Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill

Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) Link to this

I move, That the Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I am pleased to bring this bill, the Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill, to the House this evening. Slavery was abolished in Britain in the nineteenth century, and the ban on slavery is a foundation stone of modern international human rights law. It is unambiguously prohibited by international law, and the few Governments that tolerate it can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Despite this, the evil of slavery continues, with estimates ranging from 12 million to 29 million people enslaved. Despite bans in law, I am advised that hereditary slavery continues in Mauritania and Niger, while the use of child slaves is widespread in parts of West Africa. There are regular cases from Asia of parents selling their children into slavery, and debt slavery continues to occur in parts of the Asian subcontinent and in South America.

Banning the fruits of this vile traffic is a moral imperative and moral necessity. We live in the 21st century. Globalisation has brought trading partners closer together and opened up opportunities for the exchange of goods on a scale not known before. Just recently in this House, we passed legislation enabling the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand free-trade agreement to proceed, thereby opening up huge markets to rapidly reducing tariffs for our exporters. But globalised trade does not happen in a moral vacuum, and that is the starting point for my bill. Although I am a strong supporter of free trade, for many reasons, not the least of them being that I believe New Zealanders’ quality of life is dependent upon the wealth and the jobs created from tradable commodities and services, I do not believe in trade at any price. Trade must occur at the right price, a fair price, and an ethical price. Fair trade and ethical trade are the starting points for this debate.

This bill presents the New Zealand Parliament with an opportunity to explore in good faith how free trade and human rights might be accommodated in a principled and thoughtful way. Earlier this year the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee considered the petition of Geoff White, on behalf of Trade Aid and 17,000 others, requesting just this: that the House legislate against the importation of products made by slave labour. The question was considered and reported back to the House, with a Green Party view expressing a desire for legislation. The conversation around this issue has continued within the Labour Party since that time, along the lines that, notwithstanding any practical difficulties of attestation, proof, and enforcement, it was still worthwhile to bring a bill to a select committee for consideration, investigation, and amendment where appropriate.

There is no doubt that this bill represents an idealistic position, but I do not make any apology for that. It is not the first idealistic position I have adopted, and I hope it will not be the last one. The mechanism for achieving the ends sought in this bill is the addition of a definition of “slave labour” to the definition clause of the Customs and Excise Act 1996, and the insertion of another clause into schedule 1 of that Act. These are modest proposals. I have no interest in scoring points on this issue. I seek, in good faith, to present a bill before the House that we can debate in a select committee where improvement can be made, in order that New Zealand can stand up and say that our law bans the importation of goods produced by slave labour. There would not be a member in this House who would for a moment support slave labour, or the fruits of it; not one member in this House, I am sure. [Interruption]. Perhaps one has just walked in. This bill is being brought forward without any sense of positioning or point-scoring in mind. I have only the desire to bring to the fore a discussion about an ethical and a morally based position on trade in this Parliament.

Although international trade rules, for example GATT, do not contain specific permission to ban goods produced by slavery, they allow measures necessary to protect public morals, human life and health, or to ban goods produced by prison labour, which is article 20 of GATT. Schedule 1 of the Customs and Excise Act 1996, which this bill seeks to amend, accordingly states that “Goods manufactured or produced wholly or in part by prison labour” are prohibited goods. The same efforts and mechanisms that are used to enforce that statute might be used to enforce the provisions of this bill. In fact, examination at the select committee might produce even better mechanisms than the ones we have. I do not have a monopoly on that wisdom. I was not a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee at the time it considered the original petition from Trade Aid. But, as I say, the conversation has continued within the Labour Party around this matter since that time. The United States has the Tariff Act of 1930, which unambiguously bars the entry of goods produced by any form of forced labour, including slave and child labour. Belgium has a Government-endorsed voluntary social label, which producers can sign up to, that declares absolutely that their goods are not produced by slave labour. So there are two models already out there in the international arena that we could consider more closely in the application to New Zealand legislation.

