Tabuteau Fletcher: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTabuteau Fletcher: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 04 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:536. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First):I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to support this bill this evening. This bill gives a certain level of protection to our industries to our manufacturers and to our local producers. This bill seeks to stop dumping from international competitors and as New Zealand First is a party that proudly stands in support of local business and our local business people we will stand in support of this bill. However it is very disappointing to note the length of time this bill has taken to get to this stage in the House.This bill was originally introduced to the House in 2008 by the Hon Lianne Dalziel. It is I hope not a reflection of the value the Government currently places on our local businessmen and women. It was pleasing to note last week that the Government has finally levelled the playing field for our New Zealand businesses with regard to their ability to bid on international Government contracts. But this would appear to have been more about the process of the World Trade Organization rather than any proactive action on our Government’s part. It would appear to be more about an international compliance rather than any true concern for the close to 440000 small businesses in New Zealand employing well over half a million New Zealanders.Here is a bill and a piece of news that is great for our local businesses but where is the urgency? Where is this Government’s commitment to our local businesses? It would seem that it is OK to prioritise the selling-off of key assets to international interests but ask this Government to be efficient or effective in providing a level playing field for our small businesses and this seems to be too much of an ask.New Zealand First has always been vocally adamant that the Government should do all that it can to protect our locally owned organisations. Our businesses owned and operated by hard-working New Zealanders are only now being afforded some level of protection with this bill and have only recently been afforded a level playing field when competing for Government contracts around the world. This has taken many many years to achieve.New Zealand First and the public of New Zealand have seen year after year locally owned businesses losing out to international firms while at the same time this Government prioritises free-trade agreements that mean that New Zealand businesses have to fight off overseas firms for business in their own country. New Zealand has always had a wide open-door policy for international firms and now hopefully some of our own businesses can leverage on this new-found international Government market and take on some of the large players from around the world in providing to that Government sector because you can be sure that they are given no quarter by their own Government when it comes to contracts—Novopay being a perfect example of that.But we are concerned about the current standing of the new Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. We give the Minister his dues. He has taken the bill a relatively good bill introduced by a member of the then Labour Government—another good idea gained from an Opposition party that this Government will seek to claim as its own but at least the Minister has been able to recognise its merits. However it does seem that New Zealand First will have to continue to struggle to advocate to push this Government to truly take small business seriously.Specifically to the bill New Zealand First is pleased to note the inclusion of the following major points. The bill itself sets out four legislative changes to the Temporary Safeguard Authorities Act 1987 which are changes relating to the body responsible for undertaking safeguard investigations the time frame for completing investigations the imposition of provisional and final safeguard duty and the introduction of guidelines to establish whether safeguard action is in the public interest.As intimated earlier this work is in accordance with the World Trade Organization rules and meets World Trade Organization recommendations and standards. It is still commonplace around the world for large internationals in particular to dump goods on foreign markets. It would be interesting—and I am sure the results would be disappointing—to investigate the actual and real costs to local manufacturers and other small to medium sized enterprises of the sense of apathy of the lax timetable around the implementation of this the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill. This Government has had 6 years in which to bring this issue to the fore; 6 years and this bill now finally makes it to its third reading.As I was saying it is still commonplace for large internationals to dump goods on to foreign markets. Dumping is the practice of firms selling products abroad at below cost or significantly below prices as compared with their home market. The former implies predatory pricing or pricing that by its nature is seeking to undermine the foreign markets into which it is entering. The latter implies that the procedure has disadvantaged the firm’s home market and that they perhaps overpriced their goods for their own home consumers. Dumping in New Zealand is certainly a practice that is invasive and compromises the fair and reasonable operation of our own industries whatever they may be. But I suggest that this affects our manufacturing industry in the main.This has been true with regard to many pieces of legislation. The New Zealand economy is one of the most open markets in the world. As an economist I commend the theory behind this open market practice. However it is very harsh and a severe way of creating efficiencies especially when many of our industries look to their foreign counterparts that are still being afforded some measure of protection by even our biggest competitors’ Governments—those that are or would be our trading partners and convincingly argue the need for open market regulation but fail to come through themselves.I suggest that the role of Government is to flatten out the peaks and troughs of this country’s economic cycle. Backing our manufacturers and saving tens of thousands of jobs is not a nasty or inefficient Government intervention. It is good practice which is evidenced I am sure by the upturn in manufacturing in response to the decline in the New Zealand dollar recently. We would have been in a much better position as a country as employers and as employees if the Government had done more to protect our manufacturing industries over the recent economic downturn.As I stated earlier New Zealand First will always stand in support of legislation that supports the businesses of New Zealand. This bill goes a small way towards doing this. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.