Street Maryan: Tariff (Malaysia Free Trade Agreement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Street Maryan: Tariff (Malaysia Free Trade Agreement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:664;Page:12133] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I will talk about some additional items that have not been covered so far in this debate on the Tariff (Malaysia Free Trade Agreement) Amendment Bill. I acknowledge the comments of the previous speaker Dr Kennedy Graham and say that last night when I spoke for the first time on this legislation I made reference to the 0.5 percent of tariffs that will remain including those on wine and pork products which are clearly exceptions made on the grounds of religious and cultural custom and practice. That will always be the case and should always be recognised by New Zealand. 
I will talk about a couple of things. One thing that has not been mentioned so far which I think is a good feature—and this free-trade agreement I think is not the only agreement where such a thing has been put in—is the establishment of a free-trade agreement joint commission. That instrument can be used in the future to assess and amend the impact of this free-trade agreement. The purpose of the joint commission is to review the implementation and operation of the free-trade agreement and to recommend any amendments to it so this particular construction makes this free-trade agreement—along with others but we are talking about only the Malaysian one at the moment—a dynamic agreement. It means that we can look at the agreement again in a year’s time—because the requirement is that the free-trade agreement commission should meet within 1 year of the free-trade agreement entering into force and after that as often as the parties agree—to assess whether improvements can be made to the free-trade agreement. The joint commission will be established and it has in its brief a number of committees that will look at the trade in goods the trade in services technical barriers to trade the sanitary and phytosanitary measures in the agreement investment and economic cooperation. 
I will link this debate to some comments from the Maori Party earlier. In the consideration of this agreement I will next go into the labour and environment treaty-level agreements. My colleague Grant Robertson has pointed out that these agreements are indeed binding treaty-level agreements. But the connection with the Maori Party’s comments earlier goes to the labour cooperation agreement. The Maori Party has expressed concerns about the rights of workers and the treatment of workers and that party is absolutely right to do so. We must be clear however that a free-trade agreement does not prescribe for any country how it might run its internal industrial relations or indeed its labour market system. We would resent it if Malaysia started to tell us how to run our industrial relations and our protections for workers so Malaysia would be rightly offended if we intruded into its domestic policies in that regard. 
Two things are important about the labour cooperation agreement. Let us be very clear to start with that these are Malaysia’s first such agreements and that Malaysia has not had labour and environment agreements with other countries before now. So we could say for the Maori Party’s benefit that New Zealand has brought those agreements to the table in that regard which is a very constructive thing to have done. But two things are of significance in my mind as a Labour member of Parliament and are important in the labour cooperation agreement. The first is that no domestic labour policies may be used for protectionist purposes. In other words both countries agree that they will not drive down the wages of workers in order to secure some economic advantage that prohibits or inhibits New Zealand exports into their market. They will not apply domestic policies that will be used for protectionist purposes. That is important. The second important thing is that there is an agreement to pursue the principles embodied in the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its follow-up in 1998. This is no effort for New Zealand but it is significant that we have that agreement with Malaysia. Both countries are bound into ILO principles and declarations and that becomes important. 
The shared objectives of this labour cooperation agreement are that we have a goal of promoting working conditions and improving and advancing the quality of life for workers. In addition there is a 90-day time frame in which to resolve any issues arising out of this agreement. If we think something is going wrong with this part of our free-trade agreement—the labour cooperation agreement—we can actually raise the matter and seek to resolve it and there is 90-day time frame for resolving such issues with Malaysia should they arise. That includes even the involvement of Ministers. So this is a significant addition for Malaysia and it is a significant aspect of this free-trade agreement that we should not lose sight of. 
Similarly the environmental cooperation agreement will address all sorts of things again establishing a framework for cooperation with the intention of working together across a whole lot of environmental issues including environmental expertise and technology waste management wetlands management ecotourism and environmental remediation—the list goes on. That also becomes a significant piece of this apparatus and therefore subject to the same provisions for resolving any disputes that arise out of it even to the level of Ministers. 
I will have the pleasure and privilege of meeting with the Malaysian Foreign Affairs Minister on Friday as he is visiting this country and I will have this discussion with him. This is a good moment for us to be passing this Malaysian free-trade agreement legislation through all its stages and I too add my acknowledgment of Minister Tim Groser for his part in advancing and concluding this free-trade agreement. We have a Minister who understands not only the mechanisms but the detail of such free-trade agreements exceptionally well and that has been an advantage to New Zealand. 
Services are also included in this agreement and the primary one which I will use my closing moments to speak on as it is of real significance is education. Malaysia has long had a relationship with the New Zealand education system. At the time of accompanying the Minister on his gracious invitation to the signing of the free-trade agreement in Kuala Lumpur if I heard about the Colombo Plan once I heard about it a gazillion times. I was almost tired of it. However it is part of our historical connection with Malaysia—a connection that was founded in education and educational exchange. Malaysia is keen to upgrade the quality of its universities. It does not rank highly in the world’s assessment in terms of its universities and it is very keen to benefit from New Zealand in that regard. Thank you.