The bill that would bring New Zealand’s free trade agreement with India into force has cleared its select committee, leaving the Government six sitting days to pass it before Parliament rises for the election.
Parliament’s foreign affairs, defence and trade committee recommended by majority that the India Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill be passed with some amendments, RNZ reported on 10 September. Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay welcomed the report the same afternoon. “I’m pleased the committee has recommended that Parliament pass this legislation, an important step towards New Zealand ratifying the deal,” he said in a statement.
The bill still has to go through a second reading, the committee of the whole House and a third reading before it can receive royal assent. McClay said the second reading was the next step and that the Government was continuing “to work towards ratification later this year”.
The calendar is tight. Parliament’s sitting programme has the House meeting on 15, 16 and 17 September and again on 22, 23 and 24 September, and once it rises on the evening of 24 September it does not meet again before the 7 November election, as Newswire reported last month. Parliament is then dissolved on 1 October, according to the published election timetable, and bills that have not passed by then lapse.
Earlier this month Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was asked about Indian media reports that the agreement could take effect as soon as October. “Pretty exciting, isn’t it?” he said, according to RNZ, without confirming a date and adding only that the Government was “cranking it” through the legislative schedule before the House rises.
The committee’s main change is about timing. It found the bill as introduced did not allow for the agreement coming into force part-way through the quota year. “This could create uncertainty for applicants about available quota, and potentially miss an opportunity to benefit from reduced tariffs in the first year,” the committee said. It proposed new clauses allowing pro rata allocations of apple, kiwifruit, albumin and mānuka honey quotas in the first year. It also suggested changes to search and seizure powers for offences such as exporting a product to India without a quota allocation or in excess of one.
The treaty itself already expects a part-year start. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s national interest analysis says that if the agreement enters into force part-way through a calendar year, quota quantities for that year “are to be pro-rated”. The committee’s amendments give New Zealand’s own quota law the same flexibility.
The start date matters most for fruit growers because the quotas are seasonal. According to the analysis, the apple quota applies to fruit entering India between 1 April and 31 August, and the duty-free kiwifruit quota to fruit entering between 1 April and 15 October. An October start would come after this year’s apple window has closed and near the end of the kiwifruit window.
The analysis sets out how small the trade is now. Two-way trade between New Zealand and India was $3.95 billion in 2025. New Zealand sold $820 million of goods to India, just 1.0 percent of its goods exports worldwide, and $1.21 billion of services, most of it travel. The biggest goods exports were forestry at $139 million, aluminium at $86 million, apples at $81 million, iron and steel at $81 million and wool at $77 million. Kiwifruit exports were worth $33 million.
Apple exporters currently pay a 50 percent tariff. Under the agreement that falls to 25 percent for 32,500 tonnes a year from the first day, with the quota rising each year to 45,000 tonnes by year six, which the analysis describes as “almost twice current average export volumes”. Kiwifruit gets duty-free entry for 6,250 tonnes a year, rising to 15,000 tonnes by year six, and the tariff on fruit outside the quota is halved. The ministry’s summary of outcomes says tariffs on mānuka honey are cut by 75 percent over five years.
Across the whole deal, 57 percent of current exports enter India duty-free from the first day, rising to 82 percent when fully implemented, and tariffs are cut on most of the rest. Independent modelling by Motu, cited in the analysis, projects exports to India $340 million higher in 2027 than they would be without the agreement, $842 million a year higher by 2036 and $1.27 billion a year higher by 2050. The analysis calls that modelling “conservative”.
The votes to pass the bill are in place. Labour confirmed on 23 April that it would support the legislation, which gave National and ACT the numbers they needed given New Zealand First’s opposition, RNZ reported at the time. Labour leader Chris Hipkins kept his reservations about the agreement’s investment clause. “We’re not going to stop the agreement proceeding because of it, but businesses need to be aware that that is a risk to them,” he said. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters called the deal “an utter unmitigated disaster”.
When the same committee reported on the treaty itself in June, after receiving 1780 submissions and hearing oral evidence from 52 submitters, its Green members recorded a dissenting note. “The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand does not support the NZ-India free trade agreement,” they said, RNZ reported. The committee as a whole concluded then that “the potential benefits are significant”.
McClay said on Thursday that the deal had wide backing. “There is strong support for this important agreement across the business community, the primary sector, the services sector and many New Zealanders up and down the country,” he said.
On this bill National and Labour are on the same side. If you are still weighing up where the parties stand on everything else, you can find out which party matches your views with our voting tool before 7 November.
Should Parliament push the India deal through in its last six sitting days, or would you rather it waited for the next Parliament? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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