We should all aspire to a global economic system that trades sustainably and ethically. I do not believe this is pie-in-the-sky legislation. I believe that all of us should look beyond current structures, current economic systems, and current constraints to a world where we know that what we consume has not been produced by means of “labour by persons over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.” That is the definition I seek to include in the amendment to the Customs and Excise Act. That is a definition of slavery that echoes the wording of the 1926 Slavery Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. New Zealand is a party to both of those pieces of international law. Let us see whether we can find a way to make our universal, undoubted commitment to the abolition of slavery in all its forms practical in our trading relationships. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Hon TIM GROSER (Minister of Trade) Link to this

National will not be supporting the referral of the Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, from whence the issue it addresses basically came in February this year. But I want to share some sentiments with the member whose bill this is, the Hon Maryan Street. I would argue that if anyone is honest about this issue they have to admit that the member is correct: the conversation continues. We all struggle with this issue. Not just decent people in this country, but people around the world struggle with this issue.

I will not make a speech about the abhorrence of slavery. I accept what the member has just said, and no member in this House—one small joke aside, which we will pass over quickly—would fail to share that view. The historical image is forever in our minds of the slave ships, and those of us who saw President Obama inspect one of the awful sites from which they came, in his historical homeland, have had this image refreshed in our collective memories only in the last few days. The problems are many and varied. The traditions of servitude and forced labour in many societies prove to be extraordinarily hard to eradicate.

Extensive evidence was given to members of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee—I had the privilege of being on that committee—when we were considering this issue in the course of 2008. It may well have started in 2007; I do not recall when, precisely, we started to wrestle with this issue. Many fine minds, particularly in the United States—where, for reasons that are stunningly obvious, more anti-slavery non-governmental organisations exist than in any other country—grapple with the issues that I know the member is trying to focus political attention on.

I think we all understand that the long-term solution is sustainable economic development. The world has made extraordinary progress in the last 30 years, not eradicating but reducing absolute poverty, the breeding ground for appalling labour conditions of which slavery is the most abhorrent. We all understand that solution. There is a variety of different views on how to establish it, but sustainable economic development, plus the spread of human rights, is the long-term solution. I am one of those who strongly believe there are linkages between those two big objectives, those two fundamental solutions. But that solution is not fast enough for us; we all understand that. From time to time people take the initiative to see whether there is something more that we can do, and this member’s bill is the latest example of that.

As the select committee found when it went through the issues with a high level of consensus in the committee, the problems start with the definition. This is not particular to us; even this century, starting from the 1930 ILO definition around forced labour, people have struggled with defining this problem. It is simple if we have a very narrow definition that would be associated with what I call the historical image of the slave ships. But the moment we widen that definition, as the member’s bill does, we have some real problems in trying to target what is legitimate and realisable from what is illegitimate. It is deeply in contention by many, many developing countries, and it would lead to massive disputation were we to proceed down that track. The member’s bill is a fair effort, but the definition is broad: “labour by persons over whom any or all”—emphasising the word “any”—“of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.” I guarantee that any attempt to define this unilaterally and impose an import ban would cause real problems for any country moving in that direction.

The second fundamental problem behind the definitional issues is that the very success of the spread of economic development and the growth of the global supply-chain associated with it compounds the difficulty. So many different products from so many different countries are incorporated in a final product. In the climate change discussions that I had the privilege of attending in Singapore last week under the Rt Hon Simon Upton, the chairman of the OECD committee on sustainable development, we grappled with an example that I think illustrates it well, but with a different frame of mind. The issue was whether we could apply unilaterally border tax adjustments to countries not doing the right thing on climate change, and people were using the example of the Apple iPod. As one of our ministerial colleagues pointed out, when it arrives in the United States it has “Made in China” stamped on the box. Actually, an analysis of an Apple iPod has been done. The recommended retail price in the United States is $299—round it up to $300. Only $4 of that stays in China; $130 of it stays in the United States, because the real value in these products is the intellectual property in them; and 20 or so other countries are involved in manufacturing the components. How any New Zealand customs officer would try to disaggregate a problem like that when the reality of the global supply-chain massively compounds the problem defeated the select committee. I am sorry to say that, were we to refer this bill back to the committee, the problem would defeat the committee once again.

