Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Environment Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 21 October 2019.

Today, we begin the task of amending the Climate Change Response Act 2002 to fulfil the commitment that we have made, as a country, to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Together with the rest of the world, New Zealand faces unprecedented challenges from the effects of a changing climate. It will be ongoing and, at times, unyielding. In Aotearoa New Zealand, it may be punctuated by more severe flooding, drought, coastal erosion, and storm surges than we have ever seen before.

Globally, climate change will increase existing risks, including the spread of pests and disease, threats to food security, and social disruption. These hazards will impact whole communities, severely strain critical public infrastructure, and result in unprecedented social, ecological, and economic losses.

When these crises occur—whether it’s flooding in Whanganui, fires in Tasman, coastal washout in Greymouth, storm damage in Coromandel, or droughts in Northland—we declare an emergency and we marshal the resources to respond. It is not alarmism to suggest that climate change is itself an emergency—it is the causal force driving up the frequency and severity of each of these other crises. We ought to call it what it is. We cannot say that we did not know or that we were not told. The world is on fire. The climate emergency that we are now facing will change the way we live, where we live, how we travel, how we work, and how we raise our children. Our response outlined in this bill needs to be appropriate to the scale of that challenge.

The Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill before you today, Madam Deputy Speaker, has as its purpose to provide a framework by which New Zealand can contribute to the collective global effort to limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as set out in article 2 of the Paris Agreement, thereby significantly reducing the impacts and risks of climate change. As far as we’re aware, we are the first country in the world to locate that commitment to hold global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees in primary legislation.

This ensures that whatever else we choose to do, it must further that critical outcome—and nothing we do should undermine it. The bill will establish a climate change commission—an independent Crown entity—to provide expert advice on the transition to a low-emissions and climate-resilient New Zealand. This bill outlines an emissions reduction target for New Zealand, in line with keeping global warming to under 1.5 degrees. The target has two components: it will seek to reduce our emissions of all greenhouse gases, expect biogenic methane, to net zero by 2050. It will also seek to reduce our gross emissions of biogenic methane within the range of 24 to 47 percent below 2017 levels by 2050, and will include an interim requirement to reduce gross emissions of biogenic methane by 10 percent below 2017 levels by 2030.

Emissions budgets will act as stepping stones towards the long-term target. Each budget will state the quantity of emissions that will be permitted in a five-year period, and will be supported by a plan to reduce those reductions. Taken together, successive emissions budgets should define an optimal pathway towards our long-term climate objectives. Finally, this bill will require the Government to have a plan for how we adapt to the effects of climate change. The commission will conduct a national climate change risk assessment every six years and, in response to each assessment, the bill requires the responsible Minister to produce a national adaptation plan. The bill also gives the Government power to require appropriate organisations to report information for inclusion in the national climate change risk assessments.

Now, since I introduced the bill to the House, a number of concerns have been raised about it at hui and workshops with me and, of course, via the media. First, should there be a limit on the extent to which the bill permeates across Government? Should it, instead, be able to affect the interpretation of other statutes, as happens with our human rights and privacy legislation? Second, should the level of legal liability be prescribed or should the bill be silent on this, allowing common law norms to develop as public expectations evolve? Third, should the commission be advisory only, or should it have some level of decision-making powers, as some have suggested? Fourth, are the proposed emissions reduction targets too ambitious or too conservative, given the commitment to stay within 1.5 degrees of global warming? Fifth, should the bill exclude international aviation and shipping, as currently proposed for consistency with the Paris Agreement, or should we bring them into our domestic framework as has been done in France and as has been considered by the UK? Finally, does the bill adequately address the Crown’s duties under Te Tiriti o Waitangi to protect land and water and to consult and engage with iwi Māori?

The feedback I’ve received so far suggests that these issues warrant thorough consideration by the select committee. But I want to say that the bill reflects nearly 18 months of consultation and negotiations between political parties and with farming leaders, environmental NGOs, businesses, and iwi Māori organisations, and so I wish the select committee the very best of luck.

The world around us is changing. Eighteen countries have already consistently reduced their emissions over the past decade, whilst their economies have continued to grow and develop. Joining those countries in the transition will ensure that New Zealand maintains and enhances our competitive advantage in a low-emissions world compared with those countries that do too little, too late. Climate change policy does not need to be a trade-off between economic development and emissions reductions. In fact, evidence so far suggests a correlation between reducing emissions and increasing productivity and wealth creation.

The challenge of living in an emissions-constrained world is the most powerful driver of innovation I can imagine, creating new technologies, new industries, new jobs. It is, I believe, the single greatest economic opportunity in at least a generation. My greatest fear is that we will let this opportunity pass us by and allow it to accrue to other bolder nations.

I’d like to thank the 15,000 organisations and members of the public who responded to our public consultation. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the leadership shown by our nation’s young people in bringing the bill to Parliament and in seeking to hold us accountable for decisions that will shape their futures. I want to thank the Prime Minister for her personal leadership on this, the nuclear-free moment of our generation, and the Deputy Prime Minister, for his efforts in getting us to this point. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the National Party leader, Simon Bridges, and National’s climate change spokesperson, Todd Muller, who put politics to one side and worked with us in good faith to try and shape a bill that could be supported across the House.

This bill has a 30-year time horizon. It must survive multiple changes of Government in that time. The pressures will be even greater in the future than they are today, but businesses and investors, and communities and iwi, need the predictability and the stable policy environment that this bill is intended to provide. The genuine attempt at consensus building during the process has shown that all sides recognise that climate change is too important for petty partisanship and politics. For, as was said in a different time about a different but equally existential threat, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all share this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures, and we are all mortal. I commend this bill to the House.

The National Party takes climate change seriously. I want to just reflect on the fact that, as a Minister of the Crown, in my last three years I led on the electrification of our vehicle fleet, of our energy system, and, wider than simply electricity, when it comes to renewables, we saw New Zealand go from 65 percent in electricity to some 85 percent—and, on a good day, 90 percent. By the way, the trend right now is downwards. So we understand these issues. We take these issues seriously.

I gave—in fact, in one of my first speeches as leader of the National Party, at Fieldays, on the issue of climate change last year. I set out our principles and our desire to be bipartisan on this issue, because I agree with James Shaw that it is too important—economically, socially, and, clearly, environmentally—for petty partisanship. Can I acknowledge Todd Muller in relation to that, for having done an outstanding job of thinking through the difficult and the intricate economic, social, environmental issues that go with this area of reform, and for working hard with James Shaw, with the Prime Minister, and with me on this law change.

What I said in that speech at Fieldays was, yes, we believed—in fact, before the Government had stated their position, I think—in an independent advisory climate change commission, with the requisite expertise economically, socially, environmentally, to do the work and the mahi required. I set out our principles in this area that we would follow and that we think should be followed on climate change. It is science based—that we work heavily on innovation and technology; that there are appropriate economic signals; that we are in step with and work closely with our international partners; and that we think very carefully and understand the economic impact of this. I am glad to say that in the bill that is before this Parliament right now those principles that we outlined are there, as is the split treatment of gases that we made clear in that speech, and our position was the right approach. Those principles, those things, as I say, are in the bill. For those reasons, the National Party will vote for this bill at the first reading, but I want to be very clear with the Government: on this bill, we have real differences with the Government, and I’ve made them clear to the Hon James Shaw, to the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, and indeed to the New Zealand First Party. We need to see change in this law.

The primary area of difference that we have—it may not surprise the Parliament—is in relation to the methane target. There is, in short, no satisfactory basis for setting the targets in 2030 and 2050 as high as the Government has chosen to do in this bill. The 2030 target is negative 10 percent, the 2050 target is negative 24 to 47 percent, and I reflect, when I think about the 2030 target, on what James Shaw has realistically, I think, said himself: emissions in New Zealand are going to rise into and beyond the mid-2020s. So he is making it quite clear to New Zealand, in terms of methane and agriculture and what needs to be done, that that change is literally in the last three, four, five years before that target is to be met in 2030.

The stark reality is that the science isn’t there yet. I am all for investment in the science. I argued, in the previous Cabinet, that we needed to increase the funding we were making in Palmerston North in science, in the Global Research Alliance, to make sure—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, what happened?

Well, I succeeded, unlike you have for most of your career, Mr Peters, and I also have—

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: No room for petty partisanship!

Well, I just want to say, with respect to the member, given that they’ve chipped away at me for the entire speech, it’s not exactly the point in time to be making those sorts of comments when I’m reaching out to the Government.

