Norman Russel: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNorman Russel: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 26 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6160. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]7.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Green) to the Minister of Trade: Will the New Zealand Parliament be able to modify the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement if the Government signs the TPPA; and is it Parliament or Cabinet that ratifies the TPPA?Hon TODD McCLAY (Acting Minister of Trade): I welcome the question from the member. The Cabinet Manual and the Standing Orders set out the procedure for Parliament’s examination of international treaties and as with all international treaties Parliament is not able to amend parts of a treaty. However Parliament has significant involvement prior to ratification of an agreement. Although it is the executive that ratifies treaties Parliament has an important role to play in the treaty examination process. The executive will only ratify a free-trade agreement after Parliament’s completion of treaty examinations.Dr Russel Norman: So would a correct summary of the Minister’s answer be that the New Zealand Parliament is not able to modify the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement once the Government has signed it and that it is Cabinet not Parliament that ratifies the treaty?Hon TODD McCLAY: As with my first answer the rules around this in so far as the Cabinet Manual and the Standing Orders are concerned are clear. But it is correct to say that no one single country can amend an agreement unilaterally and therefore not one of the 12 countries can amend the agreement should agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership be reached. This is the same with agreements that we sign up to under the World Trade Organization and the UN. It is also important I think to note that for New Zealand the reason this is something that is in place is so that any hard-fought gains that we receive through that negotiation cannot be changed following agreement.Dr Russel Norman: Does it strike him as a particularly democratic process when the elected members of the House of Representatives have no ability to influence the negotiation because it is done in secret elected MPs cannot modify the agreement once it has been signed in secret by the Government and nor does Parliament have any decisive say over whether New Zealand ratifies the agreement?Hon TODD McCLAY: It strikes me that this is the same procedure that has been followed for a number of agreements that have gone through this Parliament—indeed it is the same procedure that took place in the China free-trade agreement the Hong Kong agreement and most recently the Korean agreement. But I would say as has been publicly stated that if the Trans-Pacific Partnership is agreed we are likely to see a different procedure in the way that it is followed through in this Parliament than was the case with China. It will be close to the Korean agreement where the agreement was available prior to signing. Certainly the parliamentary process must be finished before ratification will take place.Dr Russel Norman: Has he seen the statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s lead negotiator on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement which said that all explanatory material from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations such as briefings to Ministers would be kept secret for 4 years after the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement comes into force; and will not keeping that material secret make it very difficult for ordinary New Zealanders to get their heads around the detail of the treaty which is the size of a book and is written in—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Hon Todd McClay—either of those two supplementary questions.Hon TODD McCLAY: The procedure that will be followed here is that the agreement will be available for the honourable member others in this Parliament and the public to see prior to signature. We will need to follow the same procedure that has been in place in this Parliament for all other agreements through the treaty examination procedures before ratification takes place. Our Minister of Trade is negotiating the very best deal possible for New Zealand. The Government has said that it will sign up to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement only if it is in the best interests of New Zealand. I think the public will have plenty of time to go over the very detailed text of this agreement before that member gets to cast further doubt upon it.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was specifically about the explanatory material—Mr SPEAKER: Order! No I listened very carefully to the question. It was not specific enough; in fact there were at least two questions in the question. I cannot help the member if he does not ask a concise question to get the answer that might be more satisfactory to him.Fletcher Tabuteau: Has the Minister of Trade provided a briefing to the Minister of health and safety on the secretive closed and undemocratic investor-State dispute settlement clauses within the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement regarding the new secret tribunal provisions inside legislation currently being debated in the House?Hon TODD McCLAY: Well there is no such Minister and there is actually no such secret undemocratic agreement floating out there anywhere around these issues. But I think that the Minister of Trade has been clear. In as far as the investor-State dispute settlement provisions are concerned it is important that we negotiate a position where the New Zealand Government has the ability to pass regulation and law and at the same time where we are able to protect New Zealand investors when they invest in other countries as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement where those countries may not have the same approach to democracy that we do here.