McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Madam Assistant Speaker thank you and it gives me great pleasure to stand and speak in this debate. This is the second time this House has had a third reading on the vast vast majority of this legislation and I do want to commend the Government for the position they have taken on trade following the election because when we had the debate on the original Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—I think it was in November two years ago; in fact I think it was 15 November 2016 that this House had the third reading and voted on the TPP legislation—the majority was much thinner than it is today.What I thought I might do because this is something that this House has considered on many occasions and so many New Zealanders have paid more attention to trade and TPP than any other trade deal New Zealand has ever done is talk a bit about the genesis of where the agreement we have before us today to vote on came from. It actually came from a strategy that Labour when last in Government saw some of but it wasn't until there was a change of Government and we came in under National at the beginning of our time a decade ago that actually the first steps were taken towards where we've arrived. You see the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (P4) was between New Zealand Singapore Brunei and Chile and it was a very high-quality agreement—one of the better ones we had signed at the time—and the idea was that those four countries would come together and then look to bring America into the fold into that P4 to have a trade agreement that would reach across the Pacific from Asia across to South America North America and down to New Zealand in the south.In February of 2008 that strategy worked. The US joined the negotiation joined the P4 for what had become TPP—the TPP negotiation was launched. In November of that year Australia Peru and Vietnam joined the negotiation. In October 2010 Malaysia joined; in October 2012 Mexico and Canada; and then finally in May of 2013 Japan joined as well. And over many many years of negotiation finally the TPP was concluded and it was signed in Auckland on 4 February 2016.The reason that I've gone through that is that a strategy for a small country like New Zealand to be able to do high-quality trade deals with very very large countries is not straightforward; in fact it's not easy for us on the world stage. Indeed the strategy that was developed by some of the best trade minds anywhere in the world who sit in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was to bring others into the fold to negotiate with us so that the large countries of the world that New Zealand absolutely needs a trade deal with would come to the party.I think that the final vote and reading of this legislation today says that the National Government over that period of time was right to push ahead with the TPP negotiation and we were right to conclude it and sign it in the face of significant opposition from parties in this House and from people in New Zealand. I would say to those in Government who are now supporting it—the Labour Party and New Zealand First Party—that if we had not pushed on if we had not concluded if we had not decided to go onto the world stage to tell others that there was still a deal to be done if TPP hadn't been concluded they wouldn't have been able to make that speech today about the good of this trade deal and what it will deliver for New Zealand. You see TPP was a high-quality deal. Of any trade deal that we've had it was our most lucrative deal negotiated and signed. It had safeguards in it. It was the first free-trade agreement with five countries that are of importance to New Zealand today or of growing importance in the future. We know it was a high-quality deal that was open to others with safeguards that New Zealanders needed because there had been very few changes made to it. And as far as New Zealand's access to these remaining countries with the revised TPP there is no change. It was good enough in TPP and it's good enough today—or the other way round; for the Government today if the access that New Zealand has through the revised TPP is good enough today then it must have been good enough in the original TPP because that access has not changed.We've since then seen as far as TPP is concerned other countries say they believed it was high quality and they too wanted to join. I ask—this is a question but it really is a statement: if so many other countries were interested in the original TPP deal and that the revised TPP deal has minor" amendments to it then actually it was a high-quality deal that was in the best interests of New Zealand. Columbia the Philippines Thailand the Republic of China South Korea Indonesia Sri Lanka—all formerly said they intended to join the TPP. I encourage them to join the revised TPP that this House will pass today.The original TPP had significant tariff reductions in it. Beef exports to Japan—we will have the lowest tariff of any country in the world. Our beef exporters will be competitive in that market. In kiwifruit Japan is one of the most lucrative most important markets for us. The tariff rate will fall away to zero. Under the original TPP New Zealanders will sell avocados to Mexico the world's largest avocado producer. Then in fact as far as dairy was concerned when the US was in there it's our number one dairy market. We had substantive gains there as well.It had a lot of protections in it. The Pharmac model was protected. We've heard the current Prime Minister say that actually Pharmac was not up for grabs and that it was well protected but as part of the negotiation there afterwards that has been taken away.The investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) clause that concerns many in this House and many New Zealanders around the country—the original TPP excluded 80 percent of all foreign direct investment to New Zealand from ISDS under that agreement. As far as the revised TPP is concerned it is correct that the new Government has signed an additional five side letters to exclude ISDS from those countries. It relates to 80.2 percent of foreign direct investment. So TPP excluded 80 percent of foreign direct investment; the additional five side letters that have been signed by this Government in the revised TPP means an additional 0.2 percent of foreign direct investment to New Zealand is now excluded. Is that significant? No it's not. But if that's what it took to get New Zealand First and Labour to vote for a deal that is high quality and good for New Zealand we'll let them go out and talk about the importance of that 0.2 percent because we are voting for something that's important in this House.We had a very long process both with the original TPP and the revised TPP. They were almost identical. There were public meetings around the country for New Zealanders to come and learn and have their say. The difference was there were more than 50 public meetings under the original TPP; there were far fewer under the revised TPP. But that's not important. In both cases the public was given an opportunity to have their say. There was a full parliamentary procedure for the original TPP as there has been for the revised TPP.The final thing I want to do is talk about how this deal arrived here today. When we had the third reading of the original Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Amendment Bill members of the Labour Party stood up and said it was a waste of time it was over it was dead and we were wasting the House's time. Well actually New Zealand officials and me as trade Minister got on planes and we visited countries in short shifts to convince them it was worth going ahead without the US. In a week we visited Australia Japan Mexico and Singapore. We then went on to Vietnam Malaysia and Chile. We held meetings in London with all of the countries. We went to Chile twice. Officials went to Japan on a number of occasions with the Prime Minister. We went back to Japan to convince them that this was a worthwhile deal to go ahead with without the US.We held a full meeting in Vietnam where New Zealand was asked to co-chair at ministerial level and where agreement was reached that we would try to get this there by the end of the year. Hundreds of our officials over a decade have worked on the original TPP and the revised TPP. There are far too many to be able to name here today. To all of them everybody in New Zealand that has a job as a result of trade who has a company because they trade and they export owes them a huge debt of gratitude.In particular the two people I want to recognise and mention are David Walker who was a chief trade negotiator over the TPP who is now our ambassador in the World Trade Organization in Geneva and Vangelis Vitalis who came back from Geneva and spearheaded on behalf of every single revised TPP country the fight to make sure TPP would be delivered for New Zealand. It's to them we owe the credit. It's to them that New Zealanders have their jobs. I absolutely commend this bill to the House."