Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Since I introduced the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill into the House five months ago, the Earth experienced its hottest month on record. Tens of thousands of people, led by those too young to vote, marched in our streets to demand action to stem the climate crisis, and councils across the country declared a climate emergency and have started deploying the resources to deal with it. A clear majority of New Zealanders, right across the political spectrum, are increasingly concerned about climate change and are looking to this Parliament for the strongest possible signal that the political leadership of this country is united in our response to the climate crisis.

It is within this context that I welcome the bill back from select committee and into the House for its second reading. The Environment Committee have performed a thorough consideration of this bill, and I would like to thank all members of that committee for their efforts. In particular, I’d like to thank the chair, Dr Duncan Webb, the former chair, Dr Deborah Russell, the Opposition’s climate change spokesperson, the Hon Scott Simpson, and former spokesperson, Todd Muller. This bill is much improved as a result of all of their efforts.

The primary purpose of this bill is to provide a framework for New Zealand to develop and implement clear and stable climate change policies that contribute to the global effort under the Paris Agreement to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to prepare for, and adapt to, the effects of climate change. The bill establishes a Climate Change Commission to provide independent expert advice on the transition to a low-emissions economy and a nation resilient to the effects of climate change, and to hold this and all future Governments to account for progress.

The bill sets in statute an emissions reduction target for reducing greenhouse gases by 2050. The target has two components: one an emissions reduction goal for biogenic methane and another for all greenhouse gases. The bill establishes a system of emissions budgets to step progressively towards the 2050 target and enable policy settings to adapt to within a predictable framework. Once an emissions budget has been set and notified, the bill places an obligation on the Government to prepare a plan that includes policies and strategies to ensure that the emissions budget is met.

The commission will prepare annual reports that track New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions and removals and track progress towards emissions budgets. The commission will also prepare a report after the end of each budget period that determines whether the emissions budget has been achieved and evaluates the success of the emissions reduction plan. The bill requires the commission to prepare a national climate change risk assessment every six years to evaluate risks to New Zealand from current and future effects of climate change. In response to each risk assessment, the bill requires the Minister to produce a national adaptation plan to set up the Government’s plan to respond to the effects of climate change.

The bill also enables the Minister to require certain organisations to provide information on climate change adaptation. This provision is intended to improve our understanding of New Zealand’s preparedness for dealing with the effects of climate change and will be used to inform the development of the risk assessment, the adaptation plan, and the subsequent progress reports on this plan.

The Environment Committee received over 10,000 written submissions and undertook 29 hearings across the country, where they listened to 800 individuals, organisations, and groups express their views on the bill. The committee heard from parents, students, scientists, farmers, academics, health professionals, businesses, industry representatives, activists, iwi, local government, former MPs, and more. I want to thank all those New Zealanders who took the time—many for the first time ever—to submit at select committee. Your thoughtful contributions and your courage of conviction have been immensely helpful and enabled the committee to develop a stronger and more durable bill across a range of areas.

First, in response to submitters who wanted to see the purpose statement reference the bill’s adaptation functions, the bill has been amended to include adaptation in the purpose statement. This will send a clear signal to decision makers that preparing for, and adapting to, the effects of climate change is of fundamental importance.

Second, the bill will now require the commission to have regard for the Crown/Māori relationship, Te Ao Māori, and specific impacts on iwi and Māori when performing all its functions and duties and exercising its powers to assist the Crown to give effect to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. The Ministry for the Environment, with support from Te Arawhiti, will develop guidance for how the commission should engage with Māori.

Third, the purpose of emissions budgets in the bill will now include a reference to the need for New Zealand to contribute to global efforts to limit the average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This will align emissions budgets with the overall purpose of the bill and reinforce the need for decision makers to consider the global response to climate change when determining the level of emissions budgets.

Fourth, to ensure that we strike the balance between emissions reductions and removals, the bill now allows the Climate Change Commission to consider the form of the target in its reviews, including what the target should be and how the target should be met, including the use of offshore mitigation or domestic forestry offsets.

Fifth, when preparing advice on emissions budgets and emission reductions plans, the bill has been amended to require the commission to have regard to the implication and potential implications of land-use change on communities. This will ensure that impacts on communities are taken into account as the Government makes decisions on the role of emissions reduction and removal options and how impacts can be managed to achieve a just transition.

Sixth, emissions from international aviation and shipping are an important consideration globally. Although they are in the remit of processes that are parallel to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a number of countries are now starting to include these emissions in their policy frameworks. The bill has therefore been amended to enable the commission to provide advice to Government on whether emissions from international shipping and aviation should be accounted for in emissions budgets and the target—and, if so, how—when it undertakes its review of the 2050 target. That will allow the Government to decide at that point if these emissions should be brought into the scope of the emissions budget and target.

Seventh, to ensure consistency of Government policy with our climate change objectives, the bill has been amended to remove the clause that allowed public decision makers to exclude the 2050 target or an emissions budget from their decision making without the risk that those decisions could be invalidated. This should allow for common law to evolve over time. In addition, the emissions reduction plan the budget is required to produce in response to each emissions budget has been added as a permissive consideration that decision makers can have regard to when exercising their public functions.

Finally, to ensure that the commission has access to the requisite information it needs to support the effective operations of its functions, the bill now affords the commission the authority to request information on climate change adaptation from reporting organisations. This amendment will ensure that the commission is not reliant on the Minister for the information that it needs to perform its adaptation functions.

The improvements that I have outlined are important ones. The Environment Committee’s findings confirm that the bill will establish the regulatory architecture needed to continue the transition to a low-emissions economy and a nation with the resilience to adapt to the effects of climate change. It will provide stability and predictability for New Zealanders today and into the future.

I would like to remind members of this House that the window of opportunity to prevent the worst impacts of catastrophic climate change is very narrow and closing fast. We, as the elected representatives of New Zealanders, have a duty of care to them, their children, and their grandchildren to take that opportunity before that window closes. We have led the world before in nuclear disarmament and in votes for women, and now we need to lead again. I urge members to support this bill so that we may deliver a just, inclusive, and sustainable future for all New Zealanders. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for giving a very good and comprehensive overview of the working of the select committee that got us here to the second reading of this bill this afternoon. The Environment Committee worked very hard and very diligently, and we had to because we were working to an incredibly tight time frame that was imposed, I think unnecessarily, by this Government. As the Minister said, there were over 10,000 submissions, and the committee heard more than 800 oral submissions presented in person, many of them around the countryside when the committee was sitting in subcommittee.

It was rushed unnecessarily, and the purpose for the rushing of this seems to have been now made clear. It was obvious in recent weeks that the timetable the Government wanted to complete this legislation was so that the Prime Minister could go to APEC in Chile in mid-November and then that the climate change Minister could also go to Chile to COP-25 and wave around a piece of legislation and say we’ve delivered—little New Zealand has delivered. Well, of course, since then, events have overtaken those things and both those conferences in Chile have been cancelled, but we still seem to be proceeding now at breakneck speed to get this bill through the House. Today, we have the second reading; tomorrow, the committee of the whole House; and then, on Thursday, the third and final reading.

When the bill was first introduced, the National Party supported it at first reading, and we did so on the basis of a speech that was made by our leader, Simon Bridges, back two years ago at Fieldays at Mystery Creek, where he set out the parameters upon which we wanted to engage with the Government in an open and bipartisan way to try to achieve the objectives of bipartisanship on this bill. I have to say that those principles that we outlined are still the same principles that we hold to today in considering the second reading of this bill.

Now, I do want to acknowledge that in the course of discussions between introduction and second reading today, there have been continuous and ongoing discussions between my predecessor, Todd Muller; the Minister; and now myself, and, indeed, our leader.

I appreciate the Minister being willing to engage on those matters, because it’s still our view—it’s still our view—that there is benefit in the establishment of an independent science-led commission that will advise Governments, present and future, on what steps and what policies need to be taken to achieve the commitments that we made at Paris. So we are at a position where there are several changes after select committee—notwithstanding the changes that the Minister has indicated and that have occurred at select committee, there are still several concerns that we have. They’re the concerns that have been raised not only by members of the National Party on the select committee but also by a large number of members of the public during their submissions, written and oral, and also by people such as the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. So there are several changes that we are seeking and will continue to seek as this bill proceeds.

What we are led to believe is that the coalition Government is at one on this bill and that New Zealand First has agreed to support the conditions of this bill as reported back by select committee, and that would appear to be the case. The Rt Hon Winston Peters no less has said publicly that his party will support this bill; that they will endorse, for instance, a methane target reduction by 2050 of somewhere between 24 and 47 percent, knowing full well the implications of what that might mean for agricultural New Zealand, and knowing full well what that might mean in terms of our competitiveness as an export nation reliant on the income for our collective wealth as a nation largely on the back of agriculture and exporting primary products from New Zealand.

