Tirikatene Rino: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTirikatene Rino: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 15 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17302. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to speak at the third reading of the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill. It is my first contribution on this bill so I have quickly come up to speed. Talking about time frames I noticed just in flicking through the bill that today marks the 20th anniversary to the day of the signing of the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement that was adopted atMarrakesh on 15 April 1994. I guess that forms the basis of this bill because we are as a member of the WTO adhering to the measures that have been recommended in the agreement—that we do provide some trade safeguard remedies. But it has taken a long time obviously—20 years to the day since the adoption of that agreement. I can just imagine that 20 years ago inMarrakesh under the Atlas Mountains with those beautiful Arabian nights redsouk markets the Berbers and the belly dancers and a few cups of mint tea our officials must have been working hard to see the completion of that agreement 20 years ago to ensure that we are all taken care of.So that agreement was passed and now 20 years since the WTO agreement we have got to this bill. It was introduced under the previous Labour Government. The policy decisions were made back I think in 2007. Lianne Dalziel—a very very able Minister in her time—shepherded this bill through to the House. So it has taken a while and here we are in 2014 at its third reading.The measures in this bill are as we say non-controversial. I guess we know that we do need to protect certain industries when there is dumping of underpriced product that makes our industries uncompetitive. I know that we have got restrictions in this country on the importation of things where we need to protect our industries like canned peaches from far-flung places like China South Africa or South America and galvanised No. 8 wire. So there are those measures in place for those particular industries but this goes a step further. In the—who knows—rare occurrence that we are faced with an influx of products from a country that causes harm to our New Zealand -based industry which is the test in the legislation there are defensive measures that can be adopted to ensure that there is a more level playing field.So we commend those measures in the bill. They are not new as we know. This bill replaces an Act that is I think from about 1987 which is 27-odd years old. It is in need of updating. The measures are very sensible such as referring the investigations or these queries to the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment to look into so it can ensure a swift and expeditious type of investigation or inquiry. Likewise extending the time frame in which it can deal with and perhaps put in place provisional duties from 35 days to a longer investigation period of between some 75 or 85 working days is again more sensible. As has been mentioned by previous speakers it aligns our obligations so that we are probably less open to appeal through WTO procedures. Likewise the guidelines and all the measures that are in the bill to do with the public interest are sensible.These are rarely used tools. As we have heard there have been I guess only four types of actions taken under the Act and countervailing duties have been imposed on one occasion. But I guess the manufacturers of the shoes and the car tyres and other manufacturers of those times benefited from those measures. But in this global environment that we are part of we are a small open economy. We have forged free-trade deals and I do acknowledge my colleague the Hon Phil Goff for the momentous work that he did with the China free-trade agreement and many others during his time as a Minister. We do live in a world where we are actually seeing an opening up of the trade and a reduction of the tariff barriers right across the world. So these sorts of measures seem sort of counter-intuitive to that but nevertheless they are an important tool. They are an important tool that we need at our disposal to protect our New Zealand industries should the need ever arise.I am just trying to think: what could be an industry that could perhaps look to protection? It could be any New Zealand industry. I am thinking just off the top of my head but I am thinking of the New Zealand pork industry an industry that my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor knows well. The New Zealand pork industry fought this Government all the way to the Supreme Court—all the way to the Supreme Court—to protect its industry from the importation of raw pork meat from far-flung places like Canada and other places. In fact most of the pork that Kiwis do eat is not Kiwi-raised pork. It is actually pork from Canada. So the New Zealand pork industry fought tooth and nail all the way to the Supreme Court and fought the Ministry for Primary Industries to impose tougher standards so that there would be a more level playing field. But alas the pork industry lost that case and now we have an influx of container after container of pork from Canada and many other places which really does place our own New Zealand pork industry at a disadvantage. So rather than actually getting the protection the industry is actually disadvantaged by the actions of the Government. Maybe if there is a great influx—I do not know a bumper season of pig rearing and we get an avalanche of pork containers coming into the country—the New Zealand pork industry may need to resort to some protection under this piece of legislation.So that is really all I have to say. I hope my colleagues on the other side of the House enjoyed my very learned participation in this debate. It is a very commendable piece of legislation. As I gaze up to the clock there I see that we are 10 minutes to the top of the hour. This is a very commendable piece of legislation. It is non-controversial. It is important that we have these measures in place. In the rare occurrence that it may be required it is always good to have the legislation on the books. Therefore I commend this bill to the House. Kia oratātou.