Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well just at the start of this first reading of the United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement Legislation Bill I could see why Minister Damien O'Connor is not the racing Minister because after two false starts and looking back to 2002 twice he finally got this race on the road. I'm hoping and we all are hoping that he is more confident in the barriers that he has up at the borders at the moment for keeping foot-and-mouth disease out of New Zealand.There was a comment before about the deep and broad relationships that we have had with the UK over many years and of course this was brought about due to the vote for Brexit and having to renegotiate what we used to have in the past.I think it was really interesting to watch on UK television because obviously there is some protectionism goes on when we talk about free-trade agreements. I remember just after this agreement was signed in principle I remember seeing on UK TV a couple of farmers who were talking to the interviewers saying I thought that the New Zealand Prime Minister was a really kind person and look what she's done to us; look what she's done to our farmers."I thought that was a real shame because actually if we look into a world where we've known for quite some time that we're going to have 2 billion more people at some stage in the future we certainly do need to be feeding those people. Part of the reason I travelled recently was to talk to farmers in other countries and say—look they've all got this fear that New Zealand's all of a sudden going to double its milk production and dump it on their doorstep—"That is not happening any time soon." So I think it's really important that—as we work through this. When we travel a farmer is a farmer is a farmer. We have nothing to fear from each other; we are all doing good things and we are all taking our role in feeding the world.I would like to make a particular note of Her Excellency Laura Clarke who made a lot of effort to keep our team up to date through this process. She has been an excellent high commissioner and I've got no doubt that during this process that she played a very big part in that. I also want to note that this was negotiated under the pandemic. Not an easy thing to do. I have not spent any time in managed isolation and quarantine but I know a number of people that were part of this process obviously have.But I also wanted to make note given that this is a trade agreement that now the borders are open. We are really happy that the borders are open after the pandemic. It's good that the global world is getting back to some sort of normality and hopefully that continues to happen. But when the pandemic first hit I held my breath because I thought if this world is turning upside down what on earth is going to happen to our trade? How's it going to get to where it needs to go? I have to say remarkably across the world apart from one or two ships getting stuck and some supply chains which are badly in need of some readjustment we really largely have been able to get our trade through.I have to say as part of this agreement now because we're talking about trade—and bear with me but right at the moment with foot-and-mouth on our doorstep and I know that the Minister and the Ministry for Primary Industries are doing all they can to make sure that it stays out of the country. It's a very big risk to all of our trade deals and I really think it's important at this time that the public of New Zealand understand just how critical foot-and-mouth disease would be and how detrimental it would be to this trade deal and other trade deals in our country.So I know that farmers will take biosecurity measures; they did this through the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. But what I do want to say to people is that Mycoplasma bovis was different. It was devastating for farmers it was awful it was psychologically devastating and it was a really hard time. I'm pleased to see that there's a level of success—one much higher than I predicted at the time—but this is different. Mycoplasma bovis was—we've only got one other country in the world where we are free of Mycoplasma bovis. If it was foot-and-mouth disease it would have every chance that it would threaten not only our farmers; it would threaten our whole $52 billion worth of trade.So what I'd like to do—as we discussed as a Parliament this trade deal—is to put out a call to anyone who's listening to spread around the word that everyone in New Zealand and our visitors need to participate in ensuring that we keep this awful disease out of this country. So that's every pair of jandals that might have been in Bali and I would really discourage people from trying to bring in pieces of meat that aren't part of trade agreements like this and actually putting things in their suitcase that shouldn't be there—that will be really detrimental not just to our farmers but to our whole economy. While we've seen a benign version of foot-and-mouth disease in Australia it could have just as easily been real and so we need to work to make sure that that disease never comes here. Otherwise everything we're doing here will be just in vain for a period of time.So as I said before this free-trade agreement came after the UK left the European Union. Preparations for this FTA actually began as early as 2017 under the National Government. But as we saw over a long period of time the UK took to actually finally negotiate its way out of Brexit.So you know I do want to make a point—I know Mr Rino Tirikatene spoke before about the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. But actually the Trans-Pacific Partnership: the Labour Party were out with their pickets and signs. I hadn't actually ever seen a situation in this country where I thought one of the main parties in New Zealand would be out with their signs up protesting against trade. I have to say that I'm very very relieved that actually once they did get into Government they actually did take up the opportunity. They might have stuck a "C" in front of the TPPA and have progressed trade deals but actually I want to make a note of the people who did the trade negotiations for this deal and have been doing trade negotiations for other deals.Because when I was recently at the primary industries summit up in Auckland we had our trade negotiator Vangelis Vitalis actually came and presented to that conference. It was really interesting to listen to his perspective on things because he's been doing this for a very long time. It wasn't long after the EU trade deal was announced and he got up and he said "I'm probably the man in this room that's probably going to be liked the least." But actually when he finished his presentation and gave a detailed explanation to the farmers of what he'd been through there was a far bigger understanding of all of the components of these trade deals than what most of them had actually seen before.So when these people sit in the room I know that they are doing their best. I know we're not talking about the EU trade deal—and it is disappointing for meat and milk. I do wonder if perhaps we'd left it to the people who negotiated and kept the politicians home for a while until it had its full time maybe we might have been able to string it out and get something slightly better because I know that those trade negotiators are very very very good at the job they do.So I think probably part of the disappointment from the EU one is this one with the UK is a very good trade deal. I think we were all surprised by how much better this one was than what we thought it might be.So I just want to put a shout-out to farmers at the moment. Farmers horticulturalists and all the people that are participating in these agreements. We have some awfully wet weather out there people are trying to calve and we have people who are still trying to pick fruit and don't have enough staff. You know they're really putting their heart and soul into everything they do for this country so that we have goods to trade so that we have an economy in this country that keeps us strong and upright as a country and gives us a standard of living which we've come to expect based on the economy that we run where this is the backbone. Thank you Madam Speaker."