Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I think one of my greatest concerns about this bill arises from the pressure that can be put upon a Minister to take a decision for non-competition regions to decline to either proceed with an investigation or impose duties on dumped products. The Labour Party has said in its minority view that it shares the concerns expressed by Catherine Beard from Business New Zealand and by the New Zealand steel industry being but two examples that the introduction of ministerial discretions which allow the Minister to not impose tariffs despite the fact that there is a case that there is product being dumped into New Zealand creates a poor process. I want to explore one aspect of that which is the pressure that can be brought upon New Zealand by more powerful trading interests than us.I will probably get it in the ear for this but I am going to recount what has already been in the media in the last year. We know from the story that was broken by Vernon Small in the Dominion Post that at a time when Chinese steel exports to other countries were facing duties for dumping the suggestion that there might be a complaint in New Zealand led to pressure upon the New Zealand Government and on other exporters of other goods to China.Before I go into that I want to explain what is happening in other countries. It is very simple—and the Minister Jacqui Dean I expect will already know this—to know that there is a very significant oversupply of steel being produced in the world now. There has been a massive expansion of steel production in China and some of that is alleged by other countries that have had anti-dumping inquiries to be either subsidised through cheap forms of capital available to some of those companies from the Chinese Government or Chinese State-owned enterprises or—just because it has become such a surplus commodity and they have got so much of it to sell overseas—to be sold below cost to get rid of it. Those allegations have been accepted in both Europe and the United States.In respect of some subsets of steel anti-dumping tariffs in the United States have recently been increased from about 60 percent to 190 percent. Such is the level they assert of subsidisation or dumping that is occurring in respect of stainless steel being exported from China to the United States. In respect of Europe Europe has decided that the dumping of steel over there is occurring and it has imposed tariffs of between 18 and 35 percent. New Zealand Steel the major producer of steel in New Zealand is concerned that it has been suffering the consequences of the export of subsidised or discounted steel into the New Zealand market.I am not talking about issues relating to quality. I am not talking about competition issues in the New Zealand supply chain. I am just talking about imported product. At the time—because there is still no clarity as to what has actually been happening within Government—this occurred the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade according to the Dominion Post newspaper was told by exporters to China that they were being given a message in China that if New Zealand was to investigate the allegations of steel dumping into New Zealand there would be retaliatory action or there would be risks to New Zealand exporters of kiwifruit and perhaps dairy products into China.We all know that on the world stage New Zealand is a minnow. We rely upon multilateral rules and fair-trade rules around the world in order for us to be treated fairly abroad and in order to protect our domestic producers and domestic consumers from unfair predatory trade practices from abroad. As a small country that is reliant on relationships with superpowers be they big economies like the United States or China—I do not want to single anyone out—or Japan or anyone else why would we be putting ourselves in a position where the Ministers through back channels could be opening themselves up to pressure from those countries to actually say: Look you have got a discretion here Minister to actually not proceed with this anti-dumping inquiry. We want you not to proceed; otherwise there are going to be consequences for New Zealand."?That is what this legislation introduces. It introduces more trade-related risks to New Zealand producers like New Zealand Steel of the Minister coming under pressure for reasons relating to other trading interests that New Zealand has overseas. We should not be doing that. That is what Business New Zealand told us that is what New Zealand Steel told us and that is what other submitters said as well. I think they are right and I think New Zealand's recent experience—we still have not had disclosure of all of the cables and other information that came back from overseas posts to New Zealand. There have been redactions that the Government has made to those documents so we have not got transparency as to what actually went down. I suspect that the accusations that were being made through the media were right—that New Zealand was being pressured.I ask the Minister previously in the chair Jacqui Dean through the Minister sitting with the Chair of the Committee Tim Macindoe why we would be passing legislation that makes more of those pressure points and that makes the exercise of discretion in respect of those pressure points opaque. As other speakers have already said there are so many competing criteria that are to be applied by the Minister in making the decision—and those criteria can go in different directions—that just about any decision would be legitimate on the part of the Minister. Legally legitimate I mean—not the right decision but legally legitimate. I cannot understand why the Government is going down that route. I think of what Dr David Clark said—that we should be looking at what has happened in Australia. It has looked at doing this a couple of times. It has got far more muscle than we have and yet it decided that it was not right to go down this route.It seems to me that this is incredibly naive. Why am I not surprised? This is the Government that will not even enforce New Zealand standards at the border. When Opposition parties participated in the manufacturing inquiry during the term of the last Parliament—Labour the Greens New Zealand First—they all heard submissions that New Zealand standards or equivalents overseas are not enforced at the border properly and therefore inferior products are imported competing against more expensive products made in New Zealand to New Zealand standards.The Government is not even enforcing New Zealand standards. It says that it thinks we have got competition problems in the supply chain for building products. Well if that is the case why does it not do something about that through competition policy rather than silly little exemptions to anti-dumping regimes? I am not even convinced that you should have an exemption from dumping regimes for post-earthquake events. Why should you be able to dump product in that circumstance? I do not understand that. I would have thought you should actually have to pay a fair price so as to give New Zealand producers a fair chance of producing or increasing their output to meet those periods of high demand.The more important point—I want to hear from the Minister—is why the Minister thinks it is in the interests of New Zealand to create more ministerial discretions when we know that as a small country we are more likely to be able to be pressured by the big players in the world. That is whether it is Europe—they could say "Oh well in Europe unless you do this or that we're going to push harder against your butter quota."—or whether it is the United States in a similar way or whether it is China or whether it is Japan. If you do something about steel exports from Japan although they have shrunk—you know "We'll never let your dairy in." You know those sorts of threats can be made. They should not be made and this legislation is encouraging them."