MPs welcome trade agreement, and talk Brexit

The Government's free trade agreement with the United Kingdom has been greeted with varying levels of support from across the Parliament.

MPs used the opportunity to express how good Brexit had been for New Zealand, ending almost five decades of poor market access to the UK.

National leader Judith Collins said she was "very pleased - very pleased for New Zealand".

She said it would give exporters "another trading option other than those that we have at the moment".

"We need to have more free trade agreements and we need to use them. We cannot continue on this path of being reliant on one trading partner," Collins said.

She said the agreement showed the merits of Brexit - joking that her shadow Treasurer Andrew Bayly probably disagreed with her - Bayly added that he did disagree on this, and did not back Brexit.

Former National leader Simon Bridges took to Twitter to agree with Collins saying, "Brexit has been good for New Zealand".

Act leader David Seymour said the deal would provide New Zealanders with many trading opportunities.

"The opportunities for New Zealanders to diversify their trade opportunities away from China and raise the prices of the goods we trade cannot be overstated," Seymour said.

National leader Judith Collins has backed a new trade deal. Photo / Mark Mitchell

"The great thing about free trade is it's a win - it's great for NZ farmers and it's great for agribusiness and all the people who support farmers," he said.

It's another trading option, and New Zealand needed more agreements - and to use them, he said.

"We cannot continue on this path of being reliant on one trading partner."

The Green Party's trade spokeswoman Golriz Ghahraman said there were some things to like in the deal, but her party would wait until the final text, which is still being negotiated, was released before taking a firm position either way.

"The top bit that we would celebrate would be removing fuel subsidies, which is such a long time coming," she said.

"It was signalled at Apec and hasn't really come to fruition," she said.

Ghahraman said this was the first trade agreement New Zealand had signed and showed what post-Paris Agreement trade deals could look like.

"It doesn't preclude us from regulating industries for climate goals. That's good but what we would like to have seen is more enforceable climate and environment protection," she said.

Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman said it was too early to say where the Greens would end up on the deal, but siad there were some things to like about it. Photo / Golriz Ghahraman

Ghahraman noted the details on trade as it relates to Māori went further than the standard Treaty of Waitangi clause that was inserted in most trade agreements.

The New Zealand Alternative, which promotes a more progressive foreign policy for the country, said it wants any trade agreement to "encourage active government and green industrial policy to tackle the climate crisis".

The group warned that "any provisions that restrict what can be done with SOEs [state-owned enterprises] and that protect UK and NZ investors are likely - even in the absence of ISDS - to be used against environmental regulation".

ISDS are investor state dispute settlements, which allow companies to pursue remedies against governments for breaching the agreement. They were a controversial part of previous trade negotiations, but are not included in this agreement.

The group said that although there is a chapter on indigenous trade, there "should be explicit commitment in this agreement to advance the provisions of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to which Aotearoa is a signatory".

NZ International Business Forum (NZIBF) executive director Stephen Jacobi said the agreement was good news for exporters.

"This is clearly a substantial and comprehensive deal, with commercially meaningful market access [for] New Zealand's key export sectors, including dairy, meat, horticulture and wine," Jacobi said.

"British interests in services trade, business mobility and investment have been addressed. The agreement is backed up by high-quality trade rules and a specific chapter addressing Māori concerns is also included. While some of the detail remains to be worked out, negotiators have done a good job getting this far relatively quickly," he said.