So we still do have these several concerns and I want to take a moment just to outline them in broad terms, because I think that they are relevant as we proceed through this debate. The first one is that we feel strongly that actually it shouldn’t be politicians that set the targets for reductions in methane. We support the split-the-gas approach, by the way. We think that’s a good initiative and a good, sensible piece of practicality. But why should it be that the politicians—who, let’s face it, other than the member Shane Jones, are not the experts that they might think they are. Now, the member Shane Jones is a well-renowned expert on all matters, not the least of which is his own importance. But he’s not an expert on what the biological methane targets should be by 2050 and what they need to be in terms of a reduction over that period of time.

So it’s our view that it should actually be the role of the commission, that it should be this expert-led, independent, science-based commission that has been established to give advice to the Minister and to future Governments. We think that they should provide information on that. So we will at the committee of the whole House be putting forward a Supplementary Order Paper that reflects that change that we seek.

The second area where we seek to make change is in relation to food protection. We would like to see the words used in the Paris Agreement that provide for food production to be protected in terms of emissions reductions. We’d like to see those words reflected in the purpose clause of the bill and they currently are.

The third point is that we want to make sure that initiatives and steps taken by New Zealand are in step with those taken by other global players, by other countries, particularly the signatories to the Paris Agreement. We would like to see stronger consideration for global action and review of global action, particularly if other countries a few years down the track are not making the same sacrifices, are not making the same changes, are not making the same impacts that we will be taking if this bill is passed.

The fourth area is that we think there should be a stronger focus on the economic impacts that the commission must consider when providing advice to the Minister and Governments on what emissions targets should be and what the impacts of those targets will be in terms of actions for individual New Zealanders, for their families, and for their businesses.

The fifth point is that we are worried, as so many New Zealanders are, about the ability to offset forestry or use forestry as an offset and the potential for out-of-control afforestation. Now, there are some limits and the Minister has made mention of that. We don’t think that the bill goes far enough in supporting those.

We take as a sixth point the sensible suggestion made by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment that the emissions budgets be split between biogenic methane and carbon dioxide, as recommended by the commissioner. We think that’s a sensible addition and should be made.

Then the last point that we think the bill should include is some sensible application of significant research and development investment in helping to provide solutions, particularly for agricultural emissions. When the select committee travelled to Europe a year or so ago, most of the countries we visited when we asked what they were doing in terms of agricultural emissions said to us, “Well, look, agricultural emissions are so far down our list of priorities that we hope by the time we get to them, New Zealand will have solved those problems for us.”

And so we think that some very serious commitment to investment in finding the tools, finding the technology, finding the science that will give our farmers the answers to reduced emissions actually not only helps the New Zealand economy and New Zealand farmers but helps the world. We think if there is a potential for New Zealand to be a world leader in an area of climate change leadership, then it is in providing answers to agricultural emissions questions.

So these are all issues that we take seriously and we will be prosecuting further on. My colleagues will go into more detail further into this debate. But I think what’s important for the House to know is that the National Party has entered into this bill on the basis of good faith, on a sensible, balanced, pragmatic approach where we want to engage with the Government to try to achieve a result that can be, if it could possibly be, bipartisan and across the House. So it’s for that reason, given the reservations that we still have, that the National Party will be supporting this bill at second reading.

Tēnā koe, e Te Mana Whakawā. Well, it’s great to hear that the National Party will be supporting this bill at second reading at last. The National Party have been sitting on this issue for nine long years and they gutted the emissions trading scheme, and this Government—this coalition Government—has come together to pick up the wreckage of climate change that has been left behind.

To suggest we are doing this now because it’s important, it’s critical, and it’s urgent—now, I must say I was privileged and honoured to chair the hearings at the Environment Committee but it is entirely wrong to say that it was a rushed process. It was a careful and considered process and it does a great disservice to this House and to that member’s colleagues who sat assiduously throughout hours and hours of hearings and listened carefully to those submitters and to the officials who helped us meticulously go over iteration after iteration of this legislation to make it what it is today, which, as the Minister for Climate Change kindly said, is a much improved piece of legislation.

This was not a rushed process but that’s not to say it’s not urgent. It’s not a time to delay and defer any more. Thank goodness, at least, the Opposition isn’t denying—at least, most of them aren’t denying—any more. So it’s an important piece of legislation. I think that this is the first piece of legislation which is going to put obligations on a Government 30 years down the track. We’re not looking forward just a few years—not one, two, three, or even 10; this is a 30-year piece of legislation, and beyond.

We had 10,200 submissions, and can I say, I want to make it clear to submitters that they were all considered. One of the really gratifying things about it was that many submitters came with different views but they came, almost universally, with an acceptance that something had to happen now. Whether they were farmers talking about how they recognised that farming practice had to change, that land-use change would occur—but the farmers, to their credit, came to talk about how that should be managed. Not to oppose it, but to talk about management. Industry came, and, again, recognised that zero carbon, zero greenhouse gases in 2050 is a non-negotiable target: it’s got to happen. We have an existential threat, and it must happen. They wanted to talk about how we get there, how we move along that track, how we innovate, how we manage the changes that are going to be necessary. City folk came along as well, plenty of them; in their droves. They know they have to change as well. The economy—we saw the projections, we saw the economic modelling. We know this is going to have an economic impact, and people’s lives and their lifestyles will have to change. That is a good thing.

So I want to say to those people that we went and heard from in Christchurch, Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Nelson, Tauranga, Dunedin, and Wellington that you were listened to and a lot of the things you said have found themselves in this next version of the bill. But what is clear is that we were told to get on with it, that we have a strong mandate and a mandate to be ambitious, to be zero carbon, and to go for that 1.5 degrees Celsius warming target, to keep warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius, because we know change outside of that would be truly catastrophic. It would have consequences for New Zealand and elsewhere. I want to say that New Zealand is leading here, as we should, because we can. Because New Zealand has the resources, the ability, the knowhow, and the political will to get on with it. We’ve got to do not only our fair share but more than, because our Pacific neighbours need our leadership and they need our help.

So there are some major changes in this bill. One I want to go straight to, that was touched on by the Minister, is the fact that public bodies, local authorities, departments, and Crown entities can take into account targets and budgets. That is important because when a Crown entity of some kind comes to make a decision, it is entirely appropriate that they can say, “We want to factor climate change into our decision”—whether it be a purchasing decision, whether it be a management decision, whether it be where they buy their paper from, they can take into account climate change.

Importantly—that section is new section 5ZK, inserted by clause 8—new section 5ZK(2) was removed from the bill. Now, that removal is important because that clause said that a failure to take into account does not render any decision void or illegal or ultra vires or whatever. Now, we have deferred—the Environment Committee considered this and thought it appropriate to defer that question to the courts. So it is now open to the courts to look at what effect not taking climate change, budgets, and emissions targets into account might have on any particular decision. It is possible that a court could find that the decision was so climate-relevant that the entity ought to have taken that into account and it was wrong for them not to. So I leave that to the courts, and I trust that the courts and judges will look at that very carefully indeed.

Another important insertion into this bill is found in new section 5L(ea), inserted by clause 8, and that is the recognition of the impact on Māori and iwi: that, in making decisions, the commission must consider—mandatory consideration—the Crown/Māori relationship, Te Ao Māori, and the effects on iwi. We know that many of these effects—economic impacts, land-use changes—will affect our Māori communities more than others. I’m very glad that we were able to listen and put that in there.

Also, a lot of submissions—many, many submissions, and I’m not going to name them, and a lot from, I think, the Extinction Rebellion group—identified maritime and aviation fuels as a really important point. Whilst there is a set of negotiations going on at an international level, they were quite right to point out that at the present time there is simply a gap, and so new section 5OA, inserted by clause 8, says we’re going to relook at that. We want to give the commission the ability to come back and say: “That problem still exists. It’s a large part of the carbon emissions and we want to be able to bring them back into this domestic scheme.” So I do think that that’s a very important change, and, again, the submitters had a real impact there.

And what’s more—the other thing that I really want to emphasise is that we listened to submitters who were concerned about the impact on communities and land-use change, because land-use change is important and, along with that, the economic impacts. The National Party—and I’m really glad that they’re supporting this bill at second reading—have really pushed for explicit recognition of economic impact. Well, throughout this bill the impact on communities, on their incomes, on how they do business, can be appropriately taken into account. It’s all there.

So I’m hopeful that we will get cross-party agreement on this as we come through the subsequent readings of this bill, because this is an issue which requires political consensus, and any party that takes this matter seriously, recognises the urgency of the problem, and is prepared to make hard decisions and ambitious choices, absolutely we need to be on board with. But it’s not time for being weak-kneed or for any delay.

