McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well Kieran McAnulty has got a short memory—I'll get you back one day. I just want to go into this Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Legislation Bill at second reading. I wasn't on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. I've always seen myself funnily enough as a bit of a foreign affairs spokesman or even a trade Minister and I've noticed in my time in this House that most of them are never here. I guess that's a sign of someone who's actually supposed to be working for New Zealand overseas and of course in recent times that's changed a little because it's become much more difficult to travel. But I do remember Ministers McCully and Groser—I don't know whether Tim Groser even knew who I was and I'm sure McCully didn't—and I don't think they were ever in New Zealand. So that's the sign of the commitment that's needed to be a trade Minister or to negotiate these kinds of deals. I notice our current trade Minister is heading off overseas in the next few weeks to finalise negotiations on what might be one of the most important trade agreements we ever get to negotiate. I was a bit intrigued by Nicola Grigg who put out a press release telling him not to return to New Zealand without it signed and I'm wondering whether he'll sneak down the West Coast and go into that self-isolation on his way home and never come back. I sincerely hope he doesn't because I think it's most important that these agreements get signed.Of course the other thing I think that's most relevant to this agreement or to all of our trade agreements actually is that as the Minister himself pointed out we live in a time that's extraordinarily difficult for trading around the world and in New Zealand we're totally reliant on trade for almost everything we do. And—to get back to annoy Mr McAnulty a little bit—except borrowing money to prop up our economy because actually our trade props up this economy entirely and it will prop up the future borrowings of Governments too. So it's most important that we get these deals right. But the other thing the Minister pointed out was the extraordinarily challenging times we are in at the moment with respect to trade internationally and one only has to walk down to the wharf in Wellington as I did this morning and see the enormous number of logs sitting on the wharf—and I counted 17 logging trucks turning up at the port this morning—and not a log ship in sight. So that really just points out the logistical challenges that we have with trade at the moment in New Zealand.The other thing I wanted to comment on was there's been comment that this will add $186 billion to the world economy. It doesn't really add anything to the world economy because that money is going around in a circle anyway. So it's going around but what it does do though is it make it much more efficient and from a trading point of view it becomes much more efficient and also enables us in New Zealand to be part of any further discussions on trade with respect to I think there's 17 countries involved in this deal—something like that—or maybe 15. It's very significant. Of course the challenge of that is that India have pulled out of that. India to my mind are one of the very important areas that we need to concentrate on in the future. It's very difficult I know and many Governments have tried but I'm sure that we'll get there in the end. So with the exception of the comments from the Green Party who don't support this for various reasons I think from our perspective the critical thing here is that we are a trading nation and we need to deal with our trading issues first and foremost. The other issues that the Green Party raised in my view will fall into line behind the trading stuff because if we don't trade we don't have the ability to fix any other issues anyway. So it's most important to New Zealand that we have the ability to get our trading environment right and that we continue to prop up the income of New Zealand through having these very good trading arrangements around the world.It will be I guess interesting to see where some of these agreements get to in the future because RCEP is as I've said a type of an umbrella agreement which then enables us to get on and negotiate individual trade agreements within those countries that are associated with RCEP. It's an umbrella type of arrangement which gives us inclusion in that sector. So it's very important from our primary industries' perspective and when you look at markets like Indonesia Vietnam and places like that we've really got some great potential for New Zealand to grow our sales and to grow our contribution to the world economy through the provision of what we do best in New Zealand which is producing food basically. So we're very good at that and it's important from our farmers' perspective that they have access to these markets in the most efficient way possible. Obviously this has got the support of the House with the exception of the Greens and the fact that this bill went to the select committee and came back with no alteration I guess speaks for itself. So it's pretty straightforward and hopefully it will hold New Zealand in very good stead as we move forward. That's my contribution. Thank you.