Norman Russel William: Tariff (New Zealand-Hong Kong China Closer Economic Partnership Agreement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Norman Russel William: Tariff (New Zealand-Hong Kong China Closer Economic Partnership Agreement) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13381] 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I stand to speak on behalf of the Green Party on the latest round of preferential trade agreements that National and Labour have been signing us up to. This is not a free-trade agreement as the previous speaker Stuart Nash and other speakers have said; it is actually a preferential trade agreement—that is it is a preferential trade agreement between two countries or rather in the case of Hong Kong a kind of subset of a country. This is a preferential trade agreement. Like all of the preferential trade agreements that have been signed up to by Labour and National it has some real problems for New Zealand. I will talk in general terms about some of the problems with these preferential trade agreements and then talk specifically about why signing a trade agreement with the Chinese Communist Party is a particularly stupid thing to do as if all the others were not stupid enough. 
One of the issues with these preferential trade agreements is the investment clauses within them. In this particular preferential trade agreement with Hong Kong the investment clauses are to be negotiated by an exchange of letters rather than be included in the agreement itself but I think that the best way to understand the framework within which this agreement is operating is to look at the parallel agreement that goes alongside this which is between China and New Zealand. Chapter 11 of the New Zealand - China preferential trade agreement looks at issues to do with investment clauses. Basically it says that investments in each country have to be given national treatment—that is under article 138 we need to treat Chinese investors in New Zealand the same as we treat New Zealand investors in New Zealand except where we have non-conforming measures as they are called. Non-conforming measures are addressed under article 141 of the New Zealand - China free-trade agreement which is the parallel agreement to this one. 
Basically as is the case with most of these preferential trade agreements it operates as a ratchet. It says that whatever non-conforming measures we have on investment at the time that the treaty was signed we can keep them. We cannot make them any tighter but we can weaken them. Our overseas investment laws as they currently exist place certain constraints on incoming investment from foreign countries. Those laws can remain in place but they cannot be tightened. They can be weakened and that acts as a ratchet. The overseas investment laws as they currently stand whether they are to do with sensitive land—that is blocks of rural land over 5 hectares—or business investments of over $100 million can be weakened as if they are not weak enough already but they cannot be strengthened. 
These trade deals try to freeze the existing overseas investment laws in place. They say that we can weaken those laws further but we cannot strengthen them. Labour and National are signing up to what should really be called “sell the family farm trade agreements” because that is what they are designed to do. The way that these agreements are negotiated say that our current investment laws cannot be strengthened. We know that under the current investment laws we have sold off maybe 150000 hectares of farmland into foreign ownership over the last 5 years although the figures on it are a little unclear because it is not all recorded. Under Labour’s watch we sold large chunks of the country into foreign ownership. These agreements say that we cannot tighten the laws any further so that the laws currently in place which enable very large amounts of New Zealand land to be sold into overseas ownership cannot be tightened. That is exactly what is explicitly stated in these agreements. 
In the Hong Kong agreement it is to be done by an exchange of letters which operates in parallel with the agreement and is currently being negotiated. In the agreement with the Chinese Communist Party it is in chapter 11. I invite members to look seriously at chapter 11 of the New Zealand - China free-trade agreement—or preferential trade agreement as it actually is—and they will see the provisions that prevent us from exercising our democratic rights as a sovereign Parliament to change the rules on foreign investment. Goodness knows it would take quite some doing but if this Parliament were to find the courage within itself to strengthen the rules around overseas investment to stop family farms being sold off—because this Parliament has overseen a massive sell-off in family farms and is planning to continue doing that—and if it were to find the moral courage to say that we do not want all of our family farms to go into overseas ownership in Hong Kong China or any other country then we would find ourselves in breach of the investment treaties that Labour and National are so intent on signing the Government up to. 
Article 141 of the New Zealand - China free-trade deal which will be paralleled by the exchange of letters in the Hong Kong deal says that the national treatment does not apply to any existing non-conforming measure. Our overseas investment laws are a non-conforming measure. It says that we can continue with that but we cannot increase the non-conformity of the measure. Article 141(3) of the New Zealand - China free-trade agreement which will be paralleled in the Hong Kong agreement very clearly states that we cannot increase the non-conformity of these measures. That means that if we want to increase the restrictions on foreign ownership of New Zealand land then we will be breaching the agreements that National and Labour are so intent on signing us up to. 
Over and over again National and Labour are tying us into that situation. With China and Hong Kong that means making a deal with the Chinese Communist Party an authoritarian capitalist regime that imprisons people who disagree with it that locks up people if they do not agree with it. That is the deal we have signed in this particular case with the Chinese Communist Party. China is a one-party State and that party controls the Chinese Government. The President of China Hu Jintao is not the President because he was elected; he is the President because he is the Secretary-General of the Chinese Communist Party which of course appoints the President of China. 
By signing up to these agreements we have locked in place the current overseas investment regime. If we wanted to tighten the overseas investment regime we would be breaching the terms of the agreements that Labour and National have locked us into. We have heard a lot recently from Labour and National about how they have somehow decided that they do not like the sale of family farms to foreign owners even though they have both been overseeing it for a very long time. In particular Labour as the previous Government was very keen on selling off the family farm; that is why it sold literally hundreds of thousands of hectares into overseas ownership. It has locked us into an agreement that means that we cannot tighten the rules on overseas investment. Chapter 11 of the New Zealand - China free-trade agreement which parallels the exchange of letters that is to come in the Hong Kong free-trade agreement says that we can have measures that treat overseas investors differently like our overseas investment laws do now but we cannot tighten them. We can weaken them but we cannot tighten them. If we decided that we did not want any further family farms over say 500 hectares to go into overseas ownership we would be breaching the terms of the New Zealand - China free-trade agreement and no doubt the terms that will be in the exchange of letters with the Hong Kong - New Zealand free-trade agreement. 
When National and Labour members sit in this House as they do day after day and pretend that they are worried about the sale of foreign land we have to wonder why they are signing us up to agreements that lock in the current rules that enable the sale of land to foreign owners. I think that that is something that is unexamined. In these debates about free-trade agreements anything called a free-trade agreement immediately gets support from National and Labour. They just vote for it. They have a reflex reaction. If it is called a free-trade agreement they vote for it. They do not think about it or read the treaties. They do not read chapter 11 of this treaty which covers all the investment clauses. They think “Oh free-trade agreements! We must vote for them.” regardless of the fact that they are constraining the ability of this Parliament and future Parliaments to regulate in the democratic interests of people in this country. If we democratically decided that we wanted to tighten overseas investment laws beyond those that currently exist we would be breaching chapter 11 of the New Zealand - China free-trade agreement and no doubt the exchange of letters required by the Hong Kong - New Zealand free-trade agreement. 
That is why the Green Party will not be voting for this. Unlike National and Labour we are not happy with the sale of New Zealand land being completely unregulated and we think that we need to tighten the laws around investment in New Zealand in order to do what is in the best interests of this country rather than being bound up by some kind of ideological position in favour of anything called a free-trade agreement whatever the content of that agreement is.