The really important thing, of course—the centrepiece of this bill, which we all agree on—is the independence of the Climate Change Commission and the fact that this body will be giving clear, strong guidance to the Government about what steps need to be taken. That needs to be absolutely preserved and promoted. I’m hopeful that we will indeed get to the third reading of this bill and we’ll be unified on it, because this zero carbon bill is absolutely at the centrepiece of what this Government and this House needs to do, not for today, not for tomorrow, but for 10, 30, 50 years and for ever. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Dr Duncan Webb, who is the chairperson of the Environment Committee, has ended with quite a considered contribution, but I note at the commencement of his speech, he was quick to forget that it was in fact a National-led Government that signed up to the Paris Agreement, that it was a National-led Government that invested heavily in an electric vehicle (EV) fleet and EV technology, that it was a National-led Government that invested heavily and promoted renewable energy in the electricity sector, and that it was a National-led Government that, again, invested very heavily in our natural environment in cleaning up waterways—hundreds of millions of dollars—and investing in Predator Free so that our natural landscapes could flourish and, equally, contribute to reducing carbon in our atmosphere. So this Government should acknowledge the contribution that the previous Government made.

With that, we on this side of the House have taken our commitment to climate change seriously throughout this process, undertaking due diligence as we have gone through the select committee process. I want to first of all thank the officials. Certainly, I did not come into this as a climate change expert; I certainly don’t leave as a climate change expert. I want to thank the officials’ patience for taking us through some very detailed and technical information, answering our questions so well and helping us understand the full ramifications of what this architecture bill could bring about. As my colleague the Hon Scott Simpson has said, we do rise in support but we do have some concerns about the bill moving forward.

We heard from 800 individuals and organisations throughout the width and breadth of this country. Certainly on this side of the House, we took it very, very seriously. We heard from students who are passionate about climate change, we heard from industry, we heard from activists, and we heard from farmers. We acknowledge the anxiety that is out there with respect to climate change. Equally, on this side of the House, we acknowledge the anxiety that some industries and farmers feel as they have been isolated and alienated throughout this process. That is not fair, and that needs to be taken into account and acknowledged equally as we move forward. Nobody is denying that this country shouldn’t move together and do something about climate change. However, it is our contention that the so-called just transition needs to be measured and only move through at a pace in which everybody is comfortable and that we don’t unnecessarily pick winners and losers at this point in time. There is no point having an absolutely green country with no wealth to go with it where our people cannot live, cannot produce for their family and allow livelihoods moving forward. There is absolutely no reason to destroy New Zealand as we move forward.

So National has taken this process very, very seriously. We have been very respectful of people with opposing views who have submitted, but there is an underlying set of rationales that we have subscribed to as we have gone through this process. Our thinking is that this process must be a science-based approach and that we must have a focus on innovation and technology advancement and not solely be focused on reduction of consumption only. Again, that’s called picking winners and losers too early and moving at a pace that is out of step with our international friends and colleagues. We want to make sure that New Zealand is strong moving forward, in an economic sense, in a social sense, and, equally, in that environmental space. That, ultimately, comes back to the economic impacts. Often, a National Government gets hauled over the coals for being focused on the economics, but, quite frankly, if you do not have a strong economy, there is absolutely no way that you can invest in essential services that help people, and, of course, it is people, at the end of the day, that is that underlying necessity; it is people that we need to take care of moving forward.

So, look, this is a framework bill. The National Party agrees with the 2050 target, but we want to see more alignment with the Paris Agreement. We don’t support the methane target because that’s not based on good science and it certainly, at this stage, is tying our good farmers’ hands behind their backs with regards to food production, and as the Paris Agreement says, the protection of food production should be noted and looked at as we move forward as a global community. The other thing is that we certainly support the formation of an expert-led commission. That is important because we want decisions, we want plans for budgets moving forward, to be the most objective that they can be, based on good information, based on good science.

I have a couple of concerns that I want to pick up on before I conclude my contribution, and the first is this over-reliance on forestry as the panacea that is going to get us through this so-called crisis. We have looked throughout this process, at the select committee process, at economic modelling, at the tools that are currently available to us to reduce our targets and move towards the 2050 targets. Forestry is a main part of that.

What it boiled down to is that what we needed to do was basically plant out the size of the province of Otago in pine trees, finding suitable land throughout New Zealand, land conversion, to do that. In my mind what we’ve already seen with pine plantations taking off is a devastation of our rural communities. If you continue to plant pine forests you take away arable land from our farmers, who are the most efficient producers of food in the world; you devastate rural communities; families leave those towns, and that could mean that the local doctor ends up leaving; the teacher ends up leaving the rural school; the roll drops; and next thing you’ve got the school closing and rural communities are completely—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Scaremongering.

—devastated. It may come as a surprise to Mr Jones, but not all of us want to live in high-rises or in cities. Some of us want to live in the provinces, some of us want to live in rural communities, and some of us have lived a life off the land, conserving our land and producing some of the best food exported across the world, and they want to continue for generations to do that. It should be supported, certainly acknowledged in the Paris Agreement, that food production is a necessity and therefore we want to make sure that the framework that this bill puts in place acknowledges that there should be a cap on forestry and a cap on land-use change, at least some sort of strategy—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: More regulation.

—behind it so that New Zealand’s way of life can be protected—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: National Party red tape.

—across the main and that food production is protected, moving forward. That was certainly a sentiment illustrated by many submitters and it is something that needs to be looked at moving forward, acknowledged, and certainly not shouted down, Mr Jones, as something that is simply scaremongering.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to stand and take a call on this, the second reading of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill.

It’s a pleasure to be a member of the Environment Committee, and I’d just like to start my contribution this afternoon by thanking our previous chair, Dr Deborah Russell, who was absolutely fantastic to work with; our new chair of equal quality Dr Duncan Webb; all of the members for their contributions throughout this process; and particularly also too the officials who have worked diligently with us. It was noted in the previous member’s contribution—the member Sarah Dowie, who’s just resumed her seat—that we were given a great amount of expert advice, that this was a space for many of us where we had limited knowledge. The officials were very patient, ensuring that we had the information that was needed for us to progress this bill through the select committee process. Also, I would make note of all those who contributed to these important discussions on climate change.

I note that the Minister in his speech this afternoon has said that the select committee has done a grand job and that the bill is much improved because of this. So thank you to the Minister for those comments. We do believe that we all worked genuinely very well and very hard together to make those improvements so that we see this bill now fit for purpose.

There has been criticism of the zero carbon bill. Some of the farming community have said that they believe it actually goes way too far. However, on the other hand, environmentalists have feared that it doesn’t go far enough and that it won’t end up saving our planet. But this legislation, I believe, is ambitious, and it is far-reaching, and I believe that we have found and landed in the right place.

Limiting climate change to no more than 1.5 degrees over the next 30 years will become legally binding. We’ve had many commentators, particularly over the last year or so, who’ve actually missed the importance of farm emissions being included inside the legislation. What we’re doing in New Zealand is we’re actually including all the tough stuff in terms of the climate change strategy, the framework that we are looking to pass into legislation. In the UK, when the committee travelled there last year, we heard that over the 10 years that the UK has had their contract legislation they have just been knocking off all the low-hanging fruit in climate change. But, for New Zealand, we don’t have that luxury, because we’re already very high in terms of our renewable energy, so we don’t have those easy initiatives to get through. So we are going straight to the hard stuff and that’s something that I think the committee were well aware of. At 85 percent renewable already, we’re light years ahead of many other countries around the globe.

Nevertheless, it’s also very useful, I think, at this juncture to point out New Zealand First’s position when negotiating with our coalition and our confidence and supply partners about developing an enduring response to the challenge of our changing climate—weather events that we’ve seen, particularly in our own neighbourhood, in the Pacific. Where I live, near Warkworth, we have the largest Kiribati community. Why are they living in New Zealand? Because their island has seen the sea level come up through it. I was just at the Inter-Parliamentary Union last year up in Geneva, and Tonga called for an urgent debate on climate change, which I was honoured enough to chair. So we had Pacific Island nations all debating how important it is that we make this move.

We do acknowledge that the last National Government recognised this as well by signing up to the Paris Agreement in 2016 and committing us. They did tinker around the edges, taking a few tiny steps, so we’re really pleased now that we’re getting down to business and therefore no longer will the status quo be sufficient for us. It became untenable and so we had to seek, with our coalition agreement with Labour, the creation of an independent Climate Change Commission and also the introduction of the zero carbon bill.

We received a large number of submissions: 10,200 submissions. We heard oral evidence from 800 submitters across the country, in Christchurch, Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Nelson, Tauranga, Dunedin, and Wellington. There was huge interest in people having their say, and it was a privilege to be able to share the commitments on New Zealand for New Zealand First, and to have my colleague to help with the heavy lifting from our perspective. Mark Patterson was able to sit in on some of those subcommittees to hear concerns and thoughts from those submitters.

One of the things that I was particularly interested in was the level of engagement that we had. For example, the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council in their submission were very clear that setting a clear target in law will provide much-needed certainty and clarity of direction, and they also talked about focusing on how they will reach their target as a region. So there is buy-in from our regions to this. They also commented that the agricultural sector will be important in a regional context and they noted that water security is a very important focus for them as well.

