McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Thank you Madam Chair. I thank the Minister for his introduction and we're happy to join with the Government to deal with this as one question rather than prolonging it over five or six questions not because this is not important—in fact this is a very important agreement for New Zealand. It's one of the reasons that the previous National Government when the UK voted for the European Union fronted up to the UK first before any other nation. Ministers often talked to them about the relationship and the need for a free-trade agreement. We agreed to do this quickly so that we can do our part and it can take a step closer to entering into force.The thing about trade agreements is New Zealanders only benefit from them when they can rely upon them and use them and the faster this gets into place the better it is for New Zealand exporters. The Minister said that the UK was our seventh-largest market. Well actually we need only cast our minds back a short way to when it used to be our number one market. Indeed after the war when it was possible for fresh produce lamb particularly to be exported as refrigerated around the world our trade with the UK grew quite significantly and indeed for New Zealand exports farmers depended on the UK market. Indeed some call it the home country" or the "old country." You jump forward a little way and the UK joined the then Common Market with a small number of other European countries and overnight our access to the United Kingdom all but disappeared and it started to create hardship in New Zealand and that great great uncertainty. At the time we had exceptional trade from negotiators and diplomats that worked extremely hard to open the door for New Zealand produce to the European community market. I remember many years ago when I was fortunate enough to be working in Brussels in the European Parliament bumping into somebody—in fact it was Lord Henry Plumb who was president of the National Farmers Union in the UK the equivalent of our Federated Farmers and he brought the UK farmers into that common market. He said to me that "You hardly saw an Australian at all around the EEC institutions but you couldn't get in through the door without tripping over a bloody Kiwi who was there to talk about butter and sheep access." I think that just goes to the point that New Zealand has always been good at putting its head down and working very very hard and trying to open the doors for New Zealand exporters because our farmers actually put their heads down and work very very hard and are just as good.This is important because we lost that preferential access and the important market of the United Kingdom when they joined the European community. Some of it was restored with special quotas but it never got back to where it should have been and now our negotiators in the same way their predecessors have have done an important job for New Zealand when it comes to this agreement with the UK.I want to thank those officials. When I had the privilege of being trade Minister for a period of time in our last Government I was one of the Ministers who went to the UK often to talk to them about why they should do a deal with New Zealand before all others and the need for it to be extremely high quality. I remember saying—I think when it was on TV; the BBC or something like that—that it's hard to imagine that the sheep farmers of Wales voted to leave the European Union just to be as protectionist as the EU is; surely they can stand on top of the mountains looking out from Wales and see that there's plenty of room in the rest of the world for countries and farmers who produce high-quality goods and that when barriers are brought down everybody is better off. In this respect I know it was a difficult ask of the farmers of the United Kingdom but with this agreement today in this House UK farmers join New Zealand farmers in saying that protectionism hurts economies that it takes away choice and that they want to front along with New Zealand farmers around the world to put their best foot forward and live on their reputation of high-quality safe food. I say to them that they have done a good thing because there is plenty of room in the world for the things they produce and the things we produce and together we should go out into international markets and spread that word so that others might join us.The Minister mentioned a number of things that are in the agreement. I won't go into them in detail with the exception of copyright because it is often misunderstood. I remember with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) when we were looking at copyright rules there was great pushback from many in New Zealand who had concerns about exactly what that might mean. I think the current Minister for Trade and Export Growth who was the Opposition spokesperson on agriculture at the time was not one of them but some of his colleagues went out and protested that agreement and raised in some cases unnecessary concerns. What is in this agreement is largely the same or extremely similar to what was in the TPP in as far as levelling the playing field for rights holders in New Zealand and giving them greater protection. The bit that I think is most important to recognise is that performers' rights will now be in line as far as copyright is concerned with producers. That is an important thing because actually often the performer doesn't do as well as they should nor do their family members subsequently when those rights pass on to them. I think that's an important thing and I think we shouldn't be afraid through our trade agreements of making sure that New Zealanders are treated well on the world stage and equally others in the case of UK producers are treated well here. You can think about it in as far as song is concerned but for movies and television this becomes increasingly more important as New Zealand attracts investment—or hopes to—around the world for things to be produced here and we now as far as that production is concerned have an advantage over others because we provide fair and reasonable protection through copyright.This is good legislation. It does move us forward and I would ask the Minister to pull out all stops in talking to his colleague in the United Kingdom to have them do what they need to do quickly. Wouldn't it be good if we got to sign this actually this year before Christmas so that it entered into force rather than waiting until next year or dragging it out because it's election year. When it comes to trade we should make a commitment to put the politics of the New Zealand Parliament and elections aside and do what's best for New Zealand which is to get these deals negotiated get them done and get them signed up and entered into force so that every single New Zealander benefits as a result of this trade agreement and the work that was started by the last National Government and finished by this Minister."