I say, actually, that biotech is an incredibly important part of this answer. I think it’s a tragedy that the Green Party outright rules it out and the Labour Party isn’t sure of its position. Actually, Sir Peter Gluckman and people like William Rolleston, who know what they’re talking about, have made quite clear that it is an essential part of the answer. The reality is that, without doing that, by 2030 we will be culling significantly our herds. That’s not alarmist; that’s the reality of the situation. When half of our exports around the world are food, Mr Peters, who’s shaking his head on this issue, that’s how we pay our way around the world, and we take that seriously as well.

No one else—none of our partners—are doing this. They may have moved in other areas. There is not a country in this world, no First World nation, that is moving on agriculture, in what is a global problem that requires global leadership. But also, if we act unilaterally, it simply sends that production offshore, and 2050—a target set by the other side, unilaterally cherry picked, I’m sorry to say, for political purposes from parts of the United Nations report, but economically disastrous, wrong on the science. Don’t trust me; ask the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, ask Professor David Frame, ask many of the experts in the science throughout New Zealand who argue for a much lower target of 10 to 22 percent methane reduction, a target too high in this bill for the National Party and for New Zealand. The whole purpose of this bill, it seems to me, in dealing with climate change is based around an independent climate change commission that provides reasoned, worked-through, evidence-based advice, and my position certainly is that that is where we should be sending the methane targets for an answer on that issue to be thought through. The Government will say that’s non-binding but certainly, if done well, it’s difficult to ignore, and I’ve made those points to the Prime Minister and others.

I’m also concerned and the National Party, on behalf of New Zealanders, is deeply concerned about the wider economic impact of this law. We take climate change seriously, but we cannot accept—indeed, we believe it’s naive—when James Shaw stands up in this House and says that it’s the single greatest economic opportunity for us in at least a generation. James Shaw—I respect him; he believes we can bend the arc on climate change quite quickly, rip the plaster off and get to some sort of economic innovation nation nirvana. Well, the reality is not that simple. Short of someone inventing the new iPhone or the next great big thing, this will have very real economic consequences on working Kiwis, on working New Zealand families and on their petrol costs and their electricity costs and their incomes and their jobs. Indeed, the RIS on this bill—the regulatory impact statement—makes quite clear that, even with a tailwind, there is $300 billion of cost to 2050 on the New Zealand economy and New Zealand workers and families; a reduction in gross domestic product by 9 percent in GDP, $10 billion to $12 billion a year; and indeed at 2050 a $45 billion smaller economy.

So I say: let’s have an honest discussion with New Zealanders about this—the costs and the trade-offs—but let’s be clear, Hon James Shaw, Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, that those costs are real. There’s a phenomenon in our rural communities, which I’m sure others in my party will speak about. But what is happening right now with dairy conversions and other farming conversions and the very real effect of this Government’s policies, the billion trees and so on, for no good—that’s actually resulting in a hollowing out already in some parts of New Zealand. We worry and we’re concerned about that on behalf of New Zealand.

We get climate change, we want bipartisanship, but all New Zealand needs to come on this journey. We want to see this bill changed—it’s essential that it is—so that we take out the politics; we do this on the policy. I urge New Zealanders to be heard on this, from the students to the farmers, right around the country.

Thank you. I want to start today by acknowledging those who have worked so hard to get us to this place and to this moment, and if I’m doing that I need to start no further than the Minister himself, the Hon James Shaw. Many of you may not know that I’ve known James Shaw for a long time, since we were both—I was going to say “young people”; that would probably be an inaccuracy—people that were living in London, where he and I were both candidates for our respective parties. I even remember then his clear determination on the issue of climate change at the point in time when there was no global consensus, where there was still wide-reaching climate change denial, and he has been absolutely unwavering since that moment right through to this process, and for that, Minister Shaw, I acknowledge you and, on behalf of this Parliament and New Zealand, I thank you.

I also want to acknowledge that there are many others—part of your movement but more broadly part of civil society, and I can’t help but acknowledge Kennedy Graham in this House today—who have been champions for so, so long. But there is a generation we can also acknowledge that, were it not for them, we may not be in this place that we are today with this debate. I still remember as a candidate over 10 years ago being booed when I talked about climate change, and I absolutely believe it’s in no small part the work that the next generation have done to bring people with them and build consensus that means we are not having a debate any more about whether we should take action, but about the speed and nature of the action—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Talk to the Parliament.

—so I thank you. Actually, Mr Brownlee, I will talk to them, because they deserve to hear us and be heard.

But there is anxiety, and I want to particularly acknowledge Generation Zero, who have taught me more than probably anyone else that we have to hear the anxiety that young people feel when they see the consequences—the very real images—of climate change around them. Our job is to give them hope, not just in words but in action, and we also have to give certainty. This cannot be a three-year plan; it has to be a 30-year plan, which is why we have in this House sought to build consensus.

It is incredible. I have to acknowledge that we do at least have three parties in this House who are supporting this bill, and I will not give up—I will not give up—on the aspiration of bringing even more with us still. But in doing so, that consensus must be based on science—it must be based on science. So that is why one of the most important principles of this bill is that we are amongst some of the first countries in the world to embed 1.5 degrees Celsius into our legislation. Why? Because the science tells us that unless we commit to trying to keep warming below that level, we are committing to our Pacific neighbours that we accept they will risk devastating impacts of climate change, that we will lose cities and towns, that we will lose flora and fauna. How can we look our Pacific neighbours in the eye, unless we commit to the aspiration, as a nation, as a Pacific nation, that we will not accept those devastating impacts on their behalf and nor will we tolerate it? So that is why 1.5 degrees Celsius is in the bill.

Please, everyone in this House needs to remember that that is one of the most critical commitments that we are making, because it all flows from there. If we commit to 1.5 degrees Celsius, what does that mean for our targets? Well, the science tells us—and this is what Dave Frame would say—that unless you move on carbon, then frankly nothing else matters. We have to make a difference on carbon. This is why we have moved to net zero on carbon.

Now, the member opposite, the Leader of the Opposition, who I acknowledge has said his party will vote for it at first reading—I thank the member for that goodwill. I thank the member for taking this to the select committee, but what I did not hear was the alternative that they are proposing to what has been put before this House. I look forward to debating it, but the only suggestion I heard was to put it to the Climate Change Commission. Two things on that: first of all, some of the industries that that member likes to speak to frequently, including our rural and agricultural sector, actually wanted certainty rather than sending it to the Climate Change Commission, so he may wish to take that on board.

The second point is that my expectation would be that the Climate Change Commission—and we’ve given them this power to review our targets on an ongoing basis—would listen to the science. The only science that we have does not model on an individual New Zealand basis. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment did not produce a report at keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The Parliamentary Commissioner did a report on 2 degrees Celsius. So we do not actually have a basis on which to base our methane targets.

The only thing that we have—science based, evidence based—is actually the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They undertook modelling that included what nitrous oxide, what methane would need to look like if we were aspiring for 1.5 degrees Celsius, and what did it say on biogenic methane? What did it say? It said exactly what we put in this bill. It said you would need to set a target between 24 and 47 percent. We listened to the science, and that is exactly what we need to be doing if we want to remove the politics from this conversation: listen to the science.

Now, I accept, though, that that individual modelling—some of the science just isn’t where we would like it to be. We want to be more definitive, but it is going to take time. That is why we are giving the Climate Change Commission criteria on which to review the targets that include looking at the most recent evidence base, technological advancement, and what the science is telling us. It is all built into the system we are trying to build to give certainty, to build consensus, and to give longevity to this piece of legislation. Mr Speaker, the member opposite also—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Actually, I’m “Madam Speaker”.

Oh, Madam Speaker—excuse me. The party leader opposite also raised the fact that, in his mind, no one was doing what we’ve done on methane, where, actually, some countries have gone all gases. Some nations have gone net zero all gases, and they include, for instance, I believe, the UK, which has gone net zero. So I just don’t think that’s accurate. What we have done, however, is acknowledge what the science tells us between short-lived gases and long-lived gases, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot have an aspiration around methane.

Secondly, the member also mentioned economic impacts. His statements around the impact on New Zealand’s economy doesn’t factor in that his party themselves have already committed us to a reduction in our emissions. What we are committing to here takes us an extra 0.2 percent impact on GDP. That’s actually if you don’t realise the opportunities of transitioning our economy, and this is where I am proud of this side of the House. We have invested $14 billion into transitioning our transport options in New Zealand. We are investing in low-emissions transport options like cycling, like the use of rail, and like the use of walking to try and bring down some of those emissions.

Annually, we’re putting $20 million into reducing agricultural emissions, and on the 10 percent methane reduction by 2030, that was based on advice by my Chief Science Advisor, who also points out we are reducing agricultural biological methane emissions by 1 percent a year already. We can do this, but we have to aspire and commit to doing it.

We have a $100 million Green Investment Fund. We have given certainty to the oil and gas sector by not continuing to release exploration permits into the future and, instead, we are investing $50 million into cutting-edge energy research in a new energy research and development centre in Taranaki. It is our region where they have traditionally relied on fossil fuels, and we must support them to transition into new energy technology.

