Coates BarryBARRY COATES (Green): I would like to speak to this bill—the Our Work Our Future Bill. It would be nice to get beyond petty political point-scoring because a lot of companies out there really care about these issues and I commend Labour for introducing this bill. I think it is an important bill and we support it. The aim for procurement policy should not just be to get the cheapest product. We all know that in our own procurement when we buy stuff from a shop we do not necessarily go for the cheapest price—we do not even necessarily go for the cheapest cost on a long-run basis. We go for the best value and that is what this bill is about. It is about getting the best value from procurement for the New Zealand economy. I think to that extent it is exactly the direction that our procurement policy should be going.We would as a Green Party go a bit further. There are different dimensions to this procurement policy. The first is a kind of strategic procurement approach and that helps small New Zealand businesses to get a foothold. Contracts can be structured in ways that will enable New Zealand businesses to compete for them—or not. That is one of the things that this bill aims to do. It aims to break contracts down to the level that allows New Zealand businesses to be able to compete on a fair footing for a procurement contract. From that perspective it is sensible policy.Secondly a procurement policy based on value allows the incorporation of the value to the local economy and the local jobs and all of the spin-off benefits that come from local value added in the economy. Thirdly it allows for the consideration of issues of sustainability and of course that is important for the Green Party because we should not be undertaking procurement contracts that do not respect the environment and do not respect social issues for workers and for communities. Finally procurement should be fair—it should be fair to all parties. This is where I think the current policy has got severely offside. As Oscar Wilde said where we are going down a track with procurement under this Government is to know the price of everything and the value of nothing". That is exactly the policy that is being followed at the moment by this Government.This bill would help us to understand the value of procurement in a deeper way. It is within the longer term and wider context. It is within the context of the manufacturing sector in New Zealand being torn apart. It was torn apart previously but increasingly it is also being torn apart under this Government. The Green Party recently released its policy for a ministry of manufacturing. We showed that 17500 manufacturing jobs have been lost under the National Government. That is a tragedy for this country because they are good jobs they are well-paying jobs and they are vital jobs for the future of our manufacturing and our exports.So what are we talking about with this bill? We are talking about contracts that allow New Zealand companies to compete on a fair basis. Is this agreement in accordance with current trade obligations? The other side of the House the National members would say: "No this bill runs afoul of our existing trade commitments."There are two issues here. Firstly that our Government has been lightly entering into trade commitments that it should not have been entering into because they will constrain sensible policies that are for the benefit of the New Zealand economy and in the New Zealand interest. It is a good thing that the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is not going ahead. Secondly there are already flexibilities within these agreements that would allow us to be able to do what this bill proposes: to be able to structure contracts not so that we are paying inflated prices to uncompetitive New Zealand firms but to give New Zealand firms a fair chance to get a foothold to get a start in manufacturing and services and to be able to establish a base so that they can then go and compete with imports and compete internationally. Thank you. We commend this bill."