Table of Contents
Ryan Henderson
Young guy from God’s Own | Pragmatic nationalist | NZ politics, policy, trade.
WHAT NEW ZEALAND OPENED:
• Every category of goods. Food, machinery, chemicals, vehicles, textiles, every line. Tariff goes to zero on day one. No exclusions, no phasing in, no quotas.
• Every service sector. NZ is open to Indian companies by default, apart from a specific list of what stays protected: Air NZ ownership, Chorus ownership, ACC, KiwiSaver, public health and education, fishing access, gambling, tobacco and alcohol retail, Fonterra and Zespri’s structures, the Treaty of Waitangi exception (for digital trade only). Notable examples of what NZ did NOT put on the protection list: Spark, 2degrees, One NZ, the banking sector, electricity generation, ports and airports, doctors and dentists, private schools, universities, audit firms, aged care, newspapers, law firms.
• A commitment to push US$20 billion (around NZ$33 billion) of NZ investment into India over 15 years. India has no reciprocal target to invest in NZ. If NZ underdelivers, India alone decides whether NZ has fallen short. India alone decides what “proportionate” tariff claw-back to apply. NZ cannot challenge any of it through any panel. The political pressure to deliver lands on NZ Super Fund, ACC, KiwiSaver providers and large NZ corporates to direct savings to India for treaty-performance reasons rather than commercial return.
• 1,000 Indian working holiday visas a year. Nothing equivalent for young New Zealanders going to India.
• 4,100 visa-holders present at any one time across capped skilled-worker categories (IT, engineering, construction, teachers, nurses, physios, plus 600 reserved spots for chefs, yoga teachers, classical musicians and Ayush practitioners).
• An uncapped channel for Indian companies operating in NZ to bring in their own staff with no cap and labour market tests banned. Much like the controversial US H1B – though it is capped at 85,000 per year, is for any company, and has a $100,000 fee.
• Uncapped Indian international student visas. Extended locked-in two-, three- and four-year post-study work visas.
• Legally protect the basmati name for Indian rice growers within 18 months.
• Stop NZ insurers from being told to exclude coverage of homeopathy and traditional Indian medicine.
• Working with India on connecting NZ’s payment systems to India’s national instant-payment network and building central bank digital currencies (like a digital NZ dollar issued by the Reserve Bank). The Reserve Bank of NZ now has obligations on payments policy that it didn’t have before. Future decisions about how NZ’s payment systems develop are tied to bilateral commitments with India rather than purely Reserve Bank policy.
• If any future trade deal that NZ signs includes better services terms, it gets automatically extended to India. India made no equivalent commitment to NZ so it can give other countries better terms than it gave NZ.
• NZ taxpayers and industry help commercialise Indian apple, kiwifruit, honey and wine growers to upgrade their orchards and supply chains. The same growers we’d be competing with. India can suspend the small NZ market access quotas if it judges we underdelivered. NZ Crown research institutes (Plant & Food Research, AgResearch, Scion) and industry levy bodies (Zespri, NZ Apples & Pears, Apiculture NZ) must divert research budgets and grower-funded levies to build Indian capacity.
This article was originally published by Ryan Henderson and republished by RCR Media.
