Shaw JamesJAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): It is a real pleasure for me to stand up to support this bill the Our Work Our Future Bill in the House. I just would like to start by correcting a few of the statements that I have heard previously. When Mr Hudson said that it was incorrect that the new Inland Revenue Department project was outsourcing work to the Philippines the reason why we know that it is is that officials from Inland Revenue Department told us at select committee that they were doing that. So it is actually incorrect to say that work on that project is not happening in the Philippines. It would be much better if that work was happening here in New Zealand. The other thing that is incorrect is the idea that this would somehow violate our international treaties. If that were true then the United Kingdom and Australia would both also be violating international treaties that we have with them because both Australia and the United Kingdom actually have versions of this legislation in place at the moment.In Australia particularly in Western Australia the Government has actually used its vast purchasing power to create whole supply chains built around Aboriginal communities that were previously displaced from the economy in its entirety. So the Government deliberately went out and used Government procurement to set up long-term supply chains and got Aboriginal communities to start to put together businesses that would then supply the Government of Western Australia. That has led to a huge uptake—I hope you are listening Mr Hudson; no he is not he is tweeting—in money going into those communities in work in skills in livelihoods and in breaking the poverty cycle. So the state Governments in Australia have actually used their purchasing power in very much the way that this bill proposes to do.The other case is in the United Kingdom which by the way is ruled by a Conservative Government. That Conservative Government has introduced a similar programme and it is built around enabling exactly these kinds of supply-chain decisions to be made to ensure that skills and training requirements get built into contracts: the recruitment of non-employed people from within target communities the provision of training that will increase the value that they add through their work and promoting local businesses—those are all part of decision making in purchasing decisions of Government departments and of local authorities in the United Kingdom. So Mr Hudson please find those two countries somehow breaking the law in their international agreements.One of the reasons why I am so interested in this bill is that it is actually completely innocuous. It is simply importing an idea that has been well used by our major trading partners. Australia with which we still have the largest trading relationship—it is doing it. The United Kingdom with which we still have a very important trading relationship—it is doing it. There is no particular reason why we would not also be using the vast purchasing power of our Government to support local communities to bring people who are excluded into work and to ensure that New Zealand's small businesses have a go.One of the other things that I wanted to raise in relation to what Mr Hudson was saying is about access to international markets through the international treaties that we have signed where our companies have access to for example massive supply deals with the United States or Australia or China or whoever. Of course the thing that we fail to remember here is that the vast majority 95 percent of—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. This debate is interrupted and I shall resume the Chair at 7.30 p.m.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.JAMES SHAW: —our businesses are small businesses that have fewer than 10 employees each. So to recap what I was saying previously the point that was being made was that theoretically New Zealand businesses have access to this vast global market place of Government procurement in other countries with our major trading partners. But the problem with that is that the vast majority of our businesses—95 percent of our businesses—are so small they actually cannot in reality access those Government tenders in those other countries.I used to work in the United Kingdom; I was there for about 12 years. I had a small consultancy operation over there which at its largest got up to 22 people and there was no way that we could win Government tenders. So the idea that somehow the loss of New Zealand Government business somehow makes up for international opportunities is completely incorrect. I commend this bill to the House.