Some of the other submissions that I found interesting: we heard from one farmer who had been farming in the Waipukurau region for 103 years on that land, four generations of farmers, and they’ve already reduced their stock by 10 percent to become a more sustainable production unit. So already we are seeing where farmers are taking responsibility and making those changes as well. One of the other submitters was concerned where the bill will land for farmers, so they actually acknowledged that the split-gas approach was a very good thing. The Interim Climate Change Committee spoke to the committee, and one of the comments that they made, which I think was something that the entire committee agreed with, was that it was critical to depoliticise the commission and that the independent Climate Change Commission should be experts in their fields. I think that is something that we all, as a committee, agreed to.

We did make several changes to the bill, and certainly it has improved the bill. Several people have already acknowledged what those changes are, so I don’t want to relitigate too many of them, but I would like to speak to the one around consideration of technology. Now, we believe that the commission must consider, when performing its functions and duties, existing technology and anticipated technological developments, including the costs and the benefits to early adoption of these in New Zealand, and we made this recommendation that they need to consider the costs and the benefits of adopting new and existing technologies early. This will help particularly for our rural sector, the agricultural sector, to make the transition once these new technologies come on board, and I think we need to be forward-looking in terms of what those new technologies will be. At some point they will come on stream, and that will give hope to various sectors of our community. So we’re forward-looking. We are, basically, taking a positive approach to this and not being negative Nancys about it at all, unlike some on the other side of the House.

I’d just like to reiterate, finally, in conclusion—I turn my mind now to the long methane target, and I’d just like to make a comment on that. This is the methane that does not live long in the atmosphere. The emissions budgets leading up to 2030 will determine the actual target post-2030. Now, that’s as it should be, and the scaremongering around the long target is wrong. That scaremongering is damaging to the agricultural sector as it works with the Government to turn green into gold. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to take a call on the second reading of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. Contrary to the views on the other side of the House and that they would have everyone believe, National are concerned about climate change. I am concerned about climate change. We understand the consequences of inaction. We understand the urgency of the world to come together to combat what is probably one of the, if not the most, significant issues of our time. National signed up to the Paris accord, an acknowledgment of the need for us to play our part as a good global citizen.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Sold out the cockies. Sold out the farmers. Went to Paris.

That member continually bellowing nonsense from the other side of the House should perhaps consider the amount of carbon dioxide spewing out of his mouth with every single obnoxious comment, and perhaps consider the effect of his own global warming, and perhaps shut it for five minutes and listen to this young woman who has something to say.

In 2017, we brought Lord Deben from the UK to speak about the experiences of the UK in setting up their own Climate Change Commission and to see how we could perhaps do that here in New Zealand to similar good effect. We have acknowledged for some time that the establishment of a climate commission, a body of independent, dispassionate experts to provide advice on how best New Zealand can wrestle down our emissions and decarbonise our economy, is broadly the right direction of travel, the right proposal.

We worked on this bill in a cross-party, collaborative manner for the good part of a year. National spokesperson Todd Muller, to my right here, worked very closely with James Shaw on this—as I say, for a good part of a year—to articulate National’s five key principles that our leader Simon Bridges articulated at Fieldays: that the approach must be science-based, that it must be technology-driven, that our response must be in keeping with our global trading partners, that we must offer long-term incentives to businesses and to consumers, and that we want to ensure that the economic impact is, of course, minimised so Kiwis who are already doing it tough are not overly burdened by this bill. Up until James Shaw went radio silence on us up to around six weeks prior to dropping the bill in the House, we had a good working relationship to get these principles embedded into the bill.

We broadly support the idea of a Climate Change Commission, outlined in the bill as reported back from the Environment Committee. I’m not sure that there are many who would vehemently oppose the setting up of a panel of experts to provide dispassionate advice to advise successive Governments on how we can best reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. But the problem, in our view, is that this Government keep trying to forestall the work of the Climate Change Commission. Here they are in this very bill, setting up a panel of independent, dispassionate experts to advise on some very meaty technical issues, and yet the Government are pre-empting that work, firstly by banning oil and gas on the one hand—a decision that would have been perfectly handled by an independent Climate Change Commission. They’ve got taxes on cars. Here in this bill, as reported back from select committee, they are proposing a methane reduction target by 2050 of 24 percent to 48 percent, a figure which was an indicative target in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and which was not to be used as a guide for individual countries’ reductions. Yet here we are, having it baked into the bill. This Government can’t help themselves but do the work of the Climate Change Commission—and very poorly, I might add. If they truly believed in a Climate Change Commission and the emissions budget process, they wouldn’t have been pre-empting all of the work of the Climate Change Commission.

There are some very complex issues to be taken into account, and we heard this from numerous submitters to the bill. Methane has a very different effect, because while it is a very potent gas—unlike carbon dioxide, which has thousands of years of a lifespan in our atmosphere—it has a lifespan of about 12 years. While methane from our agricultural sector does make up 50 percent of our total greenhouse gas emissions in this country, it would make sense for the Climate Change Commission, a panel of dispassionate, independent experts, to advise successive Governments on how to reduce emissions from the sector. The commission would need to take into account the unique way the short-lived gas acts in our atmosphere and the ability of our agricultural sector to mitigate their emissions. They could investigate and advise on farmers’ ability to actually accurately measure emissions at the farm gate, the availability of technology to reduce their methane emissions, and the effect that any reduction would have on the sector, on our rural communities, and on our economy as a whole.

There were a number of submitters, both in support and opposing the bill, who, when asked by me on many occasions, and my colleagues, “Would it be better to have the Climate Change Commission set the methane target?”, for the most part, they all agreed. So in light of these comments by submitters, and with our firm view around the role of the commission in setting these targets, we will be proposing a Supplementary Order Paper, an amendment, that would propose the target for biological methane reduction be recommended by the independent Climate Change Commission. This is pragmatic, fair, and reasonable solution to what has been one of the most contentious parts of this bill, and an idea that was very well received by submitters as a way to move forward.

We can see from earlier examples of this Government trying to make climate change decisions on the hoof for purposes of image rather than actual climate change mitigation—these decisions end up quite often having the opposite effect. The Government’s own eventual advice suggested the oil and gas ban would, in fact, increase global emissions. The car tax wouldn’t have the desired effect. Here we are burning more coal, backing down on our promises to electrify the Government fleet. The Minister himself, James Shaw, is telling us that our greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise through to the mid-2020s. It has been a complete shambles, the way that this Government has had very little effect on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. So here we have the perfect opportunity for this Government to make better decisions. Despite National’s position on the select committee, they are sticking to their guns with that position that they know best when it comes to the methane targets, but we will be making the very strong argument at committee stage to have this target set by the independent Climate Change Commission.

The second thing I want to focus on in my contribution is the number of submitters that we saw who spoke to our select committee about their fears around the afforestation of our fertile farming land. They talked about the number of farms that have recently been bought up and converted into pine plantations. They spoke about the decimation of rural communities. They talked about the loss of teachers. They talked about the loss of their communities. They were emotional when they spoke. In some cases they broke down in tears. They spoke about the mental health of farmers and the pressure that these sales were having on farmers and their communities, and it’s something that we need to listen to—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: You don’t know.

—despite Mr Jones’ continual bellowing.

One comment in particular stayed with me: she said, “Why should the polluters continue to pollute and transfer their dirty problem to the agricultural sector by having rural communities destroyed by mass-planting of farms in pines?” National members on the committee were very concerned to hear that the level of planting required to reach our zero carbon goal was 1.7 million hectares by 2050, and by 2070 we’d have to double that—another 1.7 million hectares just to maintain our zero carbon goal.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment shared our concerns, preparing a number of papers for us. He noted that his key concern was the absence of any effective mechanism for managing the risks of forestry offsets, and, in particular, he said that they, in fact, may be overused at the expense of achieving reductions in gross emissions, and that there was a real risk that their relative impermanence means that they will not actually provide the climate mitigation hoped for. He went on to say that, in his opinion, these risks were serious and would fundamentally compromise the purpose of the new framework. To this end, we will be proposing a Supplementary Order Paper at committee stage to ensure that the commission consider the appropriate use for forestry offsets.

As I said at the beginning, National broadly supports the idea of an independent Climate Change Commission to advise successive Governments so that we may set budgets to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, wrestle down those emissions, and move towards a zero carbon economy. We have some quite major concerns about this bill, and we will set these concerns out in a number of Supplementary Order Papers that we will argue passionately for at committee stage. But, in the meantime, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Earlier this year, a 10-year-old Enoch led a whole range of students as they marched through Invercargill’s streets, demanding urgent action on climate change. Once the group of students got to the Invercargill City Council they were met by Mayor Tim Shadbolt, who asked them whether they needed a microphone. Enoch replied, “No we don’t, because our voices are already loud enough.” I think the thing is that across New Zealand over the last few months, New Zealanders’ voices have been similarly loud as they’ve come and talked to us as a select committee around the submissions on the zero carbon bill. Over the last few months we received about 10,200 submissions and we heard from around 800 submitters. Like many of the young people that spoke to us—like Enoch—what they were asking for was urgent action on climate change.

