McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Madam Speaker thank you very much. For any country in the world that believes in the importance of trade of bringing down barriers of getting rid of regulation and red tape and that the private sector will create relationships to produce things that people around the world want and produce them efficiently then today in this House is an important day. This is a very high-quality agreement. It sends a signal to other countries' Governments who protect themselves and their industries because they believe it is good for their economy that actually when like-minded countries come together and spend time talking about how to make it easier for their citizens to trade with each other there is greater benefit in that than protection. All over the world we see that when countries protect their economies they don't grow as quickly as they should their citizens are not as well-off as they might be and the opportunity that every Government should be trying to present to its citizens is just not there.I want to congratulate our officials on both sides of this agreement—in New Zealand and in the United Kingdom—for the judicious work they have done to make sure that we send a signal on the importance of trade between the United Kingdom and New Zealand to other countries that they may use this as a model as they go forward and negotiate to liberalise to bring down barriers and to actually help. The Minister mentioned that he thinks or believes that most problems in the world can be solved through trade. If only that was true. However I do agree with him that generally where countries trade together there is less likely to be conflict and there are many more reasons for them to cooperate than for them not to. So in this respect with our friends in the United Kingdom today we do a very very good thing.I'd like rather than talking about the detail of this agreement—because that's been traversed over previous readings in the House—to talk a little bit about the history and what this means. If we go back to after the last war New Zealand became heavily reliant upon the United Kingdom for most of our farming exports. And indeed when lamb was able to leave the shores of New Zealand and be refrigerated on ships and arrive in the UK market and into their shops prosperity in New Zealand grew quite quickly. It shows that when you produce high-quality goods and services and are able to sell them outside of your shores it benefits a country it benefits the economy and it benefits citizens people. And indeed much effort was put in to developing the UK as a market and New Zealand was doing well. We jump forward to when the UK decided that it wanted to join what was then the Common Market with a small group of European continental countries and our access to the UK overnight was more than restricted. It dried up and New Zealand was faced with a significant challenge producing high-quality food for a market for one market overseas that we no longer had access to. Two things happened then. Advice from officials and our trade experts was that we needed to engage with European communities and find ways to access that wider market for New Zealand exporters. In that we were successful but it did not replace completely what we had lost in the change of the trading relationship with the United Kingdom. The second thing that was decided early on and by successive Governments' work was the need to diversify so that we were no longer reliant ever again on any one nation or any one area of the world or any one product or produce from New Zealand. Today in putting this legislation through Parliament we are rectifying some of the challenges that remained for all of the time since the UK joined the European Community because actually our access to the UK markets for our export now is the same if not better than it was back then because there are many more areas in the New Zealand economy that produce goods and services that the UK market will want. And so it is a long time coming but it is very very good for New Zealand exporters. Where people are able to produce high-quality goods competitively and productively and export them to a market that they can rely upon then New Zealand flourishes and does well. Trade agreements are about certainty and dependability. The two sides in this area have made commitments to each other and our business community can now rely upon those as they invest or they change the way they produce to pivot towards the UK market or for British producers towards New Zealand. That certainty also grows economies which creates jobs and creates a higher standard of living for New Zealanders as it will for people in the United Kingdom.I want to say that I'm very pleased that this Government has been able to deliver on this. It was a long time coming. In fact it was around 2016 or slightly before when the UK was talking about the referendum and that they might leave the European Community that New Zealand started to engage with the UK. I had the privilege for a period of time of being the trade Minister and I visited the UK on many occasions to make sure the door was open to talk about the type of thing we should do if the UK was to leave the European Union and to say to them that along with the European Union a trade deal with them would be a priority for New Zealand.I was very pleased therefore in 2016 I think it was when the then trade secretary Liam Fox confirmed for the very first time that New Zealand along with Australia would be the first cab off the rank once the UK left the European Union to do a high-quality free-trade agreement. And then the debate went to the quality of that deal because as with many parts of Europe farmers are not as sure as they are in New Zealand of the benefits of free trade because they have grown up very much in a system of protection and subsidy.I must say to farmers in the United Kingdom that whilst they may still hold reservations about whether or not allowing access for New Zealand farmers to their market is in their best interests it absolutely is. In New Zealand if we continue to have protection of our farmers and continue to provide subsidies to them then actually agriculture wouldn't be as innovative here as it is we wouldn't be seeking out the markets we should and we wouldn't be competing more than fairly and doing well on the world stage. And so New Zealand welcomes United Kingdom farmers in their efforts to look further than their own market in the European Union to other areas of the world. The world continues to want high-quality protein. They continue to want safe food. They look for food security for their populations. And the UK and New Zealand together can go out and actually provide so very much of that. An example of how things have changed was when I had an opportunity in London to visit a small New Zealand company called Allpress and some of you will have the smell of their coffee on your breath at this very moment. In I think the east of London they have set up a roastery there where they roast a coffee they serve it in a cafe they sell it around the UK and they sell their coffee to other parts of Europe. Who would have thought that a small New Zealand company would be roasting coffee in the United Kingdom market and selling it to them? We don't grow a lot of coffee in New Zealand but the returns that they get from the work they put in come back to New Zealand and they grow our economy. They have greater certainty now because of this agreement and others in New Zealand have the opportunity to emulate what they've done and do a similar thing. If I may I will finish by mentioning two officials in particular but there are very many that have worked towards this success. The first is Crawford Falconer who was a long-time trade negotiator in New Zealand very senior. He had done many jobs within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and had left to go to the private sector. When the UK left the European Union Crawford applied for a job and he became their chief trade negotiator. And so we have a New Zealander sitting there in the corridors of power in London advising them upon trade. That in part is the reason this is such a high-quality agreement. I also did want to recognise Brad Burgess who headed up this negotiation. This is a significant success for Brad. He along with many others is of extremely high quality very professional and I thank him and all the others from New Zealand who have put in hours and hours and hours of effort and made commitment over the last four or five years to deliver this. It's a very good day for free trade. It's a very good day for those who believe in free trade. It sends a signal to the world and I congratulate the UK and New Zealand for achieving this.