Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill

Thank you very much for the call on the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill, which was introduced in 2008. Can I also, on behalf of New Zealand First, just reassert the fact that this bill was brought to the House during a sad, dark time in Parliament—when New Zealand First was not in this House between 2008 and 2011. The bill has taken close to 6 years now to be back in this House. But now that we are back in the House in a more enlightened time, with New Zealand First here to represent the interests of New Zealanders first, I am very pleased to speak on this bill.

It is somewhat ironic that I sit on the Local Government and Environment Committee. The Government is very quick to criticise local government for supposedly having what you could regard as being inadequacies in terms of its efficiency, according to the Government’s agenda. To therefore see a bill like this, which has taken 6 years to get to this point, would actually raise the point that if central government takes 6 years for a flimsy bit of paper—a bill that is only 23 pages long—to get through this House, then much of the finger-pointing from central government at local government for not doing its job adequately is certainly not founded on any fact at all.

This bill is about putting in place safeguards to basically ensure that there is not dumping on our market. It is basically an anti-dumping bill, so that if an international organisation were exporting to this country and were seen to be dumping goods here in this market, the Minister would have the right to intervene. This is in accordance with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and to meet WTO recommendations and standards that this be implemented. Therefore, New Zealand First supports it because we do feel that is right and proper. If New Zealand is seen as a dumping ground—and there have been instances where, because we are an island nation and because we are away from many of the major markets, we have on the odd occasion been seen as a place to conveniently move goods to, to get rid of them, because we do not have common land borders with other countries. Therefore, goods can be offloaded into this market and got rid of without too much effect on any other neighbouring markets. Therefore, it is a good measure to give the Minister the ability to move in with safeguards if such an occurrence occurs.

Having said that, the question does have to be asked whether, if this was such a good measure—and it was brought in by the Hon Lianne Dalziel, introduced in 2008 under the former Labour Government, obviously with the support of the New Zealand First Party at that time—why has the National Government taken all this time to bring in something that basically does safeguard local industry in New Zealand from dumping? It is a sad indictment on this Government, and that is no criticism of the current Minister of Commerce because he has obviously been given a hospital pass on this one, and he has picked up the ball and is running with it, and good on the Hon Craig Foss for doing that. But it is an indictment on his predecessors, whoever those Ministers were, that this bill has taken this amount of time to get through the House.

This measure does give a level of protection to our industry, to our manufacturers, to our local producers in New Zealand to stop international dumping on our market. New Zealand First has been very adamant that we do have to ensure that this Government does protect what happens here with our industries in New Zealand. It is surprising that this Government has paid lip-service to that by not bringing this bill through the House much quicker than it has. It would be interesting to have this quantified, and it would be very interesting to see what instances may have occurred in those years intervening, between 2008 and 2014. It would be very interesting, in terms of this, to see what effects there may have been on some industries. We have seen industries close down in this country and move their manufacturing offshore. We have seen companies in New Zealand sail close to the wind, in terms of their economic viability. It would be interesting to see whether in the 6-year period, had this bill been in effect in 2009 or 2010 when the National Party, which by that stage was in Government, some of the trade and industry in New Zealand would have been better protected as a result of having this bill in place.

New Zealand First has always said that we will support good policy and we will oppose bad policy. In this instance, we believe that this is good policy. This is good for New Zealand and this is good for the economy of New Zealand. We believe it is in the interests of our WTO commitments globally, in terms of ensuring that the right rules and protections are in place on the global stage. New Zealand First will therefore be supporting this bill and commending it to the Committee.

I was rather hoping the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Commerce, would beat me to my feet to answer the questions put to him by Phil Goff around the commencement date—

💬 David Shearer: He’s not that quick.

My colleagues are making sport with that statement, but it was a very real hope. Really, it has to do with the date of Royal assent, because the point that was very well articulated by Phil Goff was that when this bill, the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill, has been around for 6 years and purports to deal with an issue—products being subsidised or dumped on the New Zealand market—we need some examples of when this has happened or where it has happened or what industries are under threat currently.

Why is it that the Government has introduced this legislation now, at this point in time, again to the Committee? It has been in abeyance, I think, for a year since it was last here, since Andrew Williams last had the opportunity to speak on it. I heard his concern that this is a different time and the issues need to be raised again, and rightly so. The Minister has the opportunity to inform the Committee which industries are under threat and when safeguards were last used as a method of dealing with subsidised or dumped goods. The safeguards are an emergency measure that is applied at the New Zealand border. It is not something that is used from day to day, as I understand it, but the Minister ought to be able to tell us in that instance—because it will not be an often occurring thing—just which industries are under threat.

The pair of shoes that I commonly wear is manufactured locally in Dunedin and is from a small company, and I would hate to think that it was being undermined by dumping. It is the last one in New Zealand. McKinlays Footwear is the last company making shoes in a factory on a reasonable scale in New Zealand. It makes a high-quality product. It is not going to be undermined if there are hundreds of faux Italian shoes on the market; it is going to be undermined by a particular type of dumping. Is it under threat? Is it under threat?

Non-primary manufactured goods went down 6.5 percent in real terms last year, in the 2013 year—

💬 David Shearer: What?

They went down 6.5 percent in real terms—non-primary manufactured goods.

💬 David Shearer: That’s a collapse.

That is a collapse. The Minister keeps trying to say there is no crisis in manufacturing. We are not wanting to overstate it, but there is a very real issue in terms of the balance of New Zealand’s trade that has not been addressed by this Government. It has not managed to find that balance to get New Zealand into the right space, and still we are running up debt. I mean, this Government has had 5 years where it has not run a surplus. Labour ran a surplus for 9 out of 9 years. This Government does have a problem balancing the books, and it has not found a way of doing that.

Presumably, these safeguard measures are designed to ensure that small and medium sized enterprises that are manufacturing and exporting—for example, like the shoe company I raised—ought to be protected in some way. These rules are designed to bring us into compliance with the World Trade Organization rules that allow the kind of fair trading across borders that protects us against malicious kinds of behaviour designed to undermine competitiveness through one-off dumping manoeuvres.

So we support this bill, but we are concerned about just what is being protected, why, and when, and whether, in fact, the Government has any urgency on this at all, or whether we are going to see this bill further postponed and pushed out potentially to after the election, because the Minister has not given us that comfort around what the urgency is now, 6 years on. The bill originally was introduced by the Hon Lianne Dalziel, who is now the Mayor of Christchurch, during the last Government—

💬 Carol Beaumont: A fine woman.

A fine woman, as my colleague Carol Beaumont says—

I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to report progress.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Electoral Amendment Bill without amendment, the Families Commission Amendment Bill without amendment, the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill without amendment, and that the Committee had divided it into two bills, and progress on the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill.

Report adopted.