Mr—Madam Speaker. It is delightful, Madam Deputy Speaker, to have you in the Chair—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have yet to see you—

—but I’m just not used to it, I’m sorry. It is true that I called climate change my generation’s nuclear-free moment. I absolutely believe that it is, and what did I mean by that? Well, I meant that we are being confronted with an enormous issue and that we are the ones that are going to have to make a bold decision as to how we will want to be known going forward on and whether we will be on the right side of history—will we take a stand? My aspiration is for the next generation not to have to make that decision because we will have made it, and we will have set in place the foundations for making sure that the only thing that they need to worry about is that we keep the momentum and the action going.

Today, we lay the foundation in this House. We take our nuclear-free moment so that the next generation doesn’t have to.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak for the first time on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. Just over a year ago, our leader, Simon Bridges, in the Fieldays, outlined our approach that we would take in the negotiations with the Government over this bill. He touched on some of the principles that he felt, from a National Party perspective, were absolutely critical to inform this commission’s judgment.

The first was the importance of broad science. The second was the fact that we needed as an economy to have access to innovation and technology to assist us on this journey. The third was that we needed to calibrate our response, aligned with our trading partners in the global response. Fourthly, we saw a key role in the emissions trading scheme as a signal and an incentive for the change over time. Fifthly—and most critically—was that we assure ourselves of the economic costs of this transition. At the core of the National Party approach to this issue is that climate change is an issue that we have to confront as a collective country, but we do it best when we are informed in a dispassionate way about what the science is suggesting is available in terms of innovation for us to apply and what the economic costs are for this change.

We have had a fair discussion with the Government over the last 10 or 12 months. As I noted the last time I spoke—last week—for most of that period, it has been a very forthright and goodwill-based conversation between myself and my opposite number, James Shaw, and we are very pleased to see that in this legislation are the key tenets that underpin our principles and approach to climate change. There is science to inform the conversation and judgment of the commission. Innovation and the availability of that innovation is a critical part of their judgment. So is global response and so is the economic costs that we need to reflect on as a country, as is the importance of this commission being advisory and also the approach with respect to split gases. But, clearly, we have a challenge with respect to the target that has been landed with respect to methane.

I listened closely to what the Prime Minister said, and her speech today, more than anything else, reinforces the importance of having a commission to reflect on where this methane target should be. She spoke with authority in terms of her own interpretation of what the science says. She talked to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report which says minus 24 percent to minus 47 percent of an interquartile range of four illustrative pathways out of 85, and each one of those pathways is hugely challenging. Most of them actually don’t see the economies reaching the targets, and they say in that report they are not to be used for national guidance. She used one line out of that and said, “That works, and I’m cloaking science and the credibility of my comments around that.” It is nonsense. That interquartile range is just one line from a series of illustrative pathways that can be considered by countries as they walk this journey. David Frame says methane should stay at minus 10 percent; the Parliamentary Commissioner: minus 10 to 22 percent.

The point is: why are we having this debate in this House? None of us are qualified, from a scientific perspective, to hold a view, when the economic cost of getting this wrong is eye-watering. This is not something that you can just wash away with lovely words. If we get this wrong, regional New Zealand will not look the same again. If we get this wrong, the standard of living that exists in this country will be materially impacted. The whole purpose of a bipartisan conversation around establishing a commission is for them to look at the competing objectives of science, of available innovation, of what the rest of the world is doing, and of what the economic impacts are.

The view expressed by the Government that the primary pinnacle perspective that floods all of this legislation is that we must do our bit to keep the global temperature within 1.5 degrees Celsius. Well, the global temperature is already over 1 degree Celsius, it’s pushing to 1.3 degrees Celsius, and this country is 0.17 percent of global emissions. The very idea that our collective effort will somehow impact the global temperature is a nonsense. We have to call this for what it is. One point five is an objective in this legislation; it is one of the perspectives that the commission has to bring to bear along with what the science says is possible, what innovation is available to apply across the economy at a cost that works, and what the economic impacts are for New Zealanders.

The regulatory impact statement talks to the modelled cost on this economy between the current gazetted target, that we have supported previously as the National Government, and what is suggested in this bill. The sum of the difference is $300 billion; $45 billion different than what it would be if we stayed with the National Party’s target. Prime Minister, I’m sorry, those modelled assumptions assume that electricity has been integrated across our entire transport sector, assume that electricity is in our industrial heat, and assume that we have found technology to support our opportunity in the agriculture sector—all those innovations are baked into the model and it still costs us $300 billion.

So for us to sit here and say “This is a new nirvana and we’re just going to walk there together.” is not giving New Zealanders credit. This is hard transitional stuff. It will cost and it will continue to cost, there will be opportunities there as well, but it is going to cost. The Government’s own regulatory statement talks to the scale of the cost. I’d venture to suggest that there would not be a bill that has been in front of this House in the last two decades that has a regulatory impact statement saying that the cost is $300 billion. But on this side of the House, we stand willing to support a conversation around a commission that can guide us; but to frame this up as a headlong run, to commit to 1.5 degrees Celsius even if the rest of the world doesn’t, and that those other conditions are secondary, is flawed, from our perspective—seriously flawed.

I am not arguing that we do not progress our own emissions reduction journey over the next 10, 15, or 20 years. I am not suggesting that because it’s $300 billion we do nothing, because the world expects us to play our part. But what I am saying is that our communities expect us to be prudent and to be measured and to use evidence as we slowly make this transition, because if we get it wrong, the Taumarunuis, the Te Kūitis, the small communities who have been so strongly underpinned by our agricultural exports and activity, the most efficient and effective emissions-efficient food-producing sector in the world—I repeat that for people listening at home: our agricultural sector is already the most emissions-efficient food-producing sector in the world. No one here suggests that New Zealand does not put its shoulder to the wheel, but we must not be so naive that we get crushed under the axle. We need to be seriously measured and prudent as we step through this. That is why, when we go to the select committee, I hope—and I echo my leader’s comments—from students to farmers to academics to those who just have a passing interest in this: please, we want to hear your voices. We want to hear the scientists—you’ve rung me, I want to hear you at that select committee, because, as James Shaw has said himself, this is an opportunity but we have to do this together.

New Zealand First rises in support of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill.

Mr Muller asked the question, and bravely so. He said, “Why are we having this debate in the House?” Well, Mr Muller, it’s because the National Party Government signed the country up to the Paris Agreement. If he doesn’t understand what he was doing then, then pray tell me: where are those people that signed that document, or did they go in there blindly? It’s no use blowing hot and cold now; the fact of the matter is that they signed up, and here’s the rub: today, his leaders said that they supported the person that they nominated to be the environment commissioner—that’s Mr Simon Upton—and then they wanted him to be the ultimate arbiter, have the final decision, and then they forgot to tell you that they don’t agree with this target. There it is in a very substantial article by Louise Gibson today, which every farmer should read because that’s how confused the National Party is. They want Mr Upton to be the arbiter, they don’t agree with his science but somehow they think they can blow hot and cold. I want to know what the reason is for, what you might call, all these different stances. Are we going to hear from the Mitchell-Bennett ticket or the Bridges-Bennett ticket or the Collins ticket—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think we’d actually prefer to hear about the bill.

—or maybe the Muller ticket?—I beg your pardon?

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’d rather we debated the bill.

You might prefer me to debate the bill, but I’m just dealing with some of the inconsistencies that I’m hearing over there. It is a parliamentary debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, something which I know about slightly more than you. Now, can I get back to the point? [Interruption] Well, I’m not going to be taken—in one sentence being stopped in a speech that I’m making. This is outrageous. We will not be bullied by anybody in this Parliament, because you are talking about a serious issue: the National Party went off to Paris and signed an agreement, and they’re now back here—

💬 Hon Member: What about the bill?

—half in and half out. Well, I’ve got the bill. Let me tell you why this bill is important. First of all, it fulfils New Zealand First’s agreement with Labour to establish a climate change commission, but one that does not resemble the statutory or arbitrary or final powers of the Reserve Bank, precisely what I heard Mr Bridges saying today. So that’s the number one thing that farmers should know. It begins with a process where the Climate Change Commission will provide the free allocation to agriculture, with all revenues cycled back into agriculture for mitigation, for the additional planting of forestry, and for research innovation—also part of our coalition agreement. Now, that’s critical. What we’re saying to farmers is that we know, as they know in Scandinavia and in great countries like Denmark, we will make the changes and we’ll have the money to make those changes, and that we are confident in the farming community to be able to get there, but not with the kind of double-talk cynicism that I’m hearing from certain people in New Zealand politics today.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: What’s your view on biotechnology?

