Labour appears set on extracting political capital out of the widespread perception of undue haste in reaching the India-NZ Free Trade Agreement (FTA), National’s breakthrough moment in an election year.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has written to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in a bid to fend off any impression that his party’s backing for enabling legislation can be taken for granted.
The government needs support from the Opposition to pass the trade deal through Parliament.
Hipkins’ February 13 letter notes that Labour is aggrieved at not being made a party to the negotiation process and laments the absence of a “spirit of bipartisanship.”
Hipkins faults Luxon’s government for “falling short of best practice.”
Particularly worrisome is the built-in risk of committing $33 billion of private sector investment in India over a 15-year timeframe in the agri sector that gives India the right to “unilaterally revoke market access” for those products incase of a shortfall.
Exploiting the fault lines within the National-led coalition,caused by New Zealand First leader and Foreign Minister Winston Peters’withdrawal of support to the deal under the “agree to disagree” clause of the Coalition Agreement, Hipkins has sought the release of the unredacted official advice provided on the trade accord.
In a televised rejoinder to Hipkins on February 15, Trade Minister Todd McClay parried Hipkins by a combination of block-and-thrust moves.
He denies the NZ $33 billion private sector investment isbinding, calling it “aspirational” instead.
Going beyond trade figures, Hipkins’ letter calls for greater protections for “ victims of modern slavery in New Zealand.”
He wants the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to recruit more compliance officers and to put work visas out of the reach of individual employers.
But what causes pause for thought is that while Labour does not object to the 1667 temporary employment entry visas proposed annually in the FTA, McClay has since confirmed that family members of Indian workers who qualify to enter New Zealand under the deal’s new visa regime will not be permitted to bring their families.
This appears to be an afterthought that has sprung out of the raised temperature of the pre-election debate around immigration and the need to cap student inflows from India.
It questions the veracity and conviction of the government’s claim that the India Free Trade Agreement has the “potential to be as groundbreaking and fundamentally significant for the New Zealand economy as the China one was.”
That claim of parity falters when comparisons are drawn with the China trade deal which expressly allows for temporary employment visa holders entering New Zealand to be accompanied by their families.
This disparity in the terms of entry for temporary work visa holders from China and India, respectively, feeds into the Far Right narrative echoed by NZ First deputy leader Shane Jones who has publicly denounced the trade deal, saying New Zealand “does not need more Uber drivers.”
Memories are still fresh of the visit to New Zealand last month by British politician Nigel Farage’s party colleague, Gawain Towler, whose Reform UK party rides a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment. Towler arrived in New Zealand to a rousing welcome by NZ First leaders.
But Labour’s ambivalence on ratifying the trade deal inParliament opens it up to the risk of being seen as an outlier in New Zealand politics.
McClay has set the pitch in advance by invoking the bipartisanship of trade, shifting the onus on Hipkins to establish the distinction between best practice and political theatre.
Venu Menon is a senior journalist based in Wellington. He wasConsulting Editor of The Hindu in India prior to moving to New Zealand.