Another example—and it is, in the nasty sense of the word, the poster child of this issue—is cocoa. The countries that most of the international attention is directed at are Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. Of course there is grave concern about the labour conditions in those two desperately poor countries, but all attempts to define this concern in a more operationally effective way by many non-governmental organisations, many Governments, and many international negotiations have failed to establish a consensus on this matter. The second most at-risk product, sugar, would emerge in numerous foodstuffs imported into New Zealand. How would we ever be able to differentiate between products made from this wide definition of “slavery” and products made simply by poor people? Most of the sugar in the world is produced by poor people, and it is a very good thing that we import sugar. I remember being party, as a very junior person in the New Zealand system many years ago, to a decision in the 1970s that stopped the beet production of sugar in this country, precisely to allow Pacific Island countries, and Fiji in particular, the opportunity to export to New Zealand. I thought it was a fantastic moral decision taken at the time. The importation of sugar from poor countries is part of the solution, not part of the problem.

The way forward will be murky, as it always has been. It will rely on a multiplicity of efforts and on New Zealand’s and other countries’ participation in a variety of United Nations institutions. The UN itself is very active in this area, as is the United Nations Human Rights Council and the ILO. New Zealand is a party to the 1926 Slavery Convention, the ILO Convention 29 Concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour, and certain other conventions that I am not so familiar with but that are directed at the same general policy area. In addition to those conventions, and I give credit to the previous Government for this, we have promoted trade and labour side agreements in our free-trade agreements. That promotion obviously falls way short of driving the level of ambition that we all want, but at least it moves the trade and labour debates in a mutually supportive way.

We are continuing that tradition with this Government. We will also support the further development of guidelines of a voluntary nature. Often people are very reckless with the international trading system. They think trade bans, trade embargoes, and trade threats can solve each and every problem, when there is abundant evidence that that is a gross simplification. Actually, a lot of very useful progress can be made with voluntary codes. We will continue to support efforts in the OECD, corporate social responsibility codes, and others.

To sum up, I accept the underlying premise of the member’s bill that the conversation has not ended. It has not ended anywhere in this world. We will continue to work on it, but yet another examination by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee would not lead us very far.

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Labour—Te Atatū) Link to this

Kia ora koutou katoa. I rise to support the Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill. While listening to the presentation from National MP Tim Groser, the Minister of Trade, I thought back to 202 years ago, when in the imperial Parliament in London, the Slave Trade Act was passed in 1807. I thought about the speeches that were no doubt given in the British Parliament by ship owners from Liverpool, Bristol, and Southampton. I thought about the interests of the great sugar plantation owners in Jamaica and Trinidad. I thought about the American merchants who were involved in the slave trade, as human beings were carted from the west coast of Africa to the slave plantations of America and the West Indies. I thought about the cotton and sugar that was returned to Britain to be processed in the mills that my ancestors and those of many others here probably worked in at that time.

I also thought about the arguments that would have been marshalled against William Wilberforce as he proposed year after year in the British Parliament that slavery, that pernicious system, should be abolished. I thought that some of those speeches from some of the rich ship owners, plantation slave owners, cotton merchants, and sugar merchants would have been just like Mr Groser’s speech. Those speeches would have been about how trade was the lifeblood of their empire. They would have been about why Britain had to be strong. They would have been about money. They would have been about why Britain could not take a lead on the issue of slavery.

Mr Wilberforce, persistent man that he was, managed to convince enough British MPs to support his legislation. Then, in 1833, the slaves themselves were freed in the year that Wilberforce died. Again, that was an amazing action by the British Government. It was an action that almost bankrupted Britain. The Prime Minister at the time spent 25 percent of the Budget of the then richest country in the world in order to free the slaves, because enough people in Britain felt that slavery was a wicked institution and should not exist.

And, yes, Mr Groser acknowledged the image that we all have of the slave ships as they went from West Africa across the Atlantic to the Americas: the degradation, the suffering, the pain, the death, the indignity, and the wickedness of it. But I say to Mr Groser that I have an image of children in West Africa today: one of children who are bonded slaves. I have an image of debt bonding in India, in Paraguay, in Peru, and in other developing countries where people are sold into slavery, much as they sold were into slavery on the plantations of Jamaica, Trinidad, and Cuba, and of South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. These are modern-day slaves. Yes, they exist today.