In recognition of New Zealand’s—look, we do not want to hear from “the old man in the House”, Nick Smith. The last person we want to hear from is a person called Nick Smith. In fact, I can’t believe he’s still here.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Because I win my seat.

In recognition of New Zealand’s unique methane profile—yeah, he won his seat. Yes, you won your seat way back in 1990 because somebody called Winston Peters came down and packed the Richmond hall for you. And what a mistake that was. I’ve regretted it ever since.

In recognition of New Zealand’s methane profile, it splits methane from the more longer-living greenhouse gases. Could I just say, I am very aware of a speech made to the most recent regional conference with the National Party. And guess who was making the speech? One Todd Muller, telling his own party not the message I heard today, but inside the in camera confidential meeting with his colleagues he’s telling them to wake up and do what they have to do. I agree, Mr Muller, but that’s the speech I wanted to hear in the House today. It’s no good inside the inner sanctum of the declining National Party—no, no. We want it here and in front of farmers in New Zealand so we can all be on the same wavelength.

It establishes an initial gross methane target of 10 percent from 2017 levels from 2020 to 2030, which it projected, all the way to 2050, corresponds with a 26.7 percent methane target. Now, let’s have the end of this alarmism from some people in Federated Farmers who are way out of kilter with their membership.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Are they the moaners? Is that what your colleague called “the moaning farmers”?

Oh, no. He called them—the so-called spokespeople who saw Fonterra go bankrupt, who saw Westland go into liquidation, virtually, and who saw, for example, Silver Fern Farms being sold off to foreign ownership. He said that those leaders were moaners and groaners and useless—and so say all of us, and so says every farmer out there.

I’m talking about the farmer that’s doing his job, trying to pay his way, and looking around for a bit of political leadership. He’ll be looking a long time to find it over there on that side of the House, because they do not have a position to preserve long-term sustainable farming. I am confident that farming will be more wealthy than ever before because it will also have this about it: not only being sustainable; it’ll finally get to added value, which is a policy that this country should have been pursuing a long, long time ago.

No, no—all they worry about is cow hoof numbers. It’s what you do with the cow that’s important. Instead of having, for example, Fonterra sell milk product at its lowest price like milk powder; no, instead of making sure that Fonterra got exclusive control of the world infant formula business, these people over there, who claim to be defenders of farming, did nothing—or, worse still, they facilitated, or, worse still, when somebody wanted an inquiry as to what was going on, they shut down the inquiry. Then, all of a sudden, here they turned up, all cloned, thinking they can get away with the kind of defence they’re trying to make now—as though they give a rat’s derriere about farming. Oh no they don’t, because if they did, when they went to Paris, they’d have got back home and said, “This means we have to do some work. This means we have to do some science. This means we must know, in a very short time, to be world leaders here and in the Pacific and alongside Australia”—which we hope comes our way—“we have to do some work now.” Not nothing, sitting there—not an idea. In fact, if I was to ask half the rural members “What’s your position?”, they wouldn’t know. Not surprising. When you’ve got a leaderless rabble, it’s quite possible half of them don’t know.

But that’s where it sits. That’s where it is. Who is it that set out with the Provincial Growth Fund to back up the process we’ve got?

💬 Barbara Kuriger: What’s in the bill?

What’s in the bill? Well, I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll read it out slowly, and, for that member, I’ll send some cartoons. I’ll send a few pictures. This is the very member—I can remember her. I can remember her down in—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no. Order! Order! Can we just come back to the bill and not—

Look, she interposed herself.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s right.

Can I just tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that, since 1854, if someone interposes themselves in the debate, you can respond to them. Or are you going to write a new rule?

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, that’s right. But without any personal—

No, no, no—we won’t have your judgment of what that means, either.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I’m sorry, but you will.

If they want to get personal with me, if she, as uneducated as she is, wants to suggest I can’t read the bill with my legal background against hers, then she’s the one that’s getting personal.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no. I’m asking you to come to the bill.

And I’m sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, you can try it with somebody else, but don’t try it with me—with the greatest respect.

I want to make it very clear—I want to make it very clear in my next 1 minute and 58 seconds—that what is important is also the back-up of the Provincial Growth Fund. There are so many things that we can do to assist the mitigation we’re talking about. For example, we’re not going to be dumping waste in the Pūhoi Straits.

💬 Hon Member: Oh, this is embarrassing.

No, no—no, it’s not embarrassing. We need to look at the emissions from waste itself. What are the Scandinavian countries doing? They’re not dumping underground and leaching it everywhere. No, no—they’re doing something about it, and so must we.

One of the long-term projects of the Provincial Growth Fund will be to start doing responsibly something with our waste—turn it back into energy instead of thinking we somehow can leach it out of the ground and out into our streams, into the Kaipara and everywhere else, and somehow it’ll be all OK. All those days, “Madam King Country”, are over. Everybody is responsible, and King Country farming will know that there is a new Government in place, that it has got a plan, and that that plan is clear as daylight. But I want to make it very clear. I want to hear from the next National Party person: have they read this article about the misrepresentation from the leadership of Federated Farmers where this bill is concerned, because it makes it very clear—and this is from a neutral person who reports to the BBC and elsewhere—that there has been a massive misrepresentation in and outside this House? What we have set out to do is set the goals as clear as daylight—Mr Shaw, the Prime Minister, and us. Thank you very much.

Well, what a shocking speech that was. I’ve been in the House for 14 years, and I’ve never heard one like that. A speech that was full of rhetoric, with no real substance. It was clear that the member the Rt Hon Winston Peters didn’t have a clue what the bill is about and what he’s going to vote for shortly in the first reading.

I’ll tell you what’s happened with New Zealand First. They got hoodwinked into signing up to this because they were doing a backroom deal on agriculture coming into the emissions trading scheme (ETS). That was it. So when their chief of staff came to their caucus meeting and briefed the leader of New Zealand First and said, “Yep. It’s all fine. We’ve got the split gases. That’ll be fine. The industry will back this outrageous methane target.”—he didn’t use the word outrageous—Mr Peters went, “Oh yeah. OK. That’s fine—that’s fine.” Well, he’s been sold a puppet. And we heard that this afternoon, because Mr Peters doesn’t even know what is in the bill.

Now, this debate this afternoon is about head and heart. It’s about emotional versus financial. Actually, what we heard from Mr Peters was none of that. He wasn’t quite sure whether he was speaking with his head or his heart. There are massive financial considerations in this bill, and it’s been talked about by our leader this afternoon—potentially $10 billion on cost a year, which is about $300 billion out to 2050. Those numbers are a big concern to us on this side of the House. We realise that we need to do something. I think the whole of the Parliament—well, we’re going to hear how everyone’s going to vote this afternoon. But when I look and read the regulatory impact statement and I read the section from Treasury in which they say that economic losses incurred via droughts and floods over the last decade have been $720 million dollars, it’s clear to me that things need to change.

What we’re voting on this afternoon is, effectively, the commission, how the commission is going to work, and these targets. And the targets are actually very challenging: 95 percent of the personal vehicle fleet—it’s about 4 million cars at the moment on the road—they will need to be electric by 2050. Then you look at renewables: 98 percent of renewables for our energy sector will need to occur by 2050.

Here’s a question for the other side of the House—maybe for the next speaker. Will the Government reform the Resource Management Act to allow some of these big energy projects—whether it’s hydro, whether it’s wind farming, or whether it’s geothermal—to be built quicker? I mean, can we have an answer? No—no. So the reality is we’ve got these grandiose targets. You get back to the emotional versus the financial. Yes, everyone wants the climate to change and we agree that we need to back this bill at the first reading, but I have, personally, got quite a few concerns, and I want to spend the next few moments talking about those.

We agree with the split gases. We agree with the commission. But we don’t agree with the biogenic methane reduction out to, potentially, minus 24 - minus 47 by 2050. When you look at what all of the agricultural sectors have been saying over the last week—it starts with Federated Farmers; they’re saying, “Outrageous, it will really hurt rural communities”. Then you step it down to Beef and Lamb, something a little bit softer but still concern and alarm. Dairy New Zealand—very concerned as well. So you’ve got the engine room of the New Zealand economy concerned about these methane targets.

Then we’ve heard this afternoon from Simon Upton, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, who came out and said—actually, he is a fantastic individual, well-researched, his report is well worth reading—that the methane target should be in the vicinity of minus 10 to minus 22, and we heard something similar from David Frame. Of course, what we’ve also got to realise—nitrous oxide is down to zero. Actually, the rural sector is saying, “Yes, we can do that but we know it’s going to be tough”.

