across our country. This will help all New Zealanders with the cost of living crisis that we're currently under but it will also help our exporters grow.Finally I think we need to acknowledge the real reason why this is such a huge deal for New Zealand and why the ACT Party is so proudly supporting this bill. It's because the UK is the world's fifth-largest trading partner—David Seymour: Economy.BROOKE VAN VELDEN: —economy—and now one of our largest trading partners. It's a significant opportunity for us because the economic modelling that New Zealand has done shows that our exports to the UK could increase by over 50 percent and that will boost our GDP from around $700 million to $800 million every year. The UK modelling shows that they expect around 1 billion dollars of GDP per year increase for New Zealand and around 7.3 percent increase in UK exports. So it's good for our exporters and it's good for our consumers. It's good to be part of a country that acknowledges that free trade is important and it's good to be part of a party that is the strongest proponent of free trade in this Parliament.