So just reading one of these submissions from Cashmere High School, what they said is, “The whole of Cashmere High School believes that the zero carbon bill aiming for zero carbon emissions by 2050 must be drastically altered to have any chance at reducing the catastrophic effects of climate change … the government needs to plan for a strong carbon bill so that we will have a strong future and a chance against climate change. If they were to not do this it would [directly disregard] the future of our youth.” They also talked about bringing carbon emissions to zero within the next 20 years, and also talked about the need for the agricultural industry to be properly included in the bill.

Similarly, we also heard from many in our primary sector. Many of them also supported a lot of the aspects of the bill, but a number of them also urged caution, and particularly around the methane targets. Just reading from Fonterra’s submission, they said, “The 2050 target for methane reduction is very ambitious and will be extremely challenging to meet with technology currently available. We support a 2050 methane target that is provisionally set at up to 24 percent net reduction from 2017. Regular reviews of this target must be based on scientific and economic analysis.”

So as a select committee we heard both sides in terms of making this bill much stronger and going much faster, but also from our primary sector, saying, “No, we need to stop and think about the science and what’s achievable.” So, as members of the Government side of the Environment Committee, we were happy with the targets as introduced in the bill because, basically, the 2050 methane target, and the range that was set, was set with reference to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report of us staying within 1.5 degrees of warming.

The other thing is that the commission already has the opportunity to recommend changes to the targets when it reviews them in 2024-25, based on the best available evidence at the time. So there are those opportunities to review those targets at that point.

But, in the rest of my contribution, I’d just like to focus on some of the changes that we did incorporate within the recommendations for the bill in response to the feedback from submitters. There were quite a few submitters that were talking to us about reducing forestry offsets—for example, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association. What they were pointing out in their submission was their view that “Overly relying on trees can be risky … because trees are not permanent—they can be lost to fire, pests, and climate impacts.” In their view, while they supported tree planting, they thought that it was a poor substitute for stopping carbon emissions. Similarly, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment also expressed some concerns about forestry offsets and suggested possible legislative limits in terms of those offsets.

So in response to a lot of this feedback that we got, some recommended changes to the bill have been made. As Government members we feel that these adequately address those concerns. Some of those changes are around clause 8. In new section 5Q(1) this relates to reviewing the 2050 target, and in the addition of new section 5Q(1)(c) it states that as a result of reviewing the 2050 target, the commission may recommend a change to “the greenhouse gas emissions and removals to which the 2050 target … applies.” In this context, the removals it refers to includes emissions that are sequestered by forestry. The addition of new section 5Q(1)(d), inserted by clause 8, allows the commission to recommend changes to “how the 2050 target … may be met, including limits on removals [or] offshore mitigation.” So, again, what these amendments actually allow is the Climate Change Commission to recommend that those limits be placed on the removals by forestry—so already doing what many of the submitters have been asking for.

Then in clause 8, new section 5Z(2)(b) relates to the matters the administering commission must have regard to when advising on setting emissions budgets. An extra addition, 5Z(2)(b)(ixa), states: “the implications, or potential implications, of land-use change for communities:” This reflects the feedback that we’ve been getting from rural communities in terms of the impact that forestation may be having on their livelihoods and makes that an explicit requirement that needs to be taken into account. So it’s our view that it’s not appropriate to set hard limits in the primary legislation, but the independent Climate Change Commission needs to do some of that background policy work and then move forward, as per already allowed for in the bill.

We also had submissions requesting that we include international shipping and aviation into the bill. The committee acknowledged that that was actually important, but there were some uncertainties around the global situation in terms of where that’s currently at. So what we’ve recommended is adding a new requirement in new section 5OA that “The Commission must, no later than 31 December 2024, provide written advice to the Minister on whether the 2050 target should be amended to include emissions from international shipping and aviation (and, if so, how the target should be amended).”

I think that’s really important, but the issue we’ve got at the moment is, in a lot of overseas jurisdictions, while the emissions are reported in their national greenhouse gas inventories, they’re not actually included in their greenhouse gas emission totals. So what we’re recommending is that further work be done internationally to work out how those emissions are accounted for before we sign up to something in the primary legislation. Similarly, tools for abatement for some of the emissions aren’t there at the moment, and also some may be constrained by international rules. So the thought was to have a look at it a bit further down the line and then get the independent Climate Change Commission to provide further advice on that.

We also heard a lot of submissions about prohibiting use of international carbon credits, and there are also some extra changes in the bill that would lay out how we can strengthen that so the requirement is that those are used only when unforeseeable circumstances have come up. So we can probably discuss some of those more in the committee stage or as we move through the various stages of this bill. So there was a lot of feedback and a lot of submissions on a range of different areas, and I suspect many of these will be canvassed over the next few days as we debate this bill.

But what I’d like to leave you with is just a quote from one of our submitters Alicia Hall, who’s the co-founder of Millions of Mothers. In her submission she said, “Today my ten year old asked me if we can stop climate change and what will happen to him if we can’t. I am not willing to lie to my son [and] so I and we as a group, [Millions of Mothers], want the New Zealand government to step up and do what needs to be done in order to stem the worst effects of climate change. We consider anything less to be unconscionable.”

So, thank you, Mr Speaker. I therefore commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s a wonderful opportunity for me to make a contribution on the zero carbon bill. I came into the Environment Committee when Todd Muller and I had a bit of a changeover, and Todd Muller said to me, “Get in there and shore up the right flank.” So that’s indeed what I did. I want to acknowledge all of those on the select committee, and I want to pay a tribute to Todd Muller who, when he was our spokesperson for climate change issues, worked very closely with James Shaw.

Indeed, it was just unfortunate that for a couple of months leading up to the first reading the phone somehow just fell off the hook. I think what happened there is New Zealand First woke up to the fact that Mr Shaw had reached out to this side of the House and perhaps hadn’t consulted with New Zealand First. So, for whatever reason, whether that indeed is correct, we find ourselves in this position—

💬 Todd Muller: Obviously correct.

—this afternoon. Mr Muller is indeed confirming that it is correct, that’s exactly what happened.

What we’re interested in—talking about the politics of this bill before I get into the substance—is what New Zealand First is going to do when we put our Supplementary Order Papers, the changes that the National Party want to this bill to strengthen it up. What are New Zealand First going to do? And that’s going to play out in the next day or so.

What I thought is also telling is that James Shaw has sent out an invitation to everyone. The invitation reads something like this: “Dear such and such, come to drinks in my office on Thursday night, this bill will be done and dusted and it’s an opportunity for celebration.” I wish Mr Shaw well with his little drinkies on Thursday night, but I thought that might have been a little bit presumptuous, because we have got a committee stage to go, and I think it’s going to be a long debate because we have got some concerns with this bill, and I want to go through those now.

Of course, we all know our position on this bill: that things need to change. I’m not a denier. Yes, I’m from the agriculture sector and I’m a farmer myself, and I know that there are challenges ahead. But, importantly, our five key principles are, of course, we need to focus on the science—and I think that’s certainly a given. Everyone on this side of the House nods. We know that the Green Party are focused on science when, indeed, it suits them, but they like to ignore it when it doesn’t suit their rhetoric. Technology is a real focus as well, and we don’t think that it has come to pass in this bill enough. I want to make a few more comments about that shortly.

We want to ensure that there are long-term incentives for change and that we don’t want to get ahead of the world. We don’t want to be the laggards, but we don’t want to be just fast followers and out of the blocks first or second. We want to ensure that the big growing economies of the world are playing their part as well. And what about the economic impacts? Pretty much silent in this bill, and I want to come on to those in a moment.

Chlöe Swarbrick: It’s because you didn’t understand officials.

I acknowledged the officials and I acknowledged the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE). In fact, I asked officials, specifically, if they could come back in and take me through the economic analysis because I was new on the committee. I appreciate the officials doing that, and I think the rest of the committee actually learnt a little bit through that process as well.

This is economic modelling—and, yes, I know it’s out 50 years, but here’s the impact of this bill, where one of the economic modelling scenarios says that it could indeed cost $3,000 to $7,500 per household out to 2050. Mr Shaw shakes his head, and he’ll probably shake his head on this one as well: it could reduce GDP by $300 billion—that’s about $10 billion a year over 30 years; shakes his head on that one. So that was really important, and I don’t think that’s very clear in the bill. Yes, it does mean that the commission has to take account of the economic impacts, and so does the Minister; that’s really important. But I think the numbers—the highlight numbers—are nowhere to be seen in this bill.

Now, I want to talk specifically about the methane targets, because this has been a big bugbear for the rural sector, and all of the industries that came in and addressed the committee were really concerned about it. In law, in this bill right now that we are debating the second reading of, and if it goes through, these methane targets out to 2050 will be in legislation. They’ll be enshrined in law—minus 24 percent to minus 47 percent. There was hardly anyone in the agriculture community that came into the select committee and said, “Bring it on, we can do this.”

I’ll tell you what’s really important: all of the technology gains in this bill have already been banked. So if the methane inhibitors—if the vaccine doesn’t turn up, what is the agriculture community going to do? What is the Government proposing to do to turbocharge R & D? What is the focus of the coalition Government on GE—genetic engineering, genetic modification? What is the Government’s view?

