Browning Steffan: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 15 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17303. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I rise to speak on the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill. The Greens are supporting this bill but we have some serious concernsabout it. We are very clear that we like the point of this bill in terms of it being an anti-dumping bill. However this is about free trade not fair trade which is what we want. We want fair trade. We do not want the free trade that is happening at the moment that is destroying industries in this country more and more. Every week we see more jobs going overseas more businesses going overseas because they are having to compete against cheap products being allowed into New Zealand far too easily. As well we are losing expertise as these businesses go overseas.The really disturbing part of this bill in fact is that it is just about a temporary fix all the time. Clause 3 is very very clear about that. It provides that the purpose is to: “(a) provide temporary protection to a domestic industry from serious injury caused by increased imports;”—note the word “temporary”—“and (b) facilitate adjustment by a domestic industry to increased competition from increased imports.”Yes we have to support the bill because we have got to do anything that will help domestic industry but this is a stopgap bill. It is clear that the Government in particular is not worried that that is all it is. In a previous speech I think I used the term that this is the “Hey Fellas (Organise Redundancy for Your Staff) Bill”. This is a bill that says: “Yes we will give you a little bit of a break a little bit of an adjustment but too bad. This stuff is coming in. Get ready and adjust to it.”Think about it. What about the local communities when we know that something is coming down? We are losing something. We are losing jobs we are losing expertise and we are going to have products that we have nothing to feel proud about coming from another place on the planet. There is no need for it.I was thinking about it as I was just sitting here. What have we got? What have we lost? We have lost the clothing industry in a big way. We have lost a lot of our footwear industry. We have lost a lot more. I just thought I would check what I was wearing to see whether I was sort of putting my money where my mouth is. I notice my tie is made under licence but it was made in New Zealand. I know my suit was. I know my shirt was. I know my shoes were built in Dunedin atMcKinlays. They do not quite suit my suit but that is where they came from. Everybody in this House could be wearingMcKinlays shoes or clothing made by some other company in New Zealand. But by hang they have got this dump of shoes footwear and clothing coming into the country from other places putting New Zealanders out of jobs.Pork was mentioned before. When I first spoke on this bill in 2012 we were talking of 40 percent of the pork consumed in New Zealand coming from overseas. Now in excess of 45 percent of the pork consumed in New Zealand is from overseas. It is shocking. There is absolutely no need for any pork to be imported from overseas into this primary-producing country. We can produce the food for it we have got the space and we have got the expertise to do it. The reason we do not need pork from overseas is that for one the standards nowhere near match what we aspire to in New Zealand. The rubbish that the animals are fed overseas is way worse than what we are feeding the pigs in New Zealand.The level of use of antibiotics overseas is way worse than anything that we do here. Other pesticide residues in that pork—we have no idea. And then this Government will not even enforce something like country-of-origin labelling which our trans-Tasman partner Australia does and makes better year on year. So New Zealanders get junk food and then they cannot even get it labelled. This bill does not quite address that but it is just a temporary fix as I say for some unfortunate industries as they head towards the wall because of free trade not fair trade. We have lost that expertise. We have lost self-reliance in this country and as we head into the increased impacts of oil shocks natural disasters and social and civil disasters internationally we need to have a higher level ofself-reliance. We have no self-reliance from something like this—just the phase out. It is absolutely temporary.The problem with the World Trade Organization—which we are very connected with and we work on to try to get it to work for us; we look to it to try to smooth trade internationally—is that it is very very strong on trade and very very weak on environmental and social concerns. [Interruption] Hey the bill before this was a bill concerning foreign charter vessels. The same bunch of people over here did not mind decade after decade of slave-like conditions on those boats—and some from that side of the House too. Free traders do not mind what the labour costs are and do not mind what the costs of those people are to the human rights—[Interruption] Yes you find it very surprising. You find this very surprising because you are light years away from human rights and fair trade.When we get that sort of integrity back into this House we will be able to stand proud in this country about what we are doing for the environment what we are doing for social rights and social justice—Sue Moroney: We’re all right with that.STEFFAN BROWNING: You are all good with it. It is good that Labour is all good with it too.Hon Tau Henare: Thanks for coming.STEFFAN BROWNING: Thank you. We would love to know what is going on with the Trans-Pacific Partnership in terms of this as well. Will this bill give any protection for the stuff that you are dealing with around the Trans-Pacific Partnership? We need transparency. We need to be looking after our communities and our regulations in New Zealand. We do not need them traded off in some deal to sell a little bit of milk powder—or what is it? What is the deal with the US that we will lose out on in a Trans-Pacific Partnership? Pushing and pushing coming from the Government saying: “We need this Trans-Pacific Partnership. It’s going to do all sorts of wonderful things for New Zealand.” It is not even a normal way of looking at tariffs. This is about trading off regulations and community control and say and democracy. So although we will support this bill because there is an element of temporary protection we do have a lot of concern about the direction of free trade. Thank you.