Woods MeganTRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingDebate resumed from 10 November.Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Last time I spoke on this bill it was only the day after the election in the United States but before I get into this speech I would like to also acknowledge something that had not happened when I first started that speech and that is to say that we are all thinking of the people of North Canterbury and Marlborough and of what they are going through and to offer my condolences in this opportunity to speak.I have heard the words resilience" and "stoicism" being thrown around the House and around in the media over the last couple of days. Although I think these are important attributes for any community to get through a disaster such as the one that the people of Kaikōura and the surrounding districts are going through I think it is also important for us to remember that there is a fragility as well for the population. These are difficult times and difficult things for them to get through. I would like to congratulate all the ordinary people of that area who are helping each other and who will need to continue to do so over the coming days and weeks and months ahead. But what we have also seen since I started this speech was confirmation of what we all knew was coming over the weekend and that is that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) legislation is not going to get through the United States political system in the lame-duck period. The last grasp the last hope that people were holding on to that this may get through—this is not going to get through. And this is what makes us being here in this House passing this legislation even more inexplicable—the fact that we are here that we are debating a piece of legislation that is not going to happen. Why is that? Why are we here doing this? It is because the full and proper analysis that was required has fallen victim to the Government's unseemly haste to get unpopular legislation through ahead of election year. This was always a time line that did not make sense. It was a time line that did not fit into what was happening around the world. Here we are we are using parliamentary time to do this and the question "What for?" has yet to be answered by any of the Government speakers who have taken a call in this third reading of this legislation. What are we here for? I am not asking some kind of existential question when I ask that; I am actually asking: what are we doing here? What is the purpose of this legislation? But even more fundamentally what is the plan now? For the months and months leading up to us being here we have been continually told by Government members that the sky was going to fall in if this legislation and this agreement did not go ahead. Well what is the economic plan now? We have always pointed to the fact that actually what was negotiated was not that great a deal for New Zealand. What we have also continually reiterated on this side of the House is that Labour is a party that supports free trade. We always have throughout our history supported good agreements that are good for New Zealand but we do not see this as one of them. We see this as far more than a trade agreement and we see that this legislation which is enabling that agreement simply does not make sense. What we also see is that we have not had the proper analysis that could have gone through. We had a process that we consider to have been rushed. We consider that people were not given the full opportunity—it was a huge document that the public were very engaged with and they really wanted their opportunity to be heard and it is something that we could have done a much better job on if we had had the chance. There are questions that people wanted to come to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee to ask. They wanted to come and look at the magnitude of the 0.9 percent GDP change forecast by the Government as a result of the TPP implementation by 2030. Contrast that sharply with the expected business-as-usual GDP of 47 percent over the same time period. We all want to see our exporters doing well—we all want to see that happen—but it was never fully explained how it was that entering into this agreement was going to deliver the kinds of benefits that the Government was talking about. Then we had the Tufts University analysis. So there was some analysis that was done that actually raised some alarming points that needed to be listened to and they certainly were points that we listened to on this side of the House. There could indeed be job losses arising from this agreement and unemployment. The analysis foreshadowed that there could be as many as 6000 jobs lost in New Zealand by 2025 as a direct consequence of the agreement. The prospect of 6000 jobs going under an agreement where we are looking at a 0.9 percent increase in GDP by 2030 is not something that we saw as a stellar deal for New Zealand. We did not see it as New Zealand getting a huge benefit from this. The Tufts University study also forecast that the labour share of output—that is wages and salaries—would see a fall of 1.5 percent over that period. Presiding over falling wages is not what we are here to do on this side of the House. We do not want to put in place agreements that are going to see wages drop. What we need to do is have a clear vision for our country and that does include trade. It does include trading with the outside world and we have never contested that. What we have contested is that this agreement was going to be the answer. I am still waiting and I would like to hear—the Government has one final chance in this debate to tell us—what it is that we are doing here now. Why is it that we are putting through this legislation when this is a dead deal? This is not a deal that is going to go ahead. We did not hear in the preceding months as this was going through any cogent argument about how this was going to be a good deal for New Zealand. We had the Minister who presided over it Tim Groser saying he would walk away from the deal if there was not a good deal for dairy. There was not a good deal for dairy but he certainly did not walk away. There has just been silence from Government members on this piece of legislation. In this final call in this debate I would actually like to hear what it is we are doing here. Why are we here passing legislation for a deal that is not going to happen? Thank you."