Latest / Best of Business / Dileepa Fonseka: BusinessDesk senior journalist on the contents of New Zealand's FTA with India

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Dileepa Fonseka: BusinessDesk senior journalist on the contents of New Zealand's FTA with India · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk STB. Follow
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  Speaker 1: Pressing the newsmakers to get the real story. It's Heather
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  Speaker 1: duplicl and Drive with one New Zealand coverage like no
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  Speaker 1: one else. News TALKSB.
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  Speaker 2: Good afternoon.
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  Speaker 3: The full text of New Zealand's fair trade agreement with
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  Speaker 3: India has now been unveiled. The deal, which was signed
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  Speaker 3: last night, was tabled in Parliament today, which makes of
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  Speaker 3: course all the contents public for the first time. Business
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  Speaker 3: Desk Senior journalist Deleep von Saka has been reading through
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  Speaker 3: the files and is with us H Deleeper. I have
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  Speaker 3: any surprises in there.
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  Speaker 2: No, no major surprises. But then again, I also think
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  Speaker 2: that some of the debates that people are having this
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  Speaker 2: is not necessarily going to clear the disagreements that people
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  Speaker 2: have been having over the agreement.
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  Speaker 3: Because there is a clause in there isn't there that
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  Speaker 3: says that we cannot impose any numerical limits on the
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  Speaker 3: number of Indian migrants coming into New Zealand.
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  Speaker 2: Well, are numerical limits on yes, students and yeah, and
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  Speaker 2: there's a reference to those you know, the the categories
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  Speaker 2: of migrants that temporary entry visa that's also in there.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's the numbers, as they said, the maximum
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  Speaker 2: kind of five thousand in any one year. And yes, no,
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  Speaker 2: no numerical limits on the student numbers.
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  Speaker 3: But we can of course, so that people are going
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  Speaker 3: to look at that if they just read the text
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  Speaker 3: and they go there we go. It's just like it's
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  Speaker 3: going to be a flood of what did what did
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  Speaker 3: Shane Jones say? But of course we can. We can
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  Speaker 3: tweak it at the visa settings, can't we, So we
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  Speaker 3: can actually control the numbers.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is the issue. Like even though there's
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  Speaker 2: a reference to this non numerical limits, there is also
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  Speaker 2: also reference that all the students have to be eligible,
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  Speaker 2: so we can change the rules of eligibility to determin.
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  Speaker 3: So we retain our sovereignty on that. Is there an
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  Speaker 3: obligation on us to invest billions into India or is
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  Speaker 3: it a very soft obligation?
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  Speaker 2: Well, this is this is the This is going to
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  Speaker 2: be an interesting one. That clause definitely exists, whether it
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  Speaker 2: is for promotion or you know, well, it's definitely not
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  Speaker 2: compelling the government to invest the money. Right, this is
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  Speaker 2: about the government promoting investment into India, and it does
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  Speaker 2: specifically mention US twenty billion dollars. And it does also
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  Speaker 2: have a mechanism at the end of the fifteen years
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  Speaker 2: where India goes through a process of you know it,
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  Speaker 2: it kind of goes to a committee and then India
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  Speaker 2: at the end of it is still not satisfied can
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  Speaker 2: basically rebalance or do remediation.
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  Speaker 3: As in clawback the right, is this just the get
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  Speaker 3: out of jail free card if the whole FTA actually
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  Speaker 3: doesn't go in their favor and the public hates it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, this is I think an interesting part about
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  Speaker 2: doing negotiating in FTA with India, Right, India doesn't actually
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  Speaker 2: want free trade in the way that we understand it.
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  Speaker 2: They want balance trade. That's my kind of understanding of
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  Speaker 2: a lot of it. So in the words, just what well,
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  Speaker 2: which is, you know, we don't want to give too
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  Speaker 2: much market access and not have something on the other
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  Speaker 2: end for ourselves kind of thing. Right, So if they
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  Speaker 2: view it at the end of the fifteen years that oh, hey,
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  Speaker 2: you know, you guys exported so much ki food and
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  Speaker 2: everything into our country and we didn't really get much
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  Speaker 2: from it, that none of that investment really happened. I
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  Speaker 2: mean that I would I would interpret that as being like,
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  Speaker 2: you know, the Indians will put a bit of pressure
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  Speaker 2: on Okay, So.
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  Speaker 3: But as you say, it's not going to settle. The
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  Speaker 3: people who don't like it are still not going to
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  Speaker 3: like it. Right after reading.
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  Speaker 2: This, Yeah, basically, and the people who people who have
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  Speaker 2: been seeing that it's about promotion, they also have they
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  Speaker 2: can point to phrases in this agreement. They backed themselves up.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Delipa, thank you very much for doing all that
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  Speaker 3: hard work for us as a sleep upon psych, a
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  Speaker 3: senior business desk journalists.
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