Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise as a member of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee to speak on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Legislation Bill. It is not a pleasure however to look at what this bill and what the agreement itself entails; it's actually quite a disappointment.Let's start with what it does well. We know that we came out of the last term of Parliament and Government with a comprehensive list of recommendations by our Trade for All agenda commission. And we'd spent a lot of time engaging with the public with experts and with sectors to come up with that. We recognised that trade as it had been done for decades was failing us as an international community. In fact it had very clearly led to the last global economic crisis whereby traders—big multibillion-dollar multi-national traders—had set the agenda for global policy trickling down into domestic policy. They had decided that their profits would sit above our environmental concerns our workers' rights our human rights and our indigenous people's rights. So we decided as a Government last term that we would do things differently. One of the recommendations and one that I acknowledge is actually reflected in this agreement is that it doesn't contain those controversial investor-State dispute settlement clauses whereby international—multi-national I should say because these aren't actually traders that have any kind of allegiance to any one State party they are just multibillion-dollar corporates—can't sue us as a Parliament or successive Parliaments for passing legislation that would uphold the interests of us as people above their profits. That's good. Also it doesn't include pharmaceuticals that's also good.That's about where it ends because this agreement in fact in a way represents a regression of the position that we were so upset about and New Zealand was so deeply hurt by when our Government last term signed on to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA). It doesn't include any environmental chapter. Now the criticism of the TPPA was that it included a novel environmental chapter but that it wasn't termed in enforceable terms and that 86 percent of cases failed where Governments tried to enforce their environmental rights and protections against the profit margins of a multi-national. It wasn't good enough. This agreement doesn't include any environmental protection. We sit in the midst of a global climate crisis. We as a Government apparently see this as our nuclear-free moment. We as the Green Party are deeply concerned that a trade agreement like this sits above our commitments in the climate justice arena. It sits above what our Climate Commission is doing the work that all of our ministries have committed to. It doesn't include an environmental chapter at all and that actually has become routine. So that's a huge failure.It doesn't include a workers' rights chapter. Again even the TPPA had a loose—and I would argue unenforceable for the most part—workers' rights chapter a recognition that inviting multibillion-dollar traders into our world would impact on workers' rights and that those rights should be protected. This agreement regresses from that position and that's scary. It's scary in the age of COVID. It's a scary move in our Asia-Pacific neighbourhood. We know that manufacturing happens on a massive scale in some of these nations that have signed on to this. So what have we negotiated? What have we undermined? Whose interests are we protecting when we sign on to trade deals? Whose interests are we privileging over who? So the most marginalised are the most threatened by this agreement be that the environment or workers.Now I come to the rights of indigenous peoples. A commitment that this Government makes over and over again to partnership with Māori to upholding the values of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and actually in fact meeting our obligations because they are enforceable obligations. We've heard that this agreement does include a clause on the protection of our obligations pursuant to the Treaty of Waitangi. We've also heard from the only independent expert arbiter of what in fact fulfils our obligations pursuant to Te Tiriti the Waitangi Tribunal that this exact clause is a breach falls short. Why is it still in here? Why has the Government continued to use the exact words that were ruled to fall short of meeting our obligations pursuant to Te Tiriti o Waitangi? Of course the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade came to select committee and said that in their opinion it meets our obligations. They wrote it. That judgment was a finding against them. So the Government can't hold up their opinion that's already been ruled to fall short as meeting the obligation as evidence that the obligation's being met. It's an absolute failure.Then we come to a broader issue which is the way that we actually sign on to trade agreements and a way that this particular agreement again entrenched in breach of the recommendations of our Trade for All agenda. Why did we do it if we're going to keep doing trade the same old way? They recommended that there be independent national impact assessments of trade agreements. There isn't one here. They recommended that trade agreements be negotiated in a more transparent and democratic way. We as the House of Representatives are now bound by a trade agreement that was negotiated in secret that had the input of multi-national multibillion-dollar agents that sit here benefiting from the terms of the agreement behind closed doors while we were shut out and now we are bound to implement the agreement as elected officials. Well we should have had input at a different stage. The people of New Zealand should have known what's going on what's in the mandate for this negotiating team what is being negotiated and had a say on whether or not this is in fact a good trade agreement. New Zealand needs trade. We're a small island nation we absolutely need trade. We need trade to be sustainable to be fair to uphold our workers' rights to uphold our obligations pursuant to the climate treaties that we signed on to our obligations to our indigenous people pursuant to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and this agreement unfortunately falls short. So I don't commend this bill to the House.