So farmers have been adopting technology for a long period of time; they have been making incremental changes. We heard a great quote before from Todd Muller that the agriculture sector is the most efficient producer of food in the world. What we don’t want to do is load them up with a whole lot more costs that are going to slow down the New Zealand economy—$45 billion of exports are generated by 50,000 farmers who go on to create 300,000 jobs. So if the Government takes their eye off those people it will slow down the New Zealand economy, and that is a hell of a concern.

Now, what’s happened in the last week—it’s been fascinating hasn’t it? Shane Jones has been getting it in the ear. His phone in his office and his cell phone have been ringing around the clock and, I’ll tell you what, he’s been getting it on two fronts: the methane target being ridiculous and also that this billion trees target is starting to have a real impact in rural communities. So what does Shane Jones do? He doesn’t just accept the criticism and say, “Yes, we’ll have a look at it”. He comes on the country radio station and says, “Those farmers, when they’re not milking their cows, they’re out there whingeing and moaning”. That’s right, just attack the farmers.

So when Winston Peters stands up and says, this afternoon, “We’re going to try and do all we can to support the agriculture sector to change”, one of his sidekicks is out there saying, “They’re a whole bunch of whingers and moaners”. Then about 48 hours later, he’s back on the radio doing a mea culpa and doing a Clayton’s apology. But that one particular comment will resonate right through to the election because we will keep reminding farmers that New Zealand First said to all our hard-working farmers that they are a bunch of whingers.

Now, farmers aren’t those people; what they are doing is they are concerned about the billion trees. We had the Labour Party and the Greens and New Zealand First in the election campaign saying, “We’re going to tighten the Overseas Investment Act”. Well, yes they did—they tightened it on housing, they tightened it on farm ownership but wait, here’s the rub: they loosened it for overseas investors to come in and buy farmland and plant trees. So what you’re seeing right now is all of these investors coming in and gobbling up land. You’ve got big concerns on the East Coast of the North Island and into the central North Island where farmers are worried about their communities. This bill here will do nothing to help them. I’ll tell you why: it’s because farmers can’t offset their emissions by planting trees. They can’t go and buy the farm next door and plant it in trees like Z Energy, like Air New Zealand, like the big power generator Genesis can with carbon farming.

So these are the things that are going to need to be debated in the select committee. What we also need to hear from James Shaw—I thought in the week’s recess he might have come out and said, “Yes, we’ve reached a negotiation with New Zealand First. Agriculture is coming into the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)”. There’s a big discussion to be had about whether that is going to be seen as just another tax. I reckon it will. This Government’s ruled out the capital gains tax, environmental taxes. But wait, it’s like the Ginsu knives—but wait, there’s more. There are more—there are more taxes coming and it is agriculture coming into the ETS.

Now, here’s my bet this afternoon: when James Shaw stands up and says agriculture—and it will be with Damien O’Connor because he’s the guy that wants to inflict more costs on rural communities; he said it in the first few days when he was Minister. They’ll do a joint press release and it will say, “Agriculture’s coming into the ETS, but we haven’t got the measurement sorted to be able to collect the data inside the farm gate. As a result that will all be collected at processor level.” That’s going to be seen as another tax and it won’t change behaviours.

So I want to summarise in the last few moments: we support the intent of this bill. We are really, really concerned about that methane target. If New Zealand First had done their homework they would have wrestled that target down, and, actually, this debate this afternoon—I think it would have gone a hell of a lot better than it has this afternoon. There’s a lot of work to be done in the select committee. We’ll be constructive but we remain very concerned about the methane targets and the costs, not just on rural communities but the cost on New Zealand. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Just three months ago, we saw school students marching in our streets in the climate strikes: thousands of students here in New Zealand pouring on to the streets of Dunedin, of Christchurch, of Wellington, of Auckland, of New Plymouth, of provincial centres around the country—thousands and thousands of young people urging us to take urgent action with respect to climate change. In my own electorate, students from Lynfield College marched, students from Green Bay High School marched—passionate about climate change. In my own home, my own two younger daughters, my twins aged 17; they were out there marching too, urging us in this House to take action with respect to climate change. They say we’ve got to move beyond the fine words, we’ve got to move beyond the fine sentiments. We must actually take action, and that is what this bill is. We are keeping faith with those students.

I grew up in the shadow of the nuclear threat, as many people in this House did. We grew up in a world where nuclear Armageddon hung over us. We were deeply concerned about it but there was one slight difference between the nuclear threat and the threat that our young people face today. We knew that the nuclear threat could be stopped if only the men with their fingers on the buttons could be sensible—if only the men with their fingers on the buttons could stop themselves—and so far they have. The problem with climate change is that the damage has been done, is being done, and will not stop. All we can do now is take action to try to keep the worst effects at bay. If we take action now, in New Zealand and as a global community, then we have a chance of keeping our world livable. That is what this bill is about—giving our children a chance.

In the speeches this afternoon, many people have talked about climate mitigation—that is reducing the greenhouse gases that are creating a heated world. But this bill concerns itself not just with climate mitigation but also with climate adaptation. Our world is changing already: ask the people of Haumoana and they’ll talk to you about how the sea is encroaching and threatening them even further. Look at the increase in storms around the world; look at the effect of rising temperatures; look at the sea levels increasing slowly; look at the increased flooding. We can’t stop some of that now, so we need to adapt to climate change.

The sorts of things we need to adapt to—well, every time I drive up State Highway 1 up from Wellington and up through the Horowhenua—up through Mr Nathan Guy’s electorate—I look at the low-lying level of State Highway 1 and I wonder: what are we going to do about that road? What about State Highway 1 just before the Harbour Bridge in Auckland—that low-lying road that gets flooded at high tides and through big storms already? What are we going to do about South Dunedin, threatened by climate change?

Part of this bill concerns itself with adaptation. The Climate Change Commission that is being set up has a responsibility to develop reports around the risks of climate change, to assess the risks of climate change, and the Minister for Climate Change has a responsibility to respond to those reports from the Climate Change Commission. What’s the objective of that? It’s to get central government and local governments to assess the risks of climate change and to take action to protect our communities on the beaches, along the rivers, but also to protect our communities like Te Kūiti and Taumarunui, referred to by one of the speakers this afternoon—towns that are dear to my heart. My grandmother was born in Te Kūiti and my family shopped in Taumaranui. These rural and provincial communities are important to us.

We’ve been told this afternoon that if we get this wrong, regional New Zealand will not look the same again. That is correct. If we do not respond to climate change, if we do not try to adapt to it, rural and regional New Zealand simply will not look the same. We do need to respond and we do need to adapt. We’ve heard about the worries around climate mitigation, around the science of climate change. Again, one of the important parts of this bill is about the make-up of the Climate Change Commission. It will not be a representative commission; it will be a committee of experts—a committee of people who have the knowledge and the wisdom, who can weigh up the conflicting claims of science, who can weigh up the evidence and come up with solid recommendations for the Government.

I refer you to clause 8 of the bill, which inserts new section 5H in the Climate Change Response Act. It talks about the qualities of the people to be appointed to the Climate Change Commission. They are people who must have an understanding of climate change mitigation and adaptation. They are people who have experience in working with local and central government. They are people who have a knowledge of public policy processes. They are people who have technical and professional skills and expertise in the environment and ecology and the social and economic and distributional effects of climate change. They are people who understand Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Te Ao Māori. They are people from a range of sectors and industries—all experts. They are the people that we will be relying on—not the grasping at straws of people who have reckons and hot takes on climate change but the people who have the actual knowledge. It is not cherry-picking experts. Anyone can cherry-pick an expert. This commission will prevent us from doing that.

Those are two important aspects of this bill that I want to draw the attention of this House to, and I think they are, actually, non-controversial. In finishing my last words on this particular bill, as I just reflect on it, some of the speakers this afternoon have pointed out that New Zealand is responsible for only a tiny amount of global warming. That’s genuinely the case—they’re correct—and the implication is, “Well, why us?” The reason is that if we can’t, no one can. Our energy sector is already 85 percent renewable. The next steps will be hard. Other countries can transition from coal for electricity—we’ve done that already, long ago. The next steps will be hard. We will be showing the world how to take those final few, hard steps. In agriculture, we already have an agricultural industry that is highly efficient with respect to greenhouse gases, but we still need to reduce the emissions from that industry. If we can develop the ways of doing it, then we will be showing the world how to do it. That is the leadership that New Zealand will take with respect to climate change. That is how we will fulfil our moral obligations.

At the Doha conference in 2012, Naderev Saño, the lead negotiator for the Philippines, said something interesting. He said, referring to storms, “We must stop calling events like these natural disasters … It is not natural when science already tells us that global warming will induce more intense storms. It is not natural when the human species has already profoundly changed the climate.” There are no disasters; there is just human action, which we must take action to mitigate. But, compellingly, he said this: “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?” I say to the students at Lynfield College, to the students at Green Bay High, I say to my daughters, I say to all the young people: it is now and it is us. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call in this first reading of this historic piece of legislation introduced into the House today. It’s vaguely ironic to be following the chair of the select committee, who commenced her speech by saying that we had to, as a Parliament and as a nation, move beyond the fine words, and then proceeded to give us 9½ minutes of fine words and no detail.