All that my colleague is saying is that we should send this bill to a select committee so that we can look at it. We may be able to do what Belgium has done, and get businesses to sign up to say they will not import goods made by slave labour. Of course, at the moment we say there is a total ban on importing goods produced by prison labour. How can this be different from that? How could it be more difficult to identify goods made by slave labour and implement a ban on importing them, especially if we follow the Belgian track of saying businesses can do this on their own initiative? I do not know which system we might approve or find the most acceptable.

Like my colleague Maryan Street, I am a proponent of free trade. Last year, as the then Minister of Education, I was with our then Prime Minister, Helen Clark, in Beijing when we signed the historic free-trade agreement with China. For 9 years the previous Labour Government was the most active Government New Zealand has ever had in terms of doing trade deals. We signed the four-way deal with Chile, Brunei, and Singapore. We signed a free-trade agreement with China, and we were the first Western country to do so. We are engaged in free-trade negotiations with India and Korea. We have signed a free-trade agreement with ASEAN. Labour has a proud record on trade, but we also have a very proud record on having a moral foreign policy.

Last night in this House we debated, and we all agreed, that there should be a ban on cluster weapons. Why is there not a consensus here? Could it be because money is involved? Could it be that Mr Groser is very much the heir of the plantation owners and the great merchants who grew fat on the basis of the slave trade?

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) Link to this

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill in the name of Maryan Street.

I think the last speaker, Chris Carter, was a little shrill, particularly in saying that the Labour Government was responsible for opening up a lot of trade. That is absolutely true, but when we point to China, which is one of the countries that has been identified as being associated with enforced labour, we see there is a problem with his argument.

It is important to state right from the beginning that the altruism behind this bill is absolutely correct: slavery or coerced labour is totally repugnant. However, the reasons that National is not supporting this bill relate to the fact that ministry advisers, and the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee report on a petition brought to it in February this year, have suggested that a bill such as this is unworkable.

I note that there are varying estimates of how many people around the world are subject to slavery or coerced labour. It is most likely to be in the millions. I was quite shocked to see a recent US State Department report suggesting just how close to home the problem is. The report of 2008 noted 14 countries where Governments do not fully comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so. Sadly, two of those countries are Fiji and Papua New Guinea. I think that is of great concern to us here in the South Pacific. But, as members will know, New Zealand is one of the many countries that have a proud record of standing up for human rights. It is also a signatory to the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery.

However, as I said earlier on, one of the important issues behind this bill—and why National members are opposing it—is its unworkability. That was brought out very clearly in the report on the petition of Geoff White on behalf of Trade Aid and 17,000 others. Firstly, in relation to international trade rules, the report states: “We were told by the ministry that in the context of international trade rules New Zealand would need to consider a number of technical issues if it were to impose a trade ban on goods proven to have been produced by slave labour.” My colleague Tim Groser certainly explained the complexities of the problems in relation to goods that have multiple derivations from different places and are made up from different parts.

I understand that New Zealand would need to prove that any such trade ban was not a disguised restriction on trade, and that in itself would be quite a difficult thing to do. The other important point is that enforcement of a ban technically would be difficult. There was a section in the report, though, on corporate social responsibility, which suggested that corporate enterprises could voluntarily apply a label to their products stating that they were not produced using slave labour. This is a practical suggestion that I think could be applied on a voluntary basis to companies throughout New Zealand.

The report’s conclusion noted: “We received a briefing from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade that set out the difficulties in implementing legislation in New Zealand along the lines of the United States or the Belgian legislation.” I believe that the suggestion made in the introductory speech on this bill that we could do this was somewhat misleading. The report states: “The purpose of the US Alien Tort Claims Act is not primarily to combat the trade in slave labour products; rather, it is a historical piece of legislation to enable tort claims to be filed in the US for breaches by US multinational corporations of international law … The Belgian legislation established a government-endorsed voluntary ‘social label’ …”.

The altruism attached to this bill is absolutely correct, but the applicability of it technically is difficult.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) Link to this

The Green Party strongly supports this bill. We are pleased with the response of both Labour and National on this issue. As Maryan Street said, the Green Party presented a minority report when the petition by Geoff White and 17,000 others came before the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. As she said, further discussions in the Labour Party have brought Labour and the Greens together in promoting such legislation.