On one hand, we have Labour Ministers and New Zealand First saying, “Yes, we should look at it”—and I was heartened that, about two months ago, Minister Shaw said, yes, he was keen to have a look at it, but what’s happened is that the Green Party membership have rounded on James Shaw. Just in the last week or so, he’s now saying, “Oh, no, it’s off the table, we’re not going to anything around GE; we’re not even prepared to look at it.” That’s not surprising to me, because Eugenie Sage stopped officials and the group that are leading Predator Free 2050 from doing any work on making possums sterile to reduce those terrible pests that we have in this country. All that GE work has stopped. So it’s not surprising that the Green Party have this view.

The reason that I raise the importance of technology, and I’ve talked about a couple of examples, the really important thing about GE—and that’s why on this side of the House we are prepared now to have the debate and have the discussion with New Zealanders—is that there is a ryegrass being developed through AgResearch that has to go offshore to the US to be field trialled, and it reduces methane emissions by about 25 percent. It’s also drought tolerant. So if you think about technology—that is the opportunity for our farmers to make change to try to meet this horrendous target that I’m really concerned about. But that is silent from the Government coalition benches because they know that the Greens won’t have a bar of it at all.

I want to acknowledge the contribution that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment made through the select committee process. He came in several times and presented to the committee. Simon Upton is doing a good job as the Commissioner for the Environment. In fact, his staff stayed with the committee right through this process—and I want to acknowledge them. The important thing that resonated with me was when the PCE came in and said, “If forestry offsetting is not curbed, we could be in a situation”—this is New Zealand—“that 1.3 million to 1.7 million hectares of land is in forestry.”

That’s by 2050, and then, if you multiply that out to 2075, that’s 3 million hectares. To give you a sense of those numbers, there’s about 10 million hectares in New Zealand under productive land use. So, potentially, you’d wipe out a third of that—that’s the size of the Otago region—in trees. That’s why we’re going to be debating over the next 36 hours the importance of curbing the offsetting of forestry. We have a real concern that if this aspect of this bill is not constrained, it’s going to hollow out rural communities and it’s going to impact on our food and fibre production that we are world leading in. I bring it back to when the National Government signed up to this agreement in Paris. A big part of that agreement is a focus on not threatening food production, so that is a very significant point.

Finally, I want to just wrap up by saying—

Order! The member’s time has expired. This is a split call. I call Kiritapu Allan—five minutes.

I want to acknowledge and thank this House for having this debate this afternoon. Sometimes in this House we don’t actually often debate the points and we get up here and we read out key lines, but today, because of the contribution just made by Nathan Guy, the member prior, I want to set out some facts that I think were omitted from the previous speaker’s contribution in this House. One of the things—and why I feel so impassioned to do so—is that on an issue that is so fundamentally significant not only for our nation but for our global world, as can be seen by the thousands and thousands and millions of people that are mobilising around the world right now on climate change issues, we can’t afford to be so cynical or to be playing political point-scoring games when it comes to a bill as significant as this.

So I want to turn to the member who just made some interesting remarks and, I say, has been behind—not just that member but the party in Opposition at the moment has been behind some of the most divisive rhetoric that this country has seen over fundamental issues like the future protections of our nation. Now, I want to start with the methane target that the member just alluded to. There was widespread support amongst the primary industries for the split targets and there was widespread support for the initial target of the reduction of 10 percent by 2030. Now, the member just mentioned the second target: the 2050 target.

Look, there has been a lot of discussion about that, but what the member failed to do and what the member’s party has failed to do and what those naysayers have failed to do in the propagation of misinformation about these targets is to say that there is a Climate Change Commission that this bill entrenches and establishes. By 2024, that Climate Change Commission will assess this target and determine whether or not it is appropriate. This isn’t a bygone, forgone “It’s all done and dusted, the paint is dry, and it’s over Rover.” This is a target for now. But that side of the House has constantly been putting out misinformation that there can be no further amendments and it’s all over.

The entire purpose of the Climate Change Commission is to ensure that the targets are right. All we’re doing today is setting a target. Those things will be looked at in due course, and that was something that I respected about the prior spokesperson when it came to working with Government members on this side of the House—actually engaged at a pragmatic level, understood the nuances, tried to play down the misinformation that was being spread throughout the nation. We all agree, I think, on both sides of the House that we have to get the infrastructure and the regulatory environment right. But I say that that kind of divisive rhetoric and that misinformed rhetoric is a deceitful act for our constituents, and we owe our people a lot more than that.

I also want to turn to the second point that the member spoke to, and that has come up a number of times on that side of the House. It’s around the economics of this bill—the economic implications of this piece of legislation. Well, it was interesting to note that there were five key principles that the Opposition wanted to talk about. First of all, we’ve got to be based on clear science—clear science—and I couldn’t agree more. But when it came to the economy, oh, it was sufficient to say—and he relied on those remarks in this House—that there could be economic impacts of a loss of GDP. There might be impacts per household ranging from $3k to $7.5k. The principled basis for opposition that that side is applying across their own core principles is completely out of sync with its own side, so it’s frustrating on this side of the House to hear that as a consumer.

I want to acknowledge the work, though, that our Minister for Climate Change, the Hon James Shaw, has done not just with a broad range of constituents—you know, we’ve got our young climate change activists; we’ve got a broad range of people—but also with the primary sector. This week—actually, on 24 October—we saw the groups DairyNZ, Beef + Lamb, Federated Farmers, Horticulture New Zealand, Irrigation New Zealand, the Meat Industry Association, Apiculture New Zealand, the Dairy Companies Association New Zealand, and the Deer Industry New Zealand all come out in support of the work that this Minister has done to ensure that the agricultural emissions that are done are done right.

So I want to acknowledge your work. It has not been an easy ride, and it’s being fundamentally undermined by the perilous rhetoric that is being put out by the Opposition and supported by a few naysayers. So I want to congratulate you, Minister, for continuing to be at the forefront of ensuring that this legislation is right.

I call Nicola Willis—five minutes.

It’s my pleasure to take this opportunity to outline why National is supporting this bill at second reading and our ideas for how it can be improved. I think it’s a shame that Kiritapu Allan, the member speaking prior to me, threw out words like “devious” and “deceitful” in relation to the conduct of the National Party on this bill, because, in fact, the case here is that National has been working in good faith with members on the other side of the House since mid-2018 to make this the best piece of legislation it can be because, at a fundamental level, we agree on some of its core objectives. We believe in the benefits of having an independent, expert-led Climate Change Commission, we believe in the concept of targets that send long-term signals to the economy, and we believe in aligning our action with the Paris goals of limiting global warming.

We also believe that this should be done in a manner that does not threaten food security, which is also a goal of the Paris Agreement, and we also believe that this should be done in a manner that both considers, measures, and manages the economic impacts of our climate change response. That is why today, in this speech, I will be addressing the areas that in good faith we think this bill could be improved on. The reason we offer those suggestions is because we genuinely think that for the zero carbon bill to reach its goal of being an enduring piece of legislation, it needs to have bipartisan support, and for the zero carbon bill to really fulfil its goals, it needs to be something that addresses the concerns of sectors and individuals and communities across this country.

I have met with the different people who are involved in this debate. I have met with the young people who have striked at Parliament who have come from Generation Zero, and I understand their concern to see long-term action on climate change. I understand that they want this Parliament to commit to action. I have met with the leaders in the business community who say, “Actually, what we really want is some policy certainty. What we don’t want is the policies changing from one Government to the next.” I have met with the farmers who say “Don’t take away my ability to produce food that will feed the world in a lower-emission way than my competitors offshore.” I have met with the families who say to me “Climate change is real, but please don’t make me wear a hair shirt to address it.”, who are already struggling to feed their families and make the budget balance each week, and who say, “What cost impact will this have for me?” I think it is the obligation of members in this House to listen to all of those people and to come up with a piece of legislation that does the right thing and that can be genuinely enduring, and for it to do that it has to consider—it has to consider—economic impacts and it has to recognise New Zealand’s strengths in food production.

So let me quickly outline the seven pragmatic areas that, in good faith, National is suggesting the Government should incorporate into this bill. We think the methane target should be set by the independent Climate Change Commission. We think that saying that the Paris Agreement action should not threaten food production should be incorporated into the very purpose of this bill. We think that the provisions to keep us in line with the actions of other countries should be strengthened. We think that the commission should be required to consider the economic impacts of action and to advise Governments of the day on that, because anything else is negligent. If the commission is not advising what impacts this bill will have on the livelihood and on the very wellbeing of New Zealanders, their children, and future generations, then it is not a piece of legislation that will endure, because New Zealanders will simply not accept recommendations that do not consider the full economic impact. We think that this bill should split the emission budgets between methane and carbon dioxide.