Actually, it’s the detail in this legislation that counts. It’s the detail that is important, and it’s the detail that New Zealanders want to know about. At select committee, we’re going to get a lot of detail, and I hope that New Zealanders—organisations, communities, and people interested in this subject of climate change—will take up the invitation of my colleague Todd Muller and make representations and submissions to the select committee in their hundreds, if not their thousands, because this is important legislation.

It was the Bluegreens who about four years ago brought over to New Zealand to address our Bluegreen forum, held in Waimauku in Auckland that year, the chair of the British climate committee, Lord Deben. He came over because we were interested in what the UK model looked like and the establishment of a structure, a format, an institution that was based largely on the model that the UK had implemented some 10 years prior. He gave us a very good insight into how that model had been working, and members of the Environment Committee were fortunate to meet briefly with him when we visited London a year or so ago.

If I can just pause for a moment to continue that story, I want to acknowledge in the Chamber today Dr Kennedy Graham, who in the previous Parliament chaired the GLOBE-NZ organisation—a genuinely cross-party organisation, representing members of Parliament from all sides of this House, and every party in the last Parliament was represented in that. We worked together collaboratively on a very good piece of work that resulted in a Vivid Economics report that focused on options for a carbon-zero New Zealand, and this bill has its genesis in some of that work, and I’m very pleased that Kennedy is with us today.

When we had Lord Deben here, we looked at the UK model and we thought about the benefits of an independent, science-based, informed, impartial expert panel to create a pathway towards a zero-carbon economy for New Zealand and New Zealanders. When we looked at the UK model, we were, I think, impressed to a person that the independence of that model had received almost unanimous support in their Parliament, and that the budgets that had been set by the United Kingdom climate committee were then being implemented by the elected politicians of the day.

It was James Shaw, in his introductory speech today, that told us, actually, this is legislation that, if it’s really going to work, has to endure the changes of multiple Governments over its history, and knowing as we do that there will be a change very soon in Government, we on this side are determined to work collaboratively with the current Government in order to try and make this work, but we have some very serious reservations. It’s around the setting of targets within this legislation that is the core problem and the core concern for us on this side. In the UK, what’s been effective is—it’s been the committee. It’s been their equivalent of what we are going to establish in terms of a commission that has been responsible for setting those targets, people who actually know an awful lot more about this area than any one of us in this Parliament. The UK Parliament, the House of Commons, has deferred to those experts in a way that I think is exemplary and cause for reflection in terms of comparing their model to what we have before us today.

When we went as an Environment Committee to London and also to Brussels to have a look at the European Union’s methodology for coping with climate change legislation, what we found out was, of course, that in Europe, agriculture is so far down their list of priorities in terms of adaptation and mitigation that they’re not even looking at it, most of them. Their footprints are completely different to ours. They’re focused on transport, on heating, on industrial emissions—a completely different focus. In fact, when we asked them the hard questions about “What do you think should be done about agriculture?”, inevitably, they came back to us and said, “Well, boy, we were hoping that New Zealand will sort that out for us. We are hoping that by the time we get to having to address our subsidised agricultural sector, New Zealand will have provided answers for us.” They’re looking to us to provide answers, and right at this minute, this piece of legislation asks questions to which there are no answers in the world. Not only are there just no answers in Europe; there are no answers in the world.

We are being asked as a Parliament to inflict upon the economy of New Zealand a target that has been set to meet the political narrative of the coalition Government, particularly the Green Party, because this is a bill that is actually misnamed. This is not a Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill; it’s actually more appropriately and correctly named a “Climate Change Commission Bill”, because that’s what it does. It sets up a climate change commission. That’s really what it does. Then it seeks to put in place some targets that, as I said, have been put in the legislation to meet the convenient narrative, essentially, of the Green Party, to try and appease their frustrated, angry, and very upset base, who have felt now for 18 months that they’ve done almost nothing on the environment that they promised so much about. This was a piece of legislation that we were already supposed to have enacted by now. Such are the complicated, perverse goings-on within the coalition Government that it’s taken this long for a bill to be introduced.

Surprisingly, some of this country’s harshest critics of this piece of legislation have in fact been environmental NGOs, former Green Party members of Parliament, former leaders of the Green Party. Listen to what one Russel Norman had to say when this bill was first made public. The headline from him was “Toothless zero carbon bill has bark but no bite”, and the reason he said that was because the zero carbon bill has no ability to enforce its climate change targets. There is nothing binding about the targets that are proposed in this bill, as challenging and as scary and as economically frustrating as they are. Norman went on to say that “the Bill will have little … effect because it has specifically written out any mechanism that would hold any person or body to account for not adhering to it.” “There’s bark, but … no bite”, he said. “There is no remedy or relief for failure to meet the 2050 target, meaning there is no legal compulsion for anyone to take any notice.”

Therein lies the rub, because if this bill is to be an effective piece of legislation and is to take us along what I think now is the broadly accepted pathway towards a zero carbon future for New Zealand, then this bill actually doesn’t do that. This bill just sets up the commission—and we support that, the establishment of that framework, the establishment of the institution, the establishment of a group of experts to give advice to this Parliament and future Parliaments about what actions should be taken. But, ultimately, the actions remain the sovereignty of elected representatives sitting in this Chamber and future representatives sitting in this Chamber, and to think that this bill will solve all those problems is, as Russel Norman says, really just to acknowledge that there is bark but no bite in this legislation.

So on this side of the House we support the bill to select committee. We look forward to the select committee proceedings. We invite New Zealanders to participate in their hundreds if not thousands on this bill to pick it to pieces so that it could be a better bill, so that it could be a bill that New Zealanders could get behind and could get behind in a way that is not going to throw our economy under a bus. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

I understand this is a split call. Angie Warren-Clark, you have five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a great honour to stand and speak to this bill. We have heard some extraordinary speeches today, from the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern to our Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw—sorry, I was just looking over his shoulder—right through to the Deputy Prime Minister. What we haven’t heard, really, is from the Opposition, who—yes, while they are supporting it in this first reading, what we haven’t really heard is a genuine commitment to this bill. What we have heard is that they like parts of it, or parts that they can agree with, but, genuinely, in 2050 I will be 79 years of age—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: No!

I know—surprising for you all. I will be 79 years of age, and it is my children and my grandchildren and my moko and my nieces and nephews who will actually have to bear the cost of us not doing the right thing.

This bill is actually creating a framework for us which looks at business, which looks at farms, which looks at the way that we as a society operate and actually suggests options and creates a standard system for how we will work in a measured way with stepping stones towards zero carbon.

For me, it is quite simply this: we can yell at each other or we can genuinely sit down and work together, because we are all in this together, and without us working together on this, business will not exist as we know it. Our brothers and sisters in the Pacific will be living with us because they will have nowhere to live—

💬 David Seymour: Well, what’s wrong with that?

They have a right, Mr Seymour, to live in their own countries. We want to support them to do that. We will be facing catastrophic changes to our food chain, absolutely catastrophic changes to our food chain—acidification. It will be catastrophic if we fail to act.

Therefore, I am absolutely delighted that we have taken the first step towards this legislation. We’re moving in a way that is courageous. It will be difficult, and I ask the members across the House and also those who are in the community to please, like some of our members have said today, participate in this process.

We have four parts to this bill, and most people have spoken about it to some extent, although a few have gone off and talked about some, really, sort of side issues. One of the things that we know that is difficult for us is that approximately 48 percent of our emissions are from agriculture. We have roughly 40 percent from energy, 6.1 percent from industrial processes, and roughly 5 percent from our waste streams. We actually have some wins to make across all sorts of areas, but, as the member the Hon—I was going to say Simon Upton, but I’m not actually going to quote Simon Upton—Scott Simpson has said to us, when we visited and looked at what was happening in the UK, what we discovered is, yes, we are going to have to be the leaders. Lithuania, ourselves, and Ireland are the only with the footprint that we have. We must be bold, we must work in a way that is consistent with our particular framework, our particular emissions picture, and that is why I am absolutely delighted that we have codified and started to look at the way that we, ourselves, can make steps—small steps. But we’re acting, we’re starting, we’re beginning a process of trying to turn around what is going to be a disaster if we do not make this change. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I would just like to say to the member Angie Warren-Clark, who just took her seat, who complimented the Deputy Prime Minister on his contribution, that it would’ve been helpful if she had interpreted what he’d said for us, because none of us understood it. Certainly, I put the earpiece to my ear, but it wasn’t coming through on the translation, unfortunately.