I was pleased with Tim Groser’s phrase “the conversation continues.” I hope the conversation continues within National, and hopefully at some point we will have consensus in this House on proceeding with such legislation. The big objection of National is that it will be difficult, there will be disputes, and some countries might disagree. Surely, that is the way progress happens.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this

I too rise with my colleagues to support my good colleague Maryan Street in bringing the Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill forward to the House. Tonight we have heard a number of references to the disgusting historical practice of slavery that is such a blight on the history of a number of nations in this world.

Slavery is still a reality in a number of parts of the world. It is quite easy to stand in the House, speak about it, and say it is a problem, and we have to keep the conversation going; it is something we need to talk about. But here tonight is our opportunity to take one small step to do something about it, and to say that New Zealand is prepared to discuss this issue in a serious way in order to work out how we can reflect, in our law, our abhorrence of slavery and our desire not to consume products that are produced as a result of those who are in slavery.

Today in the world, particularly, as my colleague Chris Carter said, in West Africa, there are numerous examples of slavery that I hope every single person in this House would find abhorrent. It has been said in the past that a lot of it is in countries like Angola, the Sudan, Somalia, or Chad where there has been conflict. Slavery is somehow or other a result of that conflict. People have found themselves kidnapped or captured and then forced into work as part of war. But the reality is it is much more than that in Africa. It is actually in more peaceful countries like Côte d’Ivoire, as Mr Groser said earlier, or Burkina Faso, or Benin. Those are countries that otherwise stand on the world stage as people whom we work with and deal with at places like the United Nations, but in those countries today millions of people are in slavery. It is quite difficult for people to think of a situation where there are brokers scouting for children in poor families in rural areas in places like Benin in order to take children into slavery. There are people who are there doing that.

Then we look around other parts of the world, in places like in Nigeria where there are children’s markets. They have been found within the last 10 years, where a special child-slave stock market is in place in Côte d’Ivoire. Child slaves in Africa are a reality today, and this bill, although it is a long way from being able to change it, to stop it, to end it, is a chance for us as New Zealanders to say in our law that we do not accept products that are produced as a result of slave labour.

We have heard that this is a difficult issue, but it is only a difficult issue because we are not prepared to take the steps, to have the conversation, and to make the law. Lots of things that we debate in this House are difficult. Lots of bills that we send to select committees are not perfect when we send them to a select committee, but we send them there so we can have a conversation where we can come up with language and a law that reflects the values I am hearing about tonight from across the House. It is great to hear the Minister say that slave labour is an issue of concern and an issue that we need to work on, but we could send this bill to a select committee and actually make a difference.

There is precedent for this bill in the world, and I want to correct Mr Hutchison’s statement earlier on, when he said the Alien Tort Claims Act is the US legislation that governed this issue. It is not; it is the US Tariff Act 1930, and it unambiguously bans the entry of goods produced by any form of forced labour, including slave and child labour. So there is international precedent; it is there for us and we can keep working on it. Mr Groser also mentioned some of the other issues, including the fact that we have trade and labour agreements in our free-trade agreements. That is a good start and a good way to engage with countries on the important issues of labour conditions. But this legislation would set the principles by which we would do that.

Let us look at the definition and how it can be put in place. If it is good enough in schedule 1 of the Customs and Excise Act to ban goods produced by prison labour, surely it is good enough to ban goods produced by slave labour.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) Link to this

Ā, tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātau e te Whare, tēnā koutou katoa e te whānau. Hoi anō, i ahau e rangahau ana i te pire nei ka puta mai te pukuriri. Tata atu ki te kotahi rau rua tekau pāuna te utu ki te hoko i ngā hū omaoma wāhine, Adidas i te Kotahitanga o Ingarangi. Ko tērā te pūtea e riro ai te kaimahi o Adidas mō ngā marama e toru. Kia kaua hoki tātou e pōhēhē he wiki mahi whā tekau hāora noa iho te roa. Whitu tekau hāora te roa o te wiki mahi mō ngā manomano kaimahi o ngā whare hanga-hū o Adidas ki Haina. Kei te takahi a Adidas i ngā ture mahi o Haina, kei te whati anō hoki i ō rātou ake aratohu. Hakoa tērā kei te mahia tōnutia.

