Source: Radio New Zealand
Labour leader Chris Hipkins. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Labour is getting closer to confirming support for the India Free Trade agreement, but says the full text has raised more questions that need answering.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Trade Minister Todd McClay announced the agreement three days before Christmas, touting wins for several industries.
During the announcement, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters revealed he would not be supporting the deal, saying it gave away too much – particularly on immigration – for too little, including dairy.
The divide between the coalition parties means National and ACT will need support from at least one opposition party to get legislation as part of the deal through Parliament.
McClay later revealed NZ First had [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/585343/nz-first-pulled-support-for-india-fta-before-it-was-secured-todd-mcclay-reveals expressed its disagreement before the announcement.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins on Tuesday said the party expected to write to the prime minister by the end of the week setting out conditions for Labour’s support.
“Just got to do a little bit of wordsmithing on that,” he said. “We clearly have some concerns about the potential exploitation of migrant workers, where we think the government is not doing enough, and we’re going to set out things that we want to see the government doing in that area. And I’ll set the rest of it out in due course.
“The government will need to do something that they have not yet done, which is that they’ll need to sit down and have a conversation with us rather than saying ‘this is the agreement that we have signed, you should just support it’.”
Coalition members had previously been relying on summaries provided by officials, as is usual.
Hipkins and Peters both confirmed their teams had received copies of the full text of the agreement in recent days, with Hipkins indicating that had added complications.
“We’ve got more questions now than we might have had based on the information the government gave us when they announced the deal,” he said.
He said US President Donald Trump’s tariffs had opened the path to securing the deal.
“Everything changed in India as a result of recent developments around Trump, a lot of countries suddenly got access to negotiate trade agreements that they had been really struggling to get,” he said.
He said New Zealand had come out of the process “with a deal that isn’t as good as other countries have been able to secure”.
Rather than blame the negotiators, he pointed the finger at Luxon’s public commitment to secure a deal before the 2026 election.
“Ultimately, those negotiators work within the parameters set by the government. Christopher Luxon tied their hands behind their back. When he said that he was going to secure a deal before the election come hell or high water, that immediately made their job a lot harder.”
He again expressed frustration at the process.
“They could have spoken to us through these negotiations so that we would have been fully familiar with what it is that they were signing us up to. They chose not to do that.”
McClay said the deal was being “legally scrubbed and verified”, and once that was complete “it’ll be available to not only all parties, it’ll be available to the public”.
He said he was happy to keep answering Labour’s questions.
“There is nothing pressing over the next few weeks. But I think the business committee would like to know their position soon.”
He was asked if he regretted not approaching Labour earlier, given he knew NZ First’s stance.
“We have absolutely no regrets at all in doing a trade deal with one of the most populous countries of the world, and probably the best trade deal that India has done with anybody so far. It more than levels the playing field for Kiwi exporters,” McClay said.
He could not remember Labour ever having approached National for support on the EU trade deal, he said – and rejected the idea that was because Labour had a majority, so did not need National’s support.
“In essence I think they probably did, because they didn’t put it … into law when they were a government.”
Student migration stoush
Confusion has continued to surround aspects of the deal relating to student migration.
Documents released by the government point to a handful of provisions for migration:
- 1667 three-year work visas a year, capped at 5000 total visas at any one time. Focused on priority roles on the Green List like doctors, nurses, teachers, ICT and engineering jobs, specialised health services, traditional medicine practitioners, music teachers, chefs and yoga instructors
- Up to 1000 places on New Zealand’s Working Holiday Scheme (ages 18-30)
- Codifies the right for Indian students to work up to 20 hours a week (within the current policy of up to 25 hours)
- Post-Study Work Visas: 2-year for Bachelors students graduating from a NZ institution, 3-year for STEM bachelors and masters, 4-year for PhD students
A document released by the Indian government claimed the FTA would also remove numerical caps on Indian students, but no such cap exists.
International Students seeking visas need funds to be a student, and need to have been accepted to a place at a university or other learning institution, naturally limiting the number of students who can arrive.
Rules were also changed in 2022 to limit international students learning below degree level from working. It meant such students could only work in-demand sectors related to their study, based on the Green List.
While the text of the deal is still secret, McClay and Luxon have both maintained it makes no changes to the government’s ability to impose a cap at a later date.
“No, the New Zealand government, going forward, can make its own independent decisions about what it wants to do with respect to export education, what it wants to do with respect to visas, and any government can make changes to that,” Luxon said.
ACT leader David Seymour agreed.
“And I don’t believe that it’s significant if there was for the simple reason that we have never had a cap … when you restrict the quality and the price of the courses, that changes the quality of the people coming, so you can control it that way,” he said.
Peters claimed something different, however.
“There is a cap now, but the cap is controlled by the country of origin, and the parents of origin paying for the export education. This has changed, and that’s why it’s dramatically different. Our economy will be paying for the export education. So it’s not truly export education,” he said.
Hipkins said he was “still working my way through that”.
“There is conflicting advice coming from the government on that, particularly if you look at their public statements … once we understand what the government is signing us up for, then we’ll set out, set out our views on principle.”
He said Peters’ claims about the deal did not seem to line up with the official advice.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