I am very pleased to be speaking on the Climate Change Commission bill, which, as my colleague Scott Simpson said, would be a more appropriate name for this bill. I think we should all be guided, in fact, by the speech given by our leader Simon Bridges, who gave a great speech initially—

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

—clearly, they weren’t listening—and by the principles that we would stand on: being science based. It absolutely has to be science based, any action that we take on climate change, and that is why I really wonder why there are targets put in this bill. We’re setting up a climate change commission. That is, essentially, a group of experts who will look at the costs, the implications, and what the targets actually should be, and which ones are able to be achieved. That is a far more sensible approach than to have somebody pluck a number out of the air, quite clearly which is put into the bill now, and that is just, you know, to me, quite strange.

To focus on innovation and technology, because, obviously, innovation and technology are going to be the keys for us to make any progress on this huge challenge that we’ve got in front of us—and biotechnology has to be one of those answers. Yet, when challenged and questioned in the House by Todd Muller, the Hon James Shaw said he’d be led by the science, but, effectively, the answer he gave was: only when it suits him. Biotechnology is one of the keys that will have to be part of the solution, and it’s just a pity that ideology is blinding some people on this particular subject.

We need to take long-term signals to our economy, and we have to send long-term signals. Business absolutely requires confidence when they make investment, and if they’re going to make investment to try—

💬 Kiritapu Allan: But you guys don’t want to set targets.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! Do not bring me into the debate.

—and meet the challenge ahead for us, they will need those signals. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. We also will move with international partners, and not in isolation. Yet we just heard from the previous speaker that we were going to be world leaders. Well, that isn’t actually the solution here. We need to work with other partners around the world because, if we simply jump in with significant imposts on our economy and our producers, then that production will simply go offshore, and that will then be a net loss to the global climate and the emissions targets. So simply cleaning up your own emissions and—not yours, Madam Assistant Speaker, but lowering our economy’s emissions—thereby increasing global emissions is missing the point completely. If we care about climate change, we have to take a sensible approach.

I think we’ve got a really good steer from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton, and, in fact, his predecessor Jan Wright came out very clearly in favour of biotechnology being a part of the solution. But Simon Upton made some very clear points about having the use of forestry for an offset for carbon dioxide. Having methane, as we have in our current situation, not being able to be offset against forestry is giving the large carbon dioxide emitters a free pass, and it’s not changing behaviour. In contrast, methane emissions will be charged at the processor, so it will not change any behaviour inside the farm gate. It works very well—when you put a price on petrol, people will, of course, find a more efficient means of transport to avoid the cost, but you’re not seeing that with farm emissions, and that’s wrong. It’s driving forestry planting into the small towns of New Zealand. We’re seeing a trickle of farms being bought up for carbon farming. That will become a tsunami, and that will kill rural communities. It takes with it jobs, it impacts on GDP that flows right through the economy, and we will have ghost towns in New Zealand. So we have to be very careful—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I apologise to the member; your time has expired. I understand this is a split call—you have five minutes, David Seymour.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. But before I do that let me surprise one or two people around the House by making a tribute to a couple of members: a former member who is with us today Dr Kennedy Graham, and James Shaw, the Green Party co-leader, because it’s a rare thing, in this House, to have members who come here with sincerely held beliefs about issues that they think are important, and to work conscientiously over a period of time to bring about legislative change. I think anyone that comes to Parliament to do that deserves to be paid tribute to. I would also tribute Todd Muller for hitching his wagon to James Shaw’s tractor in this regard, but, unfortunately, I’m not feeling that generous today.

I also would like to concede to the proponents of this bill that there is a certain intelligence in its design architecture, in that it looks to change the political incentives and the architecture of political decisions over time, and it looks to emulate the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which has been a very successful piece of legislation for reducing deficit spending in New Zealand.

So why oppose this bill? Well, it’s got nothing to do with whether or not we think climate change is a problem. I think it’s fair to say that most people would view the emissions of carbon dioxide as being problematical, although they may argue about the extent of it. Opposition to this bill has everything to do with the fact that it will not be effective at achieving the things that it wishes to achieve. The reason for that is that New Zealand, whether we like it or not, is a passenger when it comes to climate policy, and to emissions. It is a fact that we, as a country, at 0.02 percent of emissions, roughly, cannot change the climate. We can, however, set an example, and the example that we might set ourselves, for the rest of the world, at least, is that we might end up changing the world’s perception of climate policy by shooting ourselves in the foot. If New Zealand sets targets that are excessive, that get ahead of our trading partners, that we impoverish ourselves with, so that the proponents of the legislation experience a political backlash, and so that we end up pushing activity into other jurisdictions with less ambitious targets, where the same activity takes place with greater emissions, then we could impoverish New Zealanders and increase global emissions. That is a possibility if these measures actually require greater emissions reductions with more severe policies than our trading partners and our friends around the world are prepared to accept.

As a result, the fact is we cannot go further than our friends around the world are prepared to go. The result of this legislation can only be that New Zealand will end up reducing its emissions by about as much as—perhaps a slightly greater amount than—our trading partners. Once we accept that reality, we come to quite a different proposition. That is that if we were serious, we would not set up a bureaucracy, because that’s all this bill really does. It’s the climate initiative for people too scared to take on the debate and say, “We seek to actually reduce our living standards by giving up on the amount of carbon we emit, and pay more for the use of energy and transport and agricultural emissions.” It means that we are not prepared to have that debate, but we will outsource it to a bureaucracy.

If we were serious, and if we accepted the reality of our international situation, what we’d do is very simple. We would say that New Zealand is going to have an all gases, all sectors emissions trading scheme—which we almost have already, notwithstanding some arguments around methane. We would say that we are going to pay the actual price for carbon that our top five trading partners pay on a weighted average basis—maybe plus 5 percent, just to show that we want to be a little bit ahead. That would be a serious policy. That would be a politically tough policy to sell, but it would be an effective policy—not just outsourcing a serious issue to some bureaucracy.

So the ACT Party opposes this piece of legislation. It will not be effective at reducing carbon emissions. It hasn’t worked in the UK; why would it work here? We’re very happy to provide better policy and better evidence—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member, your time has expired.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I wonder if the argument that the member for ACT has just progressed around our 0.2 percent having no impact on the environment applies so too to the polling of the ACT Party. The science has been largely addressed so far—predominantly by the Hon James Shaw, Minister for Climate Change. As has been raised by multiple members in this House, this is an issue of both the head and the heart. So let’s get on with it.

This weekend, I was at a panel with politicians representing parties across this Parliament. We were asked questions by hundreds of young people who were present about the actions that we, as their representatives, intend to take on climate change. The answers and discussion largely, actually, reflected the debate which we have so far had in this House today. Politicians spoke about the economy, as if the environment, the planet, our home, the conditions required for human life are something to be addressed when the finances are in order.

After that panel, I was approached by some young people from the audience. A young man asked me why politicians blame poor people for their political inaction on this climate crisis. He said, “If our concern was increasing inequality, we could help those poor people now and ensure everybody is in a position to live a decent life, let alone be prepared and resilient in the face of climate change to come.” Some in this House have belittled the rangatahi who took to the streets to be active in their involvement in advocating for their future, telling them to “Stay in school.” I found that our young people demonstrate a resolute courage and far more moral clarity than many of the representatives in this Chamber who patronise them.

With all of this talk about the economy, I thought—as some speak about it as though it’s some kind of untouchable deity—that I’d like to quote the economist John Maynard Keynes, who said, and I agree, that “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” We’ve heard the arguments progressed by the Leader of the Opposition that we cannot pretend that this bill won’t impact the economy—and he’s right. We also can’t pretend that climate change won’t impact the economy.

The Hon Simon Bridges said that “We need to have an honest conversation about the costs and the trade-offs”, and we do. The reality of climate change is that insurers are retreating from engaging in contracts with seaside properties. The reality of climate change is that billions of dollars are being sent offshore to pay for countries’ inaction—whether it’s sending money to fulfil our targets for the Paris Agreement, or whether it’s the taxpayer or the ratepayer picking up the bill to clean up our air and our waterways, and build the retaining walls required due to the disproportionate pollution spilled by corporations in their mission to privatise resource and, therefore, profit. They do not pay the real costs of production. The climate is changing, regardless of whether we do.

Our farmers are seeing less seasonal predictability, increasing droughts and fires, and extreme weather events are exacerbating food shortages among the world’s poorest, and are driving greater human migration and conflict and refugee numbers. The honourable Todd Muller said in his speech that the “Idea that our collective effort will [have an impact] is nonsense.”, referring to our 0.17 percent contribution to global emissions. Where is the ambition that the National Party so frequently talks about? As the Hon James Shaw is on the record saying multiple times, “If we were to add up every country that contributes less than 1 percent to global emissions, together, we contribute a third of all of those global emissions.” So where’s the leadership? Where is the global responsibility?