Kua whakatūria e Nike ngā whare tōtā i Haina, i Initōnihia, i Whitināmu hoki. E 20 hēneti ia hāora te pūtea ka riro mā te kaimahi ki Whitināmu. Hara i te mea ko te pūtea pāpaku, me te roanga o te wiki mahi noa iho, te raru. Te kino hoki ngā tūāhua mahi o ngā whare tōtā nei. I roto i te wāhanga waru hāora, ka taea te kaimahi ki te haere kotahi ki te wharepaku. Mō te inu wai, e rua ngā wā. Maiangi ai te tangata i te wherū, i te hau kino, i te wera rawa atu. Te mōrikarika hoki o ngā kamupene kaitā nei, e taetae ana ki ēnei whenua, ki te takahi i te wairua tangata. Nā te ngoikore o ngā ture whenua ki te tiaki i te kaimahi, ka tūkinotia te kaimahi.

Nō reira, e tautoko ana te Pāti Māori i tēnei pire kia aukatihia ngā mea kua hangaia ki te whare tōtā, me kī, kua hangaia e te kaimahi taurekareka. Roa te wā e noho tārewa ana tēnei take Whā tau ki muri i heria mai e Trade Aid tētahi petihana ki te Pāremata, i hainatia ai e te 17,000 tāngata, kia aukati i te hoko i ngā mea nō tāwahi kua hangaia e te ringa o te kaimahi taurekareka. Engari, i a rātou e whakarite ana i te petihana nei, ko tā te Kāwanatanga kē, he whakatutuki i ngā kirimana hokohoko watea nō rāwāhi, hakoa horekau he ture tiaki i te kaimahi. Hakoa Reipa, hakoa Nāhinara he ōrite tonu, kāore he paku aha ki a rāua. Engari he kaupapa nui rawa tēnei ki a mātou o te Pāti Māori. I ngā tau e rua ki muri, i puta mai te kupu āwangawanga a te Kai Titiro o te UN mō te mahi taurekareka; nui atu i te tekau mā rua miriona te tokomaha, kua horohia e tēnei ngārara te mahi taurekareka. Nā, kua ara mai te pātai nui: mena ka aukatihia te pūtea ka riro ki ngā kaimahi nei, ka pēhea rātou e whai oranga ai? Kua toitū te Pāti Māori hei kaitautoko i te whakakorenga o te rawa kore. Kei te tino whawhai hoki mātou kia patua i te pōhara e pā ana ki te hunga tamariki. Engari, he pōhēhē noa iho nō tātou kua kore tēnei āhuatanga e kitea i Aotearoa. Hei tā te Roopu Tiaki i ngā Tamariki Pōhara i tērā tau, he hauono te tokomaha o ngā tamariki e noho ana i roto i te whare tino pōhara. Nō reira, me kaha tātou ki te whawhai i ngā kino maha o te ngārara nei. Kei te tautoko pūmau mātou i te pire nei.

Ka huri ngā whakaaro ki tēnei mea te mahi taurekareka, me ōna whakapānga weriweri ki te hunga tamariki, ka koropupū te riri i roto i a mātou. Neke atu i te whā miriona ngā tamariki ki Parīhi, tekau mano ki te Hauauru o Īnia, tekau mā rima mano ki Pakitāna e mahi ana i ngā whare mōrearea ki te tuitui i ngā pōro poiwhana mō ngā kamupene pērā i a Adidas. Nā te kino o ngā tūāhua o ngā whare tuitui nei ka pāngia te tamariki ki te matakerepō, ki te ringa hauā, ki te mamae o te tuarā, ki te mamae o te kakī. Nō reira e tautoko ana mātou i te pire nei?Āe Mārika! I a mātou e tautoko ana i te pire nei, ko te tūmanako kia whai wā te Kāwanatanga ki te aro atu ki ngā āhuatanga o te rawa kore e pā atu ana ki te tamariki. Kia ora tātou katoa e te Whare. Tēnā koutou e te whānau.

TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) Link to this

Kia ora. I rise to speak on the Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill. I start by commending the Hon Maryan Street for bringing the legislation to the House as a member’s bill. Of course, previously the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee spent some time considering the issue.

