According to Collins, Labour’s lack of focus had “cost the New Zealand economy a massive opportunity at a time when we most need to kick start it.”
She says the Labour-led government “has lost ground to other nations as it pursues a woke foreign policy, at the expense of Kiwi jobs.”
“A National government would make negotiating trade deals with the UK, the European Union and the United States a priority,” she said.
Her comments came after a UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement was agreed in principle late last week.
Parker, however, says if the “opposition had taken the simple step of Googling the background to the talks, they would not have made this embarrassing claim.”
The UK and NZ announced in mid-June they would start free-trade talks – about the same time that the UK and Australia announced they would start too, Parker said in an emailed response to questions.
Australia, like NZ, is still negotiating with the UK.
“We had the first round of talks in mid-July (July 13-24) and they went well. The second round is scheduled for soon after the election,” he said.
It is currently scheduled to begin on October 19.
In the first round, chief negotiators and 19 issue-specific working groups met virtually and set out both countries’ respective interests, objectives and policy approaches.
According to Parker, the Japan-UK agreement builds on the existing Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement, which has allowed negotiations to progress quickly.
It is largely a roll-over of the existing agreement with some added commitments – unlike the NZ-UK talks which are for a new FTA, he said.
Japan and the UK resumed FTA negotiations on June 9 but “the timeframe for the UK’s FTA negotiations with new partners like New Zealand, which do not have an existing FTA with the EU, will obviously be longer.”
NZ’s trade negotiations have also progressed despite covid-19 restrictions on travel, he said.
“Both the UK and New Zealand came to the virtual negotiating table with experience from negotiations on other FTAs this year,” Parker said.
Before the first round of the UK-NZ FTA negotiations, NZ had held two virtual rounds of negotiations with the EU. NZ has also participated in three rounds of virtual negotiations in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership talks.
“Progress has been good but it will be interesting to see whether online discussions can be as effective as face to face talks when we get to the sharp end of negotiations,” he said.
-BusinessDesk
