Cunliffe DavidHon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): It is not often that we get economic and commercial bills before a select committee where business submitter after business submitter lines up to slam the National Party. But that is what has happened with this bill. The bill is ill conceived it is badly drafted it is fundamentally flawed in concept and it has been met with near derision by the business community for very good reason. It shows that this Government is out of touch with the real world of commerce and a fix is desperately needed before the legislation is set in stone.I am going to take the House through a couple of the key issues with this. The first is why it weakens the protections on New Zealand businesses particularly manufacturers and exporters; secondly why it has been universally rejected by submitters; and thirdly what the impact will be as my colleague Dr Megan Woods has said on one of our key audiences here which is New Zealand business owners and workers.Let me start by unravelling the puzzle of why this bill was brought forward in the first place. As part of the Christchurch rebuild there was a widely held view and it was not wrong that the cost of building supplies was too high because the market was too concentrated. Fair enough—that is why we have a Commerce Commission. I believe that it should be investigating the building products industry. Fletcher's PlaceMakers Carters Bunnings Warehouse and the like need to be under the microscope. But it did not take this sledgehammer to crack that nut. What this sledgehammer does is it says that any time in any market goods are dumped in the New Zealand market it does not matter if it hurts the New Zealand manufacturers—as long as it benefits consumers with cheaper prices we might say that it is OK and let it past the goalie. That is what this bill says. This so-called public interest test says that even if it is red-hot dumping we will let it pass as long as somebody in our view is benefiting. The trouble with it is that the test there is so fudgy so subjective—how long is a piece of string who is the beneficiary how is it measured? It is all qualitative and the worst part is that it is amenable to lobbying and what they call political economy; who knows who. It is a slippery slippery slope.The next issue with it is what we call in the jargon of economics game theory. If the foreign company or Government that is considering dumping in the New Zealand market knows that there is a rigid protection mechanism that will kick in automatically almost like the automatic braking system on a car then they will be less likely to dump in the first place. If they know on the other hand that New Zealand has weakened its regime—so even if they are caught dumping there are still 90 days to 120 days of consideration of the so-called public interest test and they may or may not get a leave pass. You can see that the incentives to commence a dumping action are strengthened and the sanctions against it are weakened.Ninety extra days higher costs to those wanting to defend New Zealand markets higher levels of uncertainty rooted in eight subjective factors—and that is why the Government of Australia twice put to Parliament the idea that they would have the same test that is embedded here and twice the Australian Parliament threw it out. Australian business said: Don't be so bloody stupid. Don't be so bloody stupid everyone will dump in our market." and they threw it out. Where was the National Party? Were they not reading the newspapers? Have they not got Google? Sounds like the Overseas Investment Office. Read the bloody newspaper find out why Australia threw it out and have another think before it is too late in the third reading because this is going to cost Kiwi jobs. It is going to cost Kiwi manufacturers. It is going to make the world easier for foreign companies and countries that sell into our market at less than their domestic cost of production. They might have surpluses—they just want to get them out of inventory. We might be seen as a soft touch. It does not matter if the paint is two bucks cheaper at Bunnings Warehouse or PlaceMakers—some poor Kiwi is going to be down the road. That is why the Aussies threw it out and that is why every blooming submitter who came to our committee submitted against the Government. They were not what you might call the traditional Labour-friendly submitters. They are people whom we respect and whom we work with. They were organisations like Business New Zealand New Zealand Steel Horticulture New Zealand Foodstuffs and so on and so forth. These are companies that are substantial New Zealand businesses organisations that are the umbrella groups of commerce.So who then is National seeking to help if it is not good for manufacturers it is not good for workers and if the main business organisations have universally panned it? We were left thinking: "Why on earth has the Government got this death wish? Why are they like a moth to a flame on anti-dumping?". We think that there has been some lobbying going on from some domestic sectors about wanting cheaper imports.But I come back to that point about building products. If the problem is dominance and monopolisation of import channels that is why we have got a Commerce Act and that is why we have got a Commerce Commission. The Government should get off its comfortable backside and do something about building products instead of having this "a before b" bill that is going to cost Kiwi jobs.But politically the Labour Party could take a different view which is to say: "Go ahead make our day. Make yourselves a laughing stock in the business community. Tell them that you have lost the plot—because we are not that far off an election. Fine by us." The problem with that approach is we do not just want to be political about it. We are voting against it because we are going to put the interests of New Zealand workers and New Zealand manufacturers ahead of the pure politics. We are just telling it like it is. This bill weakens protections. This public interest test is an international outlier. There are only two or three countries in the entire OECD that have made this folly—two or three. Our main trading partners Australia and the United States do not want a bar of it. They do not want a bar of it. This bill is a bad bill. It is ill conceived. It is badly drafted. Its impact will be negative. It is bad for New Zealand business. It is bad for New Zealand workers. And I will warrant it is the product of lobbying of the Government by a few narrow interests and possibly is the brainchild of a few bureaucrats who have not spent much time in the real world.What to do about it? The first thing is that it is not too late for the Government to withdraw the bill. The Government could say: "OK we will progress the bill without the public interest test. We'll put in an SOP before this is too late and we'll see the error of our ways. We'll listen to our own business community. We'll make the best of a bad idea. We'll take out the public interest test and get this anti-dumping regime clean quick and pure."—clean quick and pure.Carmel Sepuloni: That's right David.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: My whips are telling me they want me to be clean and quick. They have probably given up on me being pure. [Interruption] Oh no. They want more. They are enjoying this so much that they want the full 10 minutes which gives me a whole minute and 23 seconds to summarise where we have been so far.An old rule in the House is that when you get to the bottom of your speaking notes and you have still got a minute on the clock—what do you do? You go back to the start. Start again. In that spirit why do we think this bill is a crock? We think it is a crock because it is a bad idea. It is flawed in concept. The whole idea of an anti-dumping regime is you make your market proof from the self-interested actions of foreign companies and foreign powers that are wanting to take out domestic manufacturers and cost you jobs—for fly-by-night profits.That is why we have an anti-dumping regime. That is why it is fast. That is why it is tough. This bill makes it weaker. It causes at least a 90-day delay. It introduces an eight-factor subjective public interest test that gives foreign dumpers an out-clause that they do not need and do not deserve. That is why every business submitter opposed the bill and that is why the Labour Opposition will be voting against it. We are the party of business. When we get in economic growth in the last 30 years is faster and higher and that is why we are honouring the intentions of business submitters tonight."