Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a real pleasure to stand and speak on this bill and yes it is a good day. Mr McKelvie's had a bit of praise in the last few minutes. I was sitting in select committee with Mr McKelvie this morning when we both realised that our members' bills had actually been drawn out of the ballot so it has indeed been a good day. Nothing better on a day like this to see this trade agreement being ratified in the House. It's a plurilateral agreement that affects—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Say that three times fast!BARBARA KURIGER: Exactly. It's easier than saying the name of the other bill that we've been talking about this week about live streaming. So it's plurilateral it's 15 countries and it's extremely important to New Zealand. All of us over here on the other side of the House in the National caucus are not always complimentary of everything that goes on on the Government side of the House but when it comes to trade it's very very key that we all work together on these trade agreements because at the end of the day this has been our bread and butter in our country for a very very very long time. The trade must get through.It was mentioned before—it's always mentioned actually—that during COVID-19 agriculture and our horticulture and our other rural exports have played a big part in keeping New Zealand financially afloat. But also we have had some supply chain issues and I would like to make note just at this point in time of the shipping arrangement that Fonterra made with Silver Fern Farms back in 2010. Some of our bigger organisations are making some arrangements that make sure that they build relationships with shipping companies to make sure that whatever happens our trade does get through. We are a little country at the bottom of the world and it would be very easy to leave us out at times and it's very definitely satisfying to know that our trade is still getting through.The other thing just to mention actually while we're talking about trade is we had some presentations this morning around cooperatives in select committee and there are some people in the House at the moment who were there. It's amazing how many of our big companies are cooperatives. When you look at the whole chart of all the logos and we think about the likes of the Fonterras and the Zespris—and also some of our energy companies are also cooperatives—there's a good model there that actually helps us trade with and don't underestimate just how much money that is actually bringing into our country to meet all of the needs that we require as a country to meet.So National knows that trade international trade is vital to our economic success because it underpins our business and it creates jobs and it lifts wages. That's who we are and that's how we've always done things. National is unashamedly supportive of free trade because it supports 600000 jobs across the country and it's responsible for delivering a higher standard of living and a better quality of life for all New Zealanders. There is new market access for New Zealand goods through this agreement for exporters to Indonesia through tariff elimination on a number of products: anything from sheep meat to beef to fish to fish products liquid milk grated or powdered cheeses honey avocados tomatoes persimmons—the list is not exhaustive but it just goes to show what a fruit bowl and a food bowl New Zealand is.It also does get to show that the world really appreciates the food that we produce here. Long may we continue to be proud of that because in my two roles as agricultural spokesperson and energy spokesperson I have a current saying that says: if you can't grow it or you can't dig it or dig for it what is it? If it's not a fish—and you could argue that a fish is also grown—there's very little else left. We look around and I can't see anything in any room most days in front of me that doesn't come from either agriculture or something that's made from the earth and that includes our cellphones and our electric cars and everything else we have. So it's really important that we remember that and if we're going to do any sort of education in our schools—really good to remind or to teach students where things come from because everything is in a space where it gets taken for granted. We get a lot of that through trade.A bit of a background to this bill is that negotiations began in early 2013 when the New Zealand Government sought public submissions during February and March of that year engaged with the public engaged with Māori and a wide spectrum of stakeholders over the course of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations. It was concluded by and signed in a virtual ceremony on 15 November 2020 and India withdrew from RCEP just in the negotiations in November 2019 although I have listened to Ministers speaking since that point in time—and I know that the Hon Meka Whaitiri was saying the other day that those conversations are still going on and that those conversations are still alive.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Sorry to interrupt the member. Could those two members conversing please separate themselves appropriately.BARBARA KURIGER: Thank you Madam Speaker. So there is a hope I believe in listening to the Hon Meka Whaitiri the other day when she was speaking about the trade bill that India is not at all off the table and that we just need to continue building those relationships with India and over time India might likely end up in this trade agreement.Something that most people don't know about India is that it's actually the biggest milk producer in the world but actually a lot of that is masked by the fact that most of the cows that are milked in this world are done by a lot of women actually who own two or three cows in little villages in India and Africa and around the world. So while we think of trade in terms of the Fonterras and the Zespris there is a lot of production that goes on around the world just actually keeping villagers fed and alive.So a single set of trade and investment rules across the entire region with this bill increases certainty for all the players reduces complexity that comes from different rules with different partners because all that needs negotiating. So the more people you can have round the table and the less variation of rules the simpler it is for our producers to get the product to market. The regional-wide value chains when you've got so many people working together—you know the world population is growing; it's not shrinking. So if we can actually get our food producers working together—we're not each other's enemy even though we have barriers between our countries and we do have a lot of negotiations around trade. It is important that we work together because between all of us we feed the world. In New Zealand we can't feed the world.I'm going to stop now because I don't want to hold this bill up and I'm looking at the time so I'll take my seat and commend it to the House.