New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is urging bipartisan support for a free trade agreement with India and has hit back at racially slanted criticism of the deal from government coalition partner New Zealand First.
Legal verification of the FTA has been completed with both countries agreeing it will be signed on April 27 in New Delhi, Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay said earlier Monday in Wellington. The agreement was concluded in December and is expected to take 12 months after signing before it becomes law.
New Zealand First opposes the deal, saying it will vote against it in parliament because it gives too much away on immigration and does not get enough in return, particularly as dairy is excluded. That means Luxon needs to persuade the main opposition Labour Party to vote for the deal.
“Trade is bipartisan, it’s not political and we’re going to do everything we can to make good faith with Labour so they understand how powerful and how exciting this deal actually is,” Luxon told reporters Monday.
Last week, New Zealand First deputy leader Shane Jones doubled down on his party’s criticism, telling Reality Check Radio he was “never going to agree with a sort of butter chicken tsunami coming to New Zealand.”
Luxon said those comments were “not acceptable” and “unhelpful.”
The FTA “creates huge opportunity for people that I would’ve thought New Zealand First would’ve cared about,” he said. “The immigration story that they are scaremongering around is absolutely false.”
Indian immigrants “are an outstanding role model for the rest of New Zealand to follow because they have ambition, they have aspiration and they work really hard,” Luxon said. “New Zealand is an infinitely better place economically, socially, culturally because of the contribution of immigrants to this country.”
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