Clark DavidParts 1 and 2 schedules 1 to 3 and clauses 1 to 3Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I rise to speak to this bill. We will be opposing this bill on this side of the Chamber because it undermines a level playing field in international trade something that we believe is incredibly important. We do not believe that New Zealand businesses should be put at risk through this kind of interference by the Minister—that is what this bill introduces the potential for in our market.This bill creates the opportunity for the responsible Minister to decide that goods can be dumped in New Zealand at below-market value either because they have been subsidised in their production and they have been produced more cheaply than they really cost to produce or because a surplus has been created and a country is trying to dump goods on another market to clear a backlog. For those reasons occasionally countries do look and say: It's in our interests." We saw it with the Canterbury earthquakes. We saw this House put business aside to say that in this circumstance—and it is exceptional—we will allow dumped goods to come into New Zealand because there is a shortfall and an immediate need. We saw then and there that the Parliament has the ability when it matters to put aside those normal operations in order to take account of exceptional circumstances.There is no need for this bill. Unfortunately we saw when we came to the Commerce Committee that there was no justification offered beyond that. This is a bill designed to give the Minister extraordinary powers to decide when products can flood in and undermine a competitive market place in New Zealand. We stand against that on this side of the Chamber because we believe in the value of New Zealand businesses and New Zealand exports. Unfortunately under this Government its track record shows that it does not. It talks about getting to 40 percent of GDP as exports but it is now down below 30 percent and it is going backwards and Mr Joyce knows it. He has seen under his watch the exports as a percentage of the economy decline further and further and the projections say that it is going to decline further and further over time. This Government has failed to grow our export industries. Here we have another measure designed to undermine our exporters and it is pushing it through the Parliament. I think it has come under pressure. It has come under pressure from industry groups and I think it has made the wrong decision.We asked officials how they were going to introduce this public interest test what priorities they were going to put into the different factors they were going to consider and how they would weight those factors. Unfortunately they were not able to give us a convincing answer. They said: "We will consider eight factors prices and they are a focus on prices product choice and availability product and service quality the financial viability of the domestic industry employment levels and competition in the market." We said: "Those are things that you might want to look at but how will you weight them? Which ones are the most important? How will you judge which industries are going to be put under pressure? How will you judge what is enough product availability and choice in the market? How will you judge what constitutes quality when a good coming in may not measure up to the New Zealand things?". They had no answers for us sadly.I think they had been sold a pup by the Minister. They were told "We want this to happen. Please make something up officials. Please make us look good." and unfortunately it just was not possible in the circumstance. This introduces uncertainty for exporters because they do not know how that test is going to be applied. Officials were not able to tell us and business after business after business came before the select committee and said: "This uncertainty creates a risk for us. This creates cost in our business because we have to account for that uncertainty when we're making our investment decisions." More than one business told us that when it is trying to make investment in a new capital plant it may have to look to Australia instead. Australia has twice looked at similar legislation to this and has twice resoundingly rejected it because it put their domestic producers at risk—at risk of uncertainty created by ministerial whim. It put this to one side and said: "We will have nothing to do with it."Catherine Beard represented that view on behalf of Business New Zealand. She said: "We don't abide by this." Business New Zealand stood against this. This undermines our domestic producers and that is often what we heard. We heard from many of the big players in New Zealand—they are able to represent their interests—and they say this is bad. But what about the small players? What about the disruptors that are coming into the market—the innovators in New Zealand? How are you going to measure what effect it is going to have on them when dumping comes in if their business model is not even understood or known about? I can be confident that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment will not be across every single innovator in the New Zealand market and will not have the ability to scan the whole market for who might be affected by products being dumped here against our will because a Minister says it is a good thing to do on that day.This also leaves us exposed in international fora. As a country New Zealand argues that a level playing field is incredibly important in international trade. I have heard in international fora wise men argue for the benefits of a level playing field where if we reduce tariffs over time and if each country does what they are good at we get higher-value produce we have specialisation and the world is better off through trade. I have heard wise people talk about this. Yet in this bill we have a suggestion that we should be doing something different: that when it suits us we should allow dumping we should allow subsidised goods to flood the markets and we should allow bigger countries that want to throw their muscle around to affect New Zealand domestic industries—that we will have a level playing field when it suits us.This undermines our moral standpoint and this undermines the high moral ground that New Zealand takes in international trade negotiations and in international trade fora where we espouse the benefits of a level playing field on trade. This actually undermines New Zealand and I think that point needs to be heard loud and clear and the Government needs to answer.The Minister in the chair the Hon Jacqui Dean needs to answer why it is that she thinks it will be in New Zealand's long-term interest to have a trade position that says we will pick and choose when we think tariffs and duties and so on are a good thing when historically we have relied on the WH rules and the WHA procedures and have said that we think that having a level playing field is a good thing.I look forward to hearing the Hon Jacqui Dean explain why she thinks we should now meddle in international markets and allow different practices at different times because that is a big change in New Zealand's foreign policy that Jacqui Dean is putting forward to this House.So let us have a think about this. I think what we need is a fresh look at this. We need a fresh approach that just says "Let's do the right thing. Let's not meddle. Let's not give a Minister that discretion. Let's not put the Minister in a place of risk and uncertainty when they are in international negotiations and our trading partners know that the Minister has that discretion to allow dumped goods into the country if there are non-tariff barrier disputes and so on." I am very much looking forward to how Ms Dean thinks that that will play out as Ministers get pressure put on them in those international trading negotiations and how her new principle will take effect and how that will impact on our trade internationally because that is a serious risk that is being introduced.So we need a fresh pair of eyes over this. A Labour Government would do this differently. A Labour Government would respect having a level playing field in trade rules and not allow Ministers to get in there and meddle and pick and choose because we have seen under this Government how it has picked and chosen and picked winners and with Mr Joyce's approach to economic development how that is not succeeding how exports as a proportion of the economy are dropping under Mr Joyce's watch despite rhetoric to the contrary. We know the importance of business succeeding on the international stage and having those fair rules not introducing extra cost and risks of uncertainty. On this side of the Chamber we have respect for domestic manufacturers. We are not about supporting the speculators as they are over there. We are about supporting the productive economy—making sure that businesses that are taking risks are supported in taking those risks and not going to experience a Government that dumps on individual sectors when it picks and chooses because one is a favourite and one is not. We do not want to open up those kinds of risks and we do not think that this Parliament should be doing that.We heard from New Zealand Steel we heard from Wattie's we heard from Oji Fibre Solutions—we heard from a range of big companies that expressed how badly this could play out for New Zealand and how investment could instead go to Australia into productive industries there because it has a more stable regime. It understands the importance of successful business across the Tasman and the importance of not undermining the set of rules that are in place and of not imposing extra costs on business in terms of legislative uncertainty process uncertainty unclear rules and all that goes with that. I would urge the Government to listen to what we are saying on this side of the Chamber to revisit things or at least in the case of the Hon Jacqui Dean to explain how she thinks this new international position of picking and choosing is going to advantage New Zealand as it tries to take the moral high ground and encourage others to trade more with us and to play fairly on the international stage."