Finally, because we’re an optimistic bunch on this side, we believe that this bill should strengthen its commitment to research and development, because we are optimistic that, actually, New Zealand can make a significant contribution to reducing global emissions and, in fact, lead the world in some areas, including the way that we reduce emissions from agricultural production. But if we’re to do that, we must take the opportunity on all sides of this House not to accuse each other of bad motives, not to accuse each other of having been divisive, but to instead focus on creating a principled, pragmatic piece of legislation that gets the incentives right, that’s fair to Kiwi families. I urge members in the Green Party, members in the Labour Party, to consider our proposals in good faith so that this can truly be a long-term, enduring zero carbon bill that actually continues to make a difference for future generations. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

This is a split call. I call David Seymour—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to stand again alone in opposition to this bill in its second reading. I carry on a kind of serialised commentary from the first reading, about why this bill is such a bad idea if you are concerned about climate change, or if you’re not. I said in the first reading speech that there’s a fundamental problem: that if the bill is ambitious in its targets, in a country with 0.2 percent of the world’s emissions, carbon leakage will make it counter-productive. You can see the evidence for that, because the country that’s been most aggressive—in fact, the country that we model this legislation off—has for 20 years had no better performance on tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of GDP. Of course, that’s the UK. They overtook us in about 1997, and they’ve tracked our progress at reducing emissions ever since, despite having had legislation just like this for the last decade. So, fundamentally, it doesn’t work, but it’s worse than that.

You go to new section 5W, inserted by clause 8—one of the clauses in this bill—and it says “(1) Emissions budgets must be met, as far as possible, through domestic emissions reductions and domestic removals.” Well, what does that mean in practice? That means that when other countries can access cheaper carbon credits, when they have projects to sequester and store carbon that are more cost-effective than those available in New Zealand, can New Zealand families, New Zealand businesses, and New Zealand exporters purchase those cheaper, more efficient credits? No. New Zealanders are put at a disadvantage by this completely pointless clause. That means New Zealanders can end up paying more than the rest of the world to achieve the same environmental goal.

If you’re concerned about mitigating climate change, then having a law that says it’s more expensive for New Zealanders to do it than anyone else has got to be one of the stupidest policies imaginable. People will say, “Ah, but that’s in order to ensure the emission credits, or the units purchased by New Zealanders when they emit, are higher quality, because there’s some junk from overseas.” Well, the interesting thing is that this bill doesn’t actually have any effective controls on the quality of credits produced in New Zealand. So it’s nothing to do with the quality of credits; it’s all about controlling the New Zealand economy.

That’s what takes us to new sections 5ZD and 5ZF, and this is where the bill, in my view, becomes not just ineffective but actually pernicious, because you’ve got a plan made by a Minister that must include—if you go to 5ZD(3)(a)—a sector-specific policy to reduce emissions and increase removals. The powers that are put in the hands of Cabinet and of a Minister, under this bill, take us back to a place that New Zealand has not been for 35 years, and that is when we were under the Economic Stabilisation Act, where a Minister or Cabinet could actually make economic decisions about not just what the general rules of the game are but how much and at what price people could trade in different sectors. What does that mean in practice? It means a Minister can decide whether a sector or an industry—particularly, perhaps, a steel mill, or who knows, at the current time, an aluminium plant—lives or dies. Where does that get you? To an enormous amount of the kind of lobbying that I thought the Green Party was against.

So in summary, the ACT Party opposes this bill, because not only will it be ineffective in achieving the goal of mitigating emissions, it will also be inefficient because of its requirement for New Zealanders to use New Zealand credits at almost all times, and therefore inefficient, and more expensive, and also pernicious, because it introduces a level of central control over economic decision-making that this country has not seen since 1984. Those are reasons why all New Zealanders, and especially my erstwhile colleagues in the National Party, should be opposing this bill.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. We are in a climate crisis. If we don’t get this right, nothing else matters. This is where we draw the line. Aotearoa New Zealand is a Pacific nation. We are in the top 10 nations for pollution per capita. Our diplomats and our negotiators are seen as amongst the best in the world. We are responsible and we must be responsible.

How many world leaders for how many decades have seen and known what is coming but have decided that it is more politically expedient to keep it behind closed doors? My generation and the generations after me do not have that luxury. In the year 2050 I will be 56 years old, yet right now, the average age of this 52nd Parliament is 49 years old.

💬 Hon Member: That’s impossible.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: OK boomer.

Current political institutions have proven themselves incompetent at thinking outside of a short political term. Change is so regularly sacrificed for power. Slogans are easy, but this stuff—this action—is hard. Climate action cannot be sacrificed any more for political convenience. Climate change is a deeply inconvenient truth. If climate action is indeed our nuclear-free moment, it should be and it must be transformational.

This Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill is our starting line. On the Environment Committee, I sat with members across this House as we heard the call from the majority of over 800 New Zealanders in person and over 10,000 in writing, asking this Parliament to get it together and to get it right. Many asked that we pull targets forward, others that we didn’t split our gas targets. As I put to many of those submitters, if I can be straight up about the problem there, ambition and consensus sit on opposite sides of the see-saw in this bizarre place. Prioritising one means risking some of the other.

The Greens want more. We recognise the need to go further and to go faster, but we are eight of 120 MPs in this House, and to keep momentum up, we need more of us. If you marched in the streets, it is time to get political. This bill represents the greatest consensus that we have managed to reach in this Parliament and across this Government as a blueprint for climate action.

On that point, I must weave in the comments by National Party’s spokesperson for climate change, who stated, “it shouldn’t be politicians [who] set the targets.” Those being the methane targets. The Hon Scott Simpson called for targets to be set by an expert-led, independent, science-led commission. As it turns out, there is room for agreement there. Targets should be science-led. But more than that, politicians—who my other colleague from the Environment Committee, Sarah Dowie, noted just before are not climate change experts—should be and must be bound by the science. That is exactly why, on page 5 of the Government’s commentary in the committee report on this bill, I saw it stated, and I quote, “The Green Party member notes the significant number of submissions which proposed that the best way to produce scientifically robust, enduring and depoliticised emissions budgets is to empower the Commission to set emissions budgets itself rather than to advise the Executive, and supports this proposal.”

The only reason that we would keep the commission advisory only is because there is an option to ignore that advice. We have heard that this law will impact our economy, particularly from members of the Opposition. You know what else will impact the economy? Climate change. You know, if you are worried about the economic impacts of our climate change response, just wait until I tell you about the economic impacts of climate change. And regardless of whether we change, our climate is.

Today is both Guy Fawkes and the commemoration of the invasion of Parihaka by colonial forces, which, as we know, was met by a deep strength and peaceful resistance. Well, we’re not quite blowing up Parliament today but I am reminded of the Pacific Climate Warriors chant at the front of the school strike for climate only a few weeks ago: “We are not drowning. We are fighting.”

I want to bring into focus a line that has been ringing in my head while we’ve been considering this legislation, from the submitter, Kelly O’Neill, who said, “We are far too late for this to be easy.” Colleagues, we all know that if you have come here to make easy decisions, you don’t belong here. The young people standing outside this Chamber today have stated, “We fought in the street, so you can fight in your seat.”

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in favour of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. Well, what a journey this has been. Just reflecting on the speeches that we’ve listened to this afternoon, my mind—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Following New Zealand First.

—went back to 2017 when Lord Deben came out to the National Party Bluegreens conference to outline the approach that the United Kingdom take in terms of managing their emissions reduction over time in a way that works for their country. The singular message that he gave to us at that time was, “As you impart on this journey, make sure that you have as your guiding star the fact there must be bipartisan support for the bill or it is not worth pursuing.” Not only did we get that very clearly from Lord Deben here as an Environment Committee, when we went to the United Kingdom recently we got that from the UK and we also got that from those linked into it in terms of stakeholders from Great Britain.

So we now sit here at a time of reflection around “Have we got this legislation to a point where we can have bipartisan support?” When I reflect on this journey over the last year or so, I’m struck by the fact that what we have seen here is an ongoing wrestle between the character and integrity and willingness to reflect on other people’s perspectives, as personified by the Minister for Climate Change, and the random, pock-marked, irrelevant-at-times, highly partisan political contributions from New Zealand First, which at every point of the process has sought to derail that consensus.

We had, as has been discussed before in this House, a process that went on for a number of months between me, when I was in the Opposition spokesperson role, and the Minister, and we had reached a number of fundamental agreements around the importance of this commission being advisory, about the importance of ensuring that economic impacts were considered, and that you do take into account both the capacity of the country to change and also its connectedness in a global trading world with our competitors. These were fair points. They were robust debates. As we know, it stopped on the insistence of New Zealand First.

Then, once we had the first reading, we went to a select committee. We had had a process—again, credit to the Minister—prior to the first reading and, in fact, prior to finalising the bill, where he had run a process with significant opportunity for people to contribute around the sort of thematic choices that sit in front of us. I know that he wanted to have a similar process in the select committee. Again—and those on the select committee know this is true—there was an edict from one of the three coalition partners that “No, we want this truncated. We want this sorted by Christmas because we don’t want to be talking about climate change stuff next year.”

