Hutchison Paul: ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:655;Page:4681] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on Part 1 of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area Bill. It was great to see Maryan Street so excited by this bill and it is most unusual for the Hon John Carter to ever be remarked on as being unexcited. This bill is a sign that New Zealand is getting better and better which is exactly what the Hon John Carter’s answerphone says. 
As the Hon Maryan Street pointed out this is an exciting bill. It is an extremely exciting bill for New Zealand because it broadens our opportunities for trade enormously. The region has 12 countries 566 million people and overall a GDP of $700 billion. I am not too sure again where the Hon Maryan Street got the trillions from but undoubtedly within the next few decades there will be trillions of dollars of trade within this free-trade agreement. 
I too will mention those who have been responsible for the genesis of this bill and the culmination of it going through Parliament today. Obviously the Hon Tim Groser has been incredibly instrumental and it is quite right that he is given appropriate praise for his professionalism and skills. Before him of course there was the Hon Phil Goff and Jim Sutton. As I mentioned the other day the real antecedence was the work of our current Speaker the Hon Lockwood Smith who spent a lot of time in the ASEAN region sowing the seeds for this agreement to finally come about. It was great work and it finally has come about. 
One of the quite impressive things about this bill is the work behind it which was done I understand so that there would not be any amendments to the bill. It was unanimously agreed on by the select committee— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: What’s the bill about? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: Well I hope Mr Cunliffe knows. After all it is absolutely pivotal to New Zealand’s future. I would hope that he of all people would know. If the Hon David Cunliffe does not know well the leadership bid will be in a bad way. However I wanted to mention that the national interest analysis was done extremely well. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Is it quantitative? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: It is actually. Several of the things that were pointed out were the areas where New Zealand would have opportunities that we do not have now. For instance some countries do not have a sophisticated infrastructure in the electronic commerce area but New Zealand under an excellent National Government is expanding broadband so that we will be poised to take advantage in that area. As well as that the area of trade in services is something that will give New Zealand great opportunities for the future and that has been widely commented on by the submitters. 
I was quite interested to hear from the Seafood Industry Council. It said that we were not ambitious enough in terms of what we could do with our potential seafood prospects here in New Zealand. Unfortunately our proportion of seafood trade worldwide is very very small—it is less than 1 percent I think—yet we have a vast economic zone with enormous potential to expand trade in the ASEAN region and this bill provides the framework for New Zealand to do exactly that. 
Undoubtedly this bill will help New Zealand towards economic recovery in the short medium and long term. After all there has been great concern about the present situation and this legislation is one instrument that will help us to recover.