Wall Louisa; Williams PotoLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. This is a new area for me and I get to participate in this debate this afternoon as a member of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. We are discussing today the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership the CPTPP and prior to this iteration it was called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge our current Minister David Parker for a successful negotiation that means New Zealand is part of the CPTPP and I would like to acknowledge Minister McClay who got us to a point where we were part of the TPP negotiations.And now we have an agreement that—and I agree with my colleague Stuart Nash—some people think is hugely different. There's a huge difference between CPTPP and TPP."; "There is no difference." And actually if you read our select committee report in fact that is what is highlighted: that variance of opinion. So I'm here to talk about from my perspective I guess the differences but also the benefit to the country of this specific trade agreement.Firstly I can say that the major differences between CPTPP and TPP are the 22 suspended provisions. What I want to highlight the most in terms of those suspended provisions is that—and this is from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade website—"Agreement of all CPTPP members would be needed for these provisions to take effect in the future." Now I think that's really important because—I will highlight two now. The first is that there was a big issue—and particularly amongst all our medical sector—about the impact of the CPTPP on Pharmac and Pharmac's ability to procure drugs. It was expected to cost us actually initially $4.5 million and then $2.2 million per year thereafter. So that is no longer an issue; so that is a difference.And then the other one I want to highlight was that businesses cannot sue the Government for investment contract breaches. Now that's incredibly important because that was one of the issues that people had with the investor-State dispute settlement provisions: that we in fact could be sued. So they are a couple of differences and there are 20 others but what we all should be reassured about is that unless we agree in the future those 22 suspended provisions can never re-enter this agreement. So the CPTPP: here is a bit of a summary about what it represents. It represents 13.5 percent of global GDP. That's 480 million consumers that's 30 percent of New Zealand's export goods that's 31 percent of New Zealand's export services and that's 64 percent of foreign direct inward investment and 56 percent of total outward investment and what are the benefits to us? The benefits to us and our sectors are increased market access and decreased costs because of increased speed to conduct business. So this CPTPP trade agreement will create a regulatory environment that increases our trade in goods and services to ensure that our economy is sustainable inclusive and focuses on economic growth. The net benefit to us by 2030 is a $1.2 billion increase in GDP. So that's the guts of it. That's what the agreement is going to do. When you look at different submitters—and I particularly want to focus at the moment on the New Zealand International Business Forum. Their assessment of the CPTPP was that currently this trade in New Zealand has created 625000 jobs. So there's an expectation or an anticipation that because of the increased volumes in goods and services that will be traded there will be more jobs that will benefit our economy. The interesting thing about their submission to the select committee however was that they couldn't quantify it which I found quite interesting. But what they could quantify was the tariff savings and those tariff savings were $220 million basically which affects 92 percent of our current exports. The industries that are going to benefit the most are horticulture wine forestry seafood textiles and manufactured products. The new markets that will be open to us through the CPTPP are Canada Japan Mexico and Peru. So from the New Zealand International Business Forum's perspective they were 100 percent supportive of our signing the CPTPP. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade did their own national interest analysis and actually that point needs to be highlighted because one of the issues from many submitters was: where's the independent national interest analysis and how can the ministry who's been vested with the responsibility to create the agreement then be the ones who say "This is what we get out of it."? So I do want to highlight it but what I want to highlight in their submission to the select committee was that of those 625000 jobs that's a quarter of New Zealanders whose work and incomes depend on export. There was a discussion paper from the Reserve Bank entitled Exporting and Performance and essentially what it said is that if you work in the export sector worker productivity increases by 36 percent employment growth in that sector increases by between 7 percent and 12 percent and wages are 6 percent higher. So for people who doubt how valuable increasing our exports can be I think I'm convinced by that evidence and it was that evidence that we needed to see before the select committee to feel reassured that the CPTPP is actually going to add value and benefit our economy. From the unions' perspective and from civil society's perspective can I say that that actually was their biggest concern. It was that it wasn't going to create more jobs and in fact those jobs weren't going to be high-quality well-paid jobs. So they highlighted issues specifically for women and for indigenous peoples and there was actually a distrust between civil society and big business because they just fundamentally do not believe that business works in the interests of workers and marginalised and minority groups. The other thing that they were really clear about was that big business does not look after the environment. So in a nutshell the people who came and supported it were the exporters and the people who came and opposed it were those who weren't exporters but they advocated on behalf of those that they think are most affected. Now I do want to talk in just my last couple of minutes about the Treaty clause. The most interesting thing about the Treaty clause from my perspective is that we found out that the Treaty clause actually ended up in the New Zealand - Singapore closer economic partnership agreement signed in 2000 because of the Hon Parekura Horomia and also because of the Hon Jim Sutton. They in fact did consult on the Treaty clause. In fact there were hui held in Christchurch Rotorua South Auckland and Whangarei. The interesting thing about the Treaty clause is that we expanded the Treaty clause—and when I say "we" I say Labour. I've got a letter here from the then Leader of the Opposition the Rt Hon Jenny Shipley and I'll read it. It says "As a result of the outreach we have conducted with Māori on the CEP with Singapore our MFAT view is that the proposed article on the Treaty of Waitangi needs to be broadened to make it clear that it is not just actions taken to fulfil Treaty obligations that would be exempted from the agreement but also affirmative action programmes for Māori—e.g. closing the gaps—which may not be directly linked to a specific Treaty obligation." The National Party nearly voted against that agreement because of our expansion of that Treaty exemption and I find it incredibly interesting the ignorance that people had about where that Treaty clause came from. Now is it fit for purpose today? The Waitangi Tribunal says yes: "There may be a chilling effect of the Government"—but that's us and I have confidence that our Government will not be compromised—CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. Your time has expired."