Browning Steffan: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — Second Reading 
Browning Steffan: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:1450] 
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 The Greens are very clear that they like the point of this bill the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill in terms of it being an anti-dumping bill effectively and in terms of it reducing the risk in terms of a World Trade Organization (WTO) trade dispute. However the Greens are about fair trade not free trade as we see free trade happening at the moment.  
There is a very disturbing aspect in this bill. In fact the purpose of it is only temporary. Clause 3 provides that the purpose is to: “(a) provide temporary protection to a domestic industry from serious injury caused by increased imports; and (b) facilitates adjustment by a domestic industry to increased competition from increased imports.” There is nothing permanent about this.  
This is effectively saying: “Hey fellas organise a redundancy for your staff give them their notices plan for your early retirement think about what your local community is going to do from now on because sorry this bill looks out for only a temporary adjustment.” while these people actually downgrade their businesses and move out of their businesses.  
We have seen so many things happen in New Zealand. We have watched clothing move off to Fiji and now we know it has moved further afield and even Fiji does not have that as a business any more. We have watched footwear manufacturers head off overseas. We now are getting more and more primary-production imports huge amounts of stuff. I would suggest that 40 percent of the pork that is eaten in New Zealand—hundreds and thousands of tonnes a week—is effectively dumping and what are we doing about that?  
This bill is fine if it saves us from a big expensive court case but beyond that it continues to send us in the wrong direction. What is “serious injury”? It is really effectively looking out for the absolute worst while anybody who is considered small fry—small to medium sized business—will be going down the gurgler all that much quicker. I would suggest it is just the very big businesses that will get any benefit from this. There is no suggestion of any protection for anything less than what is considered serious injury.  
We have lost expertise; we have lost self-reliance in this country. As we head into increased impacts from oil shocks natural disasters and social and civil disasters internationally we actually need to have a higher level of self-reliance. We have no self-reliance from something like this. This is absolutely temporary.  
A problem with the World Trade Organization which we are connected with and which we look at to try and smooth trade internationally is that it is very very strong on trade and very very weak on environmental and social concerns. We have material coming in here. Sure we might get a bit of a tariff put on it. However what adjustment to make an even playing field is there for New Zealand producers and manufacturers? There is very very little.  
We have material pouring into this country as it is. New Zealand manufacturers are expected to compete against low-wage economies—economies that do not have efficient and protective devices such as the Resource Management Act and other devices such as national environmental standards that might give some protections. Yet our manufacturers our producers have to compete price on price without those things being adequately considered.  
So although the Greens are concerned and do not want New Zealand to be caught up in expensive litigation—and this bill may and let us hope it does go some way to ensuring it does not happen—we will remain concerned about the continuing and often secretive direction towards free trade.  
We would love to know what is going on with the Trans-Pacific Partnership arrangement at the moment where we have no idea as to the level that something like this bill may effectively be needed or whether a secretive free-trade agreement may in fact lock us out of even being able to use our Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill.  
We need to get a better balance in terms of how we do our trade. We need to be moving on from the free-trade mantra to a fair and a socially and environmentally justifiable trade. While we carry on down this path of free-trade agreements our manufacturers and producers continue to lose out. I notice that of course some producers may appear not to be losing out because it appears that milk powder and maybe a bit of beef—and some coal of course—might be the dominant beneficiaries of free-trade agreements.  
We actually need to be looking at that other range of producers in New Zealand: the producers that used to be here before the free-trade deals. The opening up in lots of ways of trade has actually reduced us to having a series of monocultures. We have lost our diversity and we have lost our self-reliance and we have sent it off overseas through the unbalanced competition that has come in here. It is outrageous that this is about effectively supporting industry that is quite destructive and unsustainable in the New Zealand environment as well.  
 We have so much riding on dairy and some milk powder is produced in consistently unsustainable ways and it does not need to be. Yet we have bills coming in that in a roundabout way support that continued unsustainable production. We need to shift to different systems. The sooner that our production is done in a sustainable way the sooner we push into organisations like the World Trade Organisation the idea that sustainability needs to be at the absolute highest level.  
The Greens do want to keep New Zealand out of litigation but we are presented bills like this that are based on a very unbalanced environmental and social situation. Thank you.