Submission of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand on a Free Trade Agreement between China and New Zealand

Below are the Executive Summary and Contents of the Green Party Submission on a Free Trade Agreement between China and New Zealand. For the full document, please see Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand Submission on a Free Trade Agreement between China and New Zealand [PDF 137 kB].

Executive Summary

The Green Party is opposed to a free trade agreement (FTA) between China and New Zealand.

The reasons for this are:

• it would lead to further destruction of New Zealand manufacturing capacity and the loss of jobs and firms in secondary production

• it is grossly unfair to New Zealand enterprises and workers to be forced to compete with China-based export manufacturers who are heavily government-subsidised and do not meet basic standards of justice and sustainability with regard labour conditions and pay rates, human rights and environmental protection
• further trade liberalisation will exacerbate environmental unsustainability and social inequality, and is not in New Zealand's short-term or long-term interests
• it will exacerbate New Zealand's record trade deficit, with China and with the rest of the world
• it will establish a preferential trading relationship with a country that refuses to ratify core ILO standards and which abuses the human rights of its own citizens and those of the territories which is has illegally annexed

The Green Party also has strong concerns about:

• the lack of a full cost-benefit analysis of the likely economic, social and environmental impacts of the FTA, and full public consultation based on such a CBA

• the lack of parliamentary oversight and sign-off of the treaty-making process
• the use of bilaterals to subvert or circumvent attempts to set and enforce fair multilateral trading rules, and to include non-trade issues (e.g. investment, government procurement)
• the long-term economic, social and environmental implications of increasing import dependency instead of moving towards self-reliance in a world where the major fuel used for transporting trade goods — oil — is declining in availability, rising in price, and causes damage to the climate when used excessively (as it is currently being used)
• the recognition of China as a 'market economy' when the USA, Australia and other major states are not prepared to recognise it as such, for very good reasons

Contents

1. The Green Party position on trade 3 2. The truth about 'free' trade — the emperor has no clothes 3 3. The treaty-making process — reducing the democracy deficit 5 4. Setting and subverting the rules 6 5. Trade-related environmental abuses 9 6. Economic development — the role of tariffs 10 7. Foreign investment — a cautionary approach 11 8. Conclusion — back to the drawing board 11 Appendix A 13 Appendix B 15 Appendix C 17

Submission of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand on a Free Trade Agreement between China and New Zealand