Locke Keith: Tariff (New Zealand - Thailand Closer Economic Partnership) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Locke Keith: Tariff (New Zealand - Thailand Closer Economic Partnership) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21429] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Greens will oppose the Tariff (New Zealand - Thailand Closer Economic Partnership) Bill because although there are some advantages for New Zealand exporters—fruit and vegetable exporters have been referred to—overall it will be a disadvantage to a good many people both in Thailand and in New Zealand. Workers in both countries will not be the beneficiaries. In my earlier contributions I talked about the disadvantages that Thai workers face at the present time with very low wages with international labour standards not applying and with very poor conditions in the factories they work in. They actually want our assistance. Thai workers have been out here campaigning against this agreement because what they want are agreements that have attached to them some advantage for them in terms of better wages better conditions and more adherence by their Government to international labour standards. 
Just last week I received an email from a New Zealand unionist a friend of mine in Thailand. He was visiting various unions there and he said: “Yesterday I met again the president of an electronics factory union. He also works in the factory. They have problems including how hot the factory gets. However he was telling me about the number of relatively young people who are dying as a result of chemicals at work. One worker was just 27 years old. She had breathed in solder fumes continuously for 5 years. Another young woman 32 years old agreed to give a newspaper interview about her work-related fatal illness but died 2 days later on the day she was to be interviewed. Two of the women workers I have met on the last three visits seem to be suffering from some effects of chemicals at their work.” 
Then he goes on to say that another major in the factory is subcontracting. One of the subcontracting companies in the factory again did not pay its employees on time. As a result the workers have to pay an extra 50 baht a day in rent until they pay their due rent. He says: “I am wondering about the Thailand NZFDA and how we can work closer with Thai workers on issues like chemical poisoning and subcontracting.” So there are contacts between New Zealand workers and Thai workers to try to get mutual benefits for both. This free-trade agreement and the legislation we are discussing today do not really advance that. In fact if we work in such a way with these agreements so as to increase the wages and conditions of Thai workers that helps us because it reduces the wage gap in production both in Thailand and in New Zealand so there is less likelihood of the very low wages in Thailand undermining the exports of New Zealand manufacturers or undermining the production of New Zealand manufactures here which could accompany goods produced by cheap labour flooding into New Zealand. 
We have to realise that we should not take an ideological approach to trade and say that all free trade is good and it will all come out right at the end or as one speaker said today that somehow it raises the level of us all. In fact that is not true. Industries are undermined and destroyed by free trade. The Greens do not say that we have to be totally self-sufficient or that we have the complete full range of manufacturing that we once had but we do not want to undermine all our manufacturing by competing with very low-wage economies. As I quoted earlier from Oxfam there is a potential for New Zealand trade in dairy products to Thailand to undermine the Thai dairy industry whereas if we build in transitions where we help increase the efficiency of the Thai dairy industry at the same time as we are easing in imports then it is a win-win situation. There is a growing market in Thailand as other speakers have said and it can accommodate efficient Thai dairy production while not destroying those farmers as well as exports from New Zealand. That is what we should be working towards. 
Sometimes these free-trade agreements are surrounded by myths. That applies not only to the agreement we are implementing in legislation here today but also to the free-trade agreement with China that is in the pipeline. One of the myths is that New Zealand will keep its manufacturing industry because we will move out of mass production of manufactured items and into high-level high-value-added quality goods. That myth has been in New Zealand society for some time. I remember many years ago when the Japanese were just starting to pick up their industrialisation New Zealanders used to say: “Oh these cheap Japanese goods—they’re no good. They’re not really a threat to us.” and put them down as low quality etc. There is a bit of that myth around in relation to the newly emerging economies of east Asia be it China or be it Thailand that somehow they are producing in a mass way and we can compete with quality goods. In fact if one does not have a proper manufacturing base one does not get the quality at the top end. 
One has to realise that countries the size of Thailand and particularly China have both. They have the mass production and they have a very strong and growing quality-research end a high-tech end that will compete directly with us on all levels of manufacturing. If we destroy our manufacturing base or limit it so much that we do not have the skills in the economy be it in clothing or other forms of manufacturing we will not be able to compete at any end of the market. Even our fashion designers are finding that at the moment. They look around for really skilled people to sew up their garments and they are finding a shortage because of the collapse of the clothing industry in New Zealand which this bill we are discussing here today will increase. It is the same in other forms of manufacturing as well be it metallurgy or whatever. We need the tradespeople and the designers to be able to produce for the domestic economy and compete in the international economy. To use an analogy with the rugby game that is going on tonight one does not get a quality team be it the Wellington Lions or be it the All Blacks if one does not have a big playing base. The quality comes out of that big base. We have to take note of that if we want to protect our own manufacturing here. 
The Greens tried to improve this bill with amendments to make any transitional agreements subject to ILO standards but we failed. I think we have to remember that this bill is the first of a range of bills that may come in to cover the other aspects of that agreement in relation to investment and later to services if that gets agreed to. We have a problem in New Zealand at the moment with quite a foreign takeover of our industries and land and we do not want to increase that through these free-trade and investment agreements that make us even more like foreigners in our own country in the sense of our ownership of infrastructure industry and agricultural land. Labour should be a little bit ashamed about this. Traditionally Labour has had a close association with the trade union movement but that association is loosening now because Labour is not taking note in terms of this bill of the criticisms made by the Council of Trade Unions of the free-trade agreement and what has come out of it. Unfortunately Labour is adopting more and more this ideology that free trade is everything and that we should just pursue it wholesale without taking into account the interests of New Zealand workers.