I start by addressing what others have said: there is a widely accepted feeling in the international community towards slavery; therefore it is not necessary to repeat it. I wish to state clearly that slavery is something that is absolutely not acceptable. Indeed, under international law it is not possible. I believe that all members of this House have a strong view on this issue, and, in fact, there will be few people in New Zealand who do not have a strong view on it. Having said that, indications are that up to 12 million people in the world are involved in some form of slavery or slave labour, and in many cases their human rights are abused or taken away from them. It is a sad reality of the world in which we live in 2009 that some countries still have not recognised that human rights are important. It is also important that as a House we look at effective means to stop this practice and to make people’s lives better. Sadly, I am not sure that a unilateral bill will make the difference that we would all like to make.

There are a number of reasons for this position. As I said, slavery is absolutely prohibited in international law, but we must look for more effective means. I am very happy to say that as a member of Parliament, I will support any action that will have a meaningful effect upon slavery—to prohibit it, stop it, and drive it out of countries elsewhere—but, sadly, this bill will not do that. The reason it will not do it, I believe, is that manufacturing in the world today is much more complex than it was back in 1930, when the United States banned slavery. That legislation was passed in 1930. If we were in the climate of trade, trade law, and trade rules of the world that was in place in 1930, then the bill might have some effect. We must take our obligation seriously. I am not sure—in fact, I doubt greatly—whether if we were to pass the bill into law in New Zealand we would be able to police it or to make it effective, and whether it would have any effect, at all. It is admirable that we pay attention and give voice to the issue, but I think we need to look for real action that will have a real effect.

The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee debated this issue and reported back to the House in February this year. The committee recommended that the Government continue to pursue vigorously multichannel efforts to eliminate slavery, not simply in law but also in practice. A number of international bodies are focused on the issue—for example, the United Nations Human Rights Council and the International Labour Organization—and a number of conventions that New Zealand is party to are to do with forced labour and the abolition of forced labour.

The OECD has focused on the issue. There has been wide discussion and wide debate on it. The question is whether wide discussion and debate is enough. I believe that the answer to that question is no, it is not enough. Merely discussing this issue in the House or elsewhere will not in itself have the desired effect that we all want. Therefore, what can be done?

I would like members to think back to some years ago. Internationally there was wide discussion around conflict diamonds, primarily coming from West Africa, a part of the world where there has been much fighting and war. Many of these diamonds—in fact, all of them—were taken out of the ground because of slavery. Slaves were held and made to work at gunpoint. Different parts of the world and different countries have said they want to do something about this issue and to ban it. But it was only effectively banned when the world came together and focused on it. We decided that we would ban conflict diamonds, and, therefore, diamonds being produced through slavery in this way effectively stopped. It is my understanding, from reading the newspapers and contacting those involved with this campaign, that very few conflict diamonds are sold in the world today—or at least in developed countries. It is important to recognise that.

The reason it is important is that slavery in other parts of the world will finally be stopped. Not only will it be pushed out of sight but people will have rights, and those rights will be enforced. When the world comes together, we must do so at a multilateral level through the United Nations, in cooperation with others. I commend the Hon Maryan Street, but will not be able to support the bill. Thank you.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) Link to this

Our world is becoming smaller and our lives more interdependent as the forces of globalisation draw us together. Through travel, through modern communications, and, more than anything else, through the power of global markets, almost every one of us every day—when we put on our clothes in the morning, drink a cup of coffee, pull on our sunglasses, or reach for the cellphone to make a call—is touched by the lives of workers who made the products. That is the case whether those workers are garment factory workers in southern China, coffee farmers in Ethiopia, or child miners in the Congo extracting the cadmium that goes into the batteries of our cellphones. Globalisation has unleashed huge economic potential, but our humanity surely demands that we consider the ethical implications of that interdependence.

The Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill, brought to the House tonight by my colleague the Hon Maryan Street, asks us to do just that: to consider that products from certain countries where modern slavery continues should be kept out of New Zealand as a protest against the persistence of this plague, which most of us thought had finished in the 1800s. Cocoa from West Africa, rubber from West Africa for car tyres, underwear made in Burma, and jewellery and handmade rugs from South Asia—all of those products come into New Zealand today, and each of them carries the significant risk that it was made by slave labour. Surely in the 20th century we can take a strong, unambiguous stand against slavery by banning the fruits of forced labour from our shores.