So I will not stand here and be lectured and yelled at by Shane Jones, in terms of his contribution to this debate, because he gives voice to an element which has looked at every opportunity for a partisan point and an opportunity to erode the consensus that actually can exist.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Farmers agree. Farmers agree.

And the consensus is still potentially in front of us.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: NZ First leading the way.

And I would like to just simply outline—if I can, over the continuing harping, amplifying the point that I’ve just made—the points that we think are worthy of consideration by this House for a bipartisan and collective view. I want to step it through in the next few minutes, for people at home to reflect and say, “Does this sound like positioning from a National Party that is partisan or does this sound like a contribution to enduring framework?” I argue the latter. You’ll be the judge.

Firstly, that the target for the biological methane reduction, looking out to 2050, is to be recommended by the independent Climate Change Commission, as opposed to the target range that’s in the bill. The precise purpose of establishing this commission is that they not only provide the capacity to review these targets—for both the methane and the CO2—but to change them if necessary. We are giving them the power to do this every five years. We are asking them to start this journey by confirming what the target should be—not acceptable.

The second point is that we include in the language of the purpose of the bill—as we commit ourselves to a decarbonising journey that seeks to reduce our contribution to global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius, and ideally 1.5—that we do it in a manner that does not threaten food production. That is not a National Party narrative; it is in the Paris Agreement. We are simply asking for it to be in the purpose. Silence again from the other side of the House.

The third is that we strengthen provisions that consider the level of action from our trading partners. This is not in any way a view that we are not committed to a path of reducing our emissions over time, but really, I absolutely believe that New Zealanders hold the view that we should do that in a way that makes sense for our communities and our businesses and our exporters and our country. Part of doing that is linking yourself in a global trading context to what the rest of the world is doing. It doesn’t mean you can’t show leadership where it is in your competitive advantage to show it, like we have done with agriculture. The previous Government set up the Global Research Alliance precisely to show leadership in the agriculture space. It is not—and I repeat, it is not—a reason to suggest we don’t proceed; it is a reason to suggest we do it in a way that is anchored and calibrated with the conditions in which we trade—namely, the response of our trading partners. That is not unreasonable. It is not partisan; it is adding to the strength of this bill.

We then ask that the appropriate economic impacts—it is mentioned in the bill—we think it could be strengthened. I don’t think that is in any way an unusual or insensitive or partisan request. We then asked the commission to consider—simply consider—in its role as an adviser to successive Governments, how we should use forestry. To what extent should we rely on it as the crutch that we lean on if we can’t actually reduce our gross emissions?

I ask again to the House, to what extent is that partisan rhetoric? It is not. It is simply a party that, right from the start and right from the direction when Simon Bridges said, “Let’s engage in this. Let’s bring a good-faith, principle-based approach to our discussions with the Government.”—there is nothing in these suggestions and expectations that diverge from that. It is entirely consistent of an Opposition party who, when the invitation was put forward by the Minister for Climate Change, endorsed by the Prime Minister, to engage in a manner that could develop a piece of legislation that endures—they were the principles that underpinned the conversation. They were the principles that underpinned the conversation at the start, at the middle, and now at the end.

I repeat back to what Lord Deben, who is the chair of the United Kingdom climate commission, said: “We must decarbonise our economy. It is challenging. It requires all sectors of the economy to embrace innovation and have tough decisions around the pace of change. But, above all else, ensure that when you have legislation in front of the House, it has bipartisan support.”

The National Party has outlined the principles that have underpinned our engagement. It has outlined the five to six areas that we think are justifiable. They are not extreme partisan buffoonery. They are considered additions to this legislation to make it enduring, to actually make a difference. The challenge stays on the table for the leaders that sit in this Government to take up that challenge and actually create something that reflects the better angels of them as opposed to the worst angels of them.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to rise this afternoon to speak on this bill. It’s pretty important to all of us in this country, and so I am quite humbled by the opportunity.

I want to acknowledge the Hon James Shaw for bringing this bill to the House and for the ongoing work that he has done in this area across all parties to try to get us to a point of agreement. I think he’s done very well. I also want to acknowledge—and I have to really acknowledge—the officials in this process. We have had so many special briefings to help us understand the complexities of this work. We have been absolutely privileged by those officials helping us to understand and allowing us to ask the questions. I’d like to acknowledge I still don’t quite get “fungible”, but that’s OK. It is what it is.

I’d also like to acknowledge my colleagues across the House. We sat through over 800 oral submissions, and we saw more than 10,000 written submissions. That was a lot of work. Because we had so much work to do, we broke into subcommittees, and we had an agreement that if something happened or went wrong and our numbers weren’t quite right, we wouldn’t collapse our committees. I want to acknowledge everyone for recognising that. We met in many places, and we heard lots of things. In my own community of Tauranga, we sat there, and it was quite fascinating—it was quite fascinating—the number of submissions that came through around climate denying in my city was absolutely surprising. Nevertheless, we did listen with respect. I want to, finally, also acknowledge our original chairperson, Dr Deborah Russell, and then also Dr Duncan Webb, who took over this work. It was a huge piece of work, and we met many, many days to do this.

Finally, to Todd Muller, who we very much missed on the select committee: you offered and brought to the table tremendous skill and knowledge, and I’d like to acknowledge that we did miss you, Todd.

Now that I have waxed lyrical and thanked everyone, I would also like to address this bill. In its entirety, it is a massive piece of work. There are a lot of very tricky parts to the legislation. One of the things that we have heard from the Opposition, while they will be supporting this bill, is that they have some concerns about how we got to where we got to and what the limits were. So I want to talk about a couple of things that are a little bit different about this legislation that I believe we here in this House have an obligation to discuss, and that is that this is not a piece of legislation that will sit for the next three years. This is a piece of legislation that looks out beyond the horizon—beyond the horizon that we here today cannot imagine. We hope in our hearts that we are putting in place steps to turn around climate change. We hope in our hearts that what we will be doing will enable us to survive this climate crisis.

What we are doing in this piece of legislation is enabling our community by putting in place a commission to be the experts to make these decisions. We’re looking at not just this three years or that three years; we’re looking to 2050. So we’re not saying that the targets that we set today are the targets that will get us there. They may have to be higher. They may have to be lower. But they certainly enable us to sit down and think very carefully and be advised by the independent climate commission about what needs to happen.

This bill gives us certainty. It gives us absolute certainty that there will be a plan and stepping stones to get there. But what it won’t necessarily do is it won’t say, “Oh, well, you know, we won’t do this.” or “We won’t do that.” It leaves the opportunity open. It leaves the opportunity open with the Climate Change Commission to advise.

There are seven members, and these are expert members. We had huge amounts of discussion from the floor, from all sorts of people who wanted to have young people represented. They wanted to have business. They wanted to have farmers. They wanted to have environmentalists. What we, basically, came to as part of this legislation is we need to pick a set of independent and non-biased members who would sit on that commission, who have a huge job—a huge job—to present for us. They absolutely have to look at all of the science. They have to predict and look at what will happen or may happen in the future, and then they have to give us that advice. That advice has to come back to this House, and the Minister has to respond, and, if the Minister doesn’t respond, he or she has to explain why.

These are the things that we’ve built in—the safeguards that actually talk about this legislation not just being about a partisan situation; it’s about all of us moving forward. If we cannot agree that we have to do this—and we hear this from the Opposition. They do tell us that they agree that something has to happen, but they’re really concerned about the economic implications. My friend and colleague Chlöe Swarbrick put it well: what’s going to happen when climate change hits and we don’t have any food? What’s going to happen when most of our housing, which is based around the coastal areas, starts disappearing and our water table shifts? These are things that we need to consider, and this bill does that.

It is complex, and there’s a whole pile of fives in here. Because it’s an amendment bill, everything was amended with 5A, B, C, D, Z, and on and on and on it went. I do wish that we didn’t have to use it in that manner, but it is what it is.

I want to finally just talk about one thing that has been raised, and that’s around food production. I’d just like to read around food production and the stated claim about the Paris Agreement. The Opposition talked about how the Paris Agreement refers to the need to adapt to the effects of climate change in a manner that does not threaten food production. Following on from that, it says, “Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production;”. So it is a process that does not threaten food production; not about food production being more important than climate change.

It is a great pleasure to stand and talk to this bill and I commend it to the House.

The question is, that the amendments recommended by the Environment Committee by majority be agreed to. Those of that opinion say Aye, to the contrary, No—the Ayes have it.

💬 Hon Member: The Noes have it. Party vote.

A party vote is called for. The Clerk will conduct a party vote. [Party vote commences] Mr Seymour, you voted “oppose”—is that right?

💬 David Seymour: Well, I’m in favour of the amendments; I’m opposed to the reading.

Who called for the division?

💬 David Seymour: I did.

When I declare the Ayes have it, if the member supports that, he’s not meant to call for a division.

💬 David Seymour: Well, I wasn’t aware that you were unable to.

The member is premature. The Ayes have it.

Amendments recommended by the Environment Committee by majority agreed to.