It is extraordinary to say it or think it, but according to Anti-Slavery International more than 12 million people in the world today are living in slavery, whether they are workers on cocoa plantations in West Africa, or child labourers working in the carpet industries of Nepal, India, and Pakistan. Slavery is unambiguously prohibited by international law and is considered to be a crime against humanity, yet it continues. There is hereditary slavery in Mauretania and Niger, and debt bondage in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru. In Haiti only last month the UN human rights rapporteur said that thousands of unpaid child labourers are trapped in a form of modern slavery. There are regular reports in the news media of parents in China selling their children into slavery.

The bill amends the Customs and Excise Act to make goods produced in whole or in part by slave labour prohibited imports. It will require some research into which products are made by slave labour. Our foreign affairs officials told the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, when it was considering Trade Aid’s petition, that doing such research would be too difficult a hurdle to get over. It may not be easy, but we currently have a ban, as my colleagues have pointed out, on goods made by prison labour, which is allowed by international trade laws. Surely having that is sufficient precedent to convince the doubters and the nitpickers.

I congratulate Trade Aid—New Zealand’s fair trade movement—on its campaign on this issue. I also congratulate my colleague the Hon Maryan Street on sponsoring the bill, and Charles Chauvel on drafting it. I urge colleagues on all sides of the House to consider the magnitude of evil represented by modern slavery, and then to consider what is being asked of this House here and now. Can we not do our bit as global citizens to marginalise and stigmatise those who would trade in the products of slave labour? Is it really so difficult to do what is right?

I listened to the Hon Tim Groser tonight wax lyrical about the complexities of global supply chains and the fact that many products today comprise component parts from different sources. I listened to Todd McClay talk about “blood diamonds” and how it took the entire world coming together to find a solution. No one is saying tonight that trade bans can solve every problem. No one is saying it would be easy or simple to make a difference. But this measure would send a powerful message, in that New Zealand would be joining the US and Belgium in taking a stand and putting this ban into legislation.

Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) Link to this

I first pay tribute to my gifted colleague Charles Chauvel for his assistance in drafting the Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill. I also pay tribute to members who have spoken with seriousness and some gravitas on the issue, because it deserves nothing less.

I will quote from schedule 1 of the Customs and Excise Act 1996, which my bill seeks to amend. It states: “Goods manufactured or produced wholly or in part by prison labour, or within or in connection with any prison, jail, or penitentiary, excluding a bona fide gift made by a prisoner for the personal use of a private individual, also goods similar in character to those manufactured or produced in such institutions when sold or offered for sale by any person, firm, or corporation having a contract for the manufacture or production of such articles in such institutions, or by an agent of such person, firm, or corporation, or when originally purchased from or transferred by any such contractor.” It is quite complicated, but it has not been beyond the wit of somebody to come up with a clause to prohibit the importation of goods produced wholly or in part by prison labour. It has not been beyond the wit of somebody to come up with that clause. It is not beyond our wit collectively to come up with a solution to the difficulties of definition and enforcement.

The world is changing. The old economic order is no more, and advocates of it and of the old economic orthodoxy no longer have a leg to stand on. This is the moment to attempt to find new ways through. This is the moment to attempt to find new financial structures, new economic agreements, new transparency and accountability, and a new social contract. This is the moment when we should be brave, imaginative, and creative, and more than anything, because we all agree with the purpose of this bill, we should be able collectively to arrive at a workable solution. Just because something is hard, that does not make it impossible, and it certainly does not make it not worth trying.

I appreciate the words of the Minister of Trade, Tim Groser, who said that the conversation will continue. I look forward to engaging further in the conversation about how we might achieve the ends of this bill. But I have to say that an effort of will is required for this to be done. It cannot be beyond the wit of this House and the officials who serve it to come up with a workable solution to a problem that we collectively identify. I appeal to the National Government to change its mind on this vote, so that possibilities can be explored. Simply seeking to have this legislation referred to a select committee for consideration would be an act of empathy, and act of principle, that at least demonstrates that the conversation is open and is still happening.

One thing we can be certain of is that if we do nothing, nothing will happen. This is the moment when we need to think about new ways of transacting our relationships, and of accounting not only to our own citizens but to citizens internationally for our actions and the choices we make. This is an ethical issue. Ethical trade will in the future be the only trade that is allowed, and there is no reason why this House should not be preparing this country for that. Thank you.