The honourable Todd Muller also said that New Zealand will never look the same—and he’s right. New Zealand won’t look the same. Regional New Zealand won’t look the same whether we act or not, but the best chance that we have to protect people from the worst of climate change is to provide them with the certainty and the predictability that this bill shows. It is to proactively provide support for transition. It is not to sit back, to sit on our hands, and to watch the waters rise. This bill will now go to the Environment Committee, which includes nine MPs from across this House, myself included, and the public has a say in what this bill becomes; I say they submit.

National is supporting the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill because a climate change commission is a good idea that will help New Zealand make progress on the challenging issue of climate change. This is the National Opposition being both responsible and being constructive about one of the most challenging issues that faces our country and, actually, faces the world.

I brought five climate change - related bills to this Parliament during the last Government. On not one did the Opposition support it. I do say it is a big step for an Opposition party to say, yes, it wants to back this idea because it’s constructive.

I’m the only member of this House that was here when New Zealand signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. You might not believe it, but I was even younger than Chlöe Swarbrick, and I was privileged to be part of the New Zealand delegation to Rio de Janeiro when that initial convention was signed. But if there’s an important lesson from the intervening 25 years that this Parliament must recognise, it’s that good intentions are not enough to be able to address this issue.

I’ve totalled up that over a hundred countries have made bold commitments on climate change that have failed and come to naught. The reason the Climate Change Commission is such an important part of the solution is that it will enable us to be able to have a more constructive, a more open, and a more honest conversation about how we actually can make progress on this issue. When the world signed up to the UN convention on climate change, global emissions were 24 billion tonnes. The commitment was to stabilise them. Today they’re 37 billion tonnes, or 60 percent greater.

I have to say I’m a bit tired of big, bold commitments that set ambitions way beyond the term of the Prime Minister or the climate change Minister, without the grit as to how you’re going to get there. I remind this Parliament that Prime Minister Helen Clark in coalition with The Alliance party, including the Greens, came to Government in 1999. They said it was our “nuclear-free moment”. Sound familiar? They said their goal was carbon neutrality. Well, what happened during the nine years of that Clark Government, supported by both The Alliance and then the Greens? Emissions went up by 10 percent. We actually went backwards on renewables from 73 percent of our electricity being renewable to 65 percent being renewable. So my plea to this House is to not be carried away with big bold intentions but to actually look to the policies that will make a material difference to our country and globally making a difference on this issue.

I remember when our party in Government worked hard to secure the Paris Agreement. Members on this side of the House say “Actually, New Zealand needs to do its fair share, but the solution to this has to be global.”, and I’m proud of the role that we played in securing the Paris Agreement and of New Zealand’s commitment to a 30 percent reduction by 2030. But the part that I do have to challenge parties opposite on—and this part, for me, is extraordinary—is that in all the talk, we know that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the key of this issue. And I choked on my cornflakes—I literally could not believe it, when we’re describing climate change as an emergency, when we’re saying it is our nuclear-free moment, to hear the Minister for Climate Change say that he expected emissions to continue to increase until 2025. I’m sorry; this has got an awful sound like KiwiBuild and some of the other big, bold intentions of Government—of not having follow-through. Effectively, what James Shaw said on the radio is that this Government would not do as well as the previous Key Government in making progress, and that would be a grave disappointment.

I also want to make a plea for scientific literacy around the issue of climate change. I totally support the provisions of this bill that set up the Climate Change Commission. The reason the Climate Change Commission is a good step forward is that with the expertise, with the setting of budgets—not just big, bold targets but actions—it will enable us to get down emissions, and that will help us get there. But scientific literacy is important. This notion of this bill being called “Carbon Zero” is really a misnomer. The first thing is, carbon is not the problem; carbon is at the heart of life. There would not be life on this planet without the existence of carbon. The issue is greenhouse gas emissions. Some of those greenhouse gases do not even have carbon in them: 11 percent of New Zealand’s emissions are nitrous oxide—I’m sorry; where’s the carbon in nitrous oxide? If this bill was to be scientifically literate—and I continually have a problem with the Green Party in not being scientifically literate—it should be a bill referring to greenhouse gases, or at the very least carbon dioxide and methane, which are the core issues.

Now, my colleagues have rightly challenged the notion of these incredibly bold targets around the issue of methane, one of the significant gases for New Zealand. Here’s my problem. I haven’t heard a single Government member or the Minister tell us how a mid-range on a 35 percent reduction in emissions can be achieved. You know how I think that can be achieved? I think our best hope is biotechnology. When I look at the development by Landcare Research of ryegrass, that can achieve as much as a 20 to 25 percent reduction in emissions, I see light, I see hope, I see a solution. For me, what is extraordinary is for the Government to set targets for the agricultural sector that go beyond what the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and scientists have said are realistic, and then take away from our agricultural sector and our farmers the very tools that would enable us to achieve those targets. So my last challenge to the Government is let’s have a conversation about the actions.

I say to Minister Shaw: let’s have an honest conversation about the cost. Ten years ago, I bought an electric car. It cost me $84,000. The petrol equivalent was $26,000. There is a real cost. My community at the moment is looking about getting electric buses. The cost of an electric bus is about $800,000, compared with $180,000 for the diesel equivalent. There is a real cost. If we want to convert over to wind, solar, and those energies, let’s have the honest conversation that there is a real cost.

For those who pretend that those costs can be ignored, I ask them to look at the “yellow vest” protests in France to realise that if we are to win these arguments, we need to take New Zealanders with us. Blind open commitments that say there are no cost impacts on New Zealanders in making progress on climate change risk repeating the mistakes I’ve seen of the last 25 years, and it is not being upfront and honest about the trade-offs that we need to have.

I’m very proud to have invited Lord Deben to New Zealand, the architect of the climate change commission legislation in the UK, and of being a member of the Environment Committee that triggered our visit there. In my view, the Climate Change Commission is a step in the right direction, but don’t let any member of this House pretend that establishing a climate change commission is going to take away the really gritty, the really tough, the really difficult issues that we have to work through in our energy sector, in our agricultural sector, in our transport sector, and in our industrial sector, if we’re going to have another round of meaningless targets and not get the runs on the board to really make progress on this huge issue.

I apologise to the member. Your time has expired.

It is exactly those gritty, hard, gnarly issues that this side of the House is advocating for with the promotion of this bill. Dr Smith, I have just had to listen to a 10-minute speech that—it’s so disappointing, because what we did hear only a couple of months ago from the Leader of the Opposition was that there was going to be a real commitment from the Opposition to work with this side of the House. We’ve had the clear stewardship by the Hon James Shaw, who has worked with Todd Muller from the Bay of Plenty—a fantastic gentleman and future leader of the National Party. We heard that there was a commitment to a real bipartisan approach to this piece of legislation. But, I must say—yes, I have sat in this House for the last hour and a half of this debate and every single member of the Opposition has got up and said emotive quotes like this: “This debate is going to be all emotional. It’s head versus heart. It’s emotions versus economics, and this side of the House has to understand the economics. You have to understand the science because you don’t understand the money. You don’t understand the cost to this country.”

Well, I say to my fellow friends opposite on that side of the House: do they understand the cost of not acting now? At the end of this week, on Friday, what we have are young students from all across this nation who are mobilising, galvanising, and coordinating a second day of climate justice action. Why? Because it is that generation that will have to bear the burdens and the responsibilities for whatever decisions that this House makes right now.

Then I hear another quote from the opposite side of the House: “Why are we debating this bill? Why are we debating this bill now?” Well, we heard from the Rt Hon Winston Peters that it’s because that side of the House signed us up to the Paris accord. But, beyond that, it is because the whole world is watching and every country that signed up to the Paris accord—174 countries plus the EU—is trying to work out, right now, how to practically implement reaching no greater warming than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. We are all grappling with that challenge. So why is this House debating this bill right now? Because we don’t have a choice not to.

When you come up to an electorate like mine, in the mighty East Coast, and when you see those floods, when you see those plains flooded for miles, when you watch the productivity of our agricultural and horticultural sectors drop, when I look at the NIWA reports and they say that our farmers, our horticulturalists, our primary production sector can anticipate a 10 percent increase in droughts, we do not have a choice. This is not about some liberal urbans sitting up there in Grey Lynn, going, “Oh, let’s all go and try and achieve some great outcomes in climate change.” Why are we debating this bill right now? Because our primary production sector needs an answer just as much as our future generations do. So let’s all take ownership of what we need to do as a House right now.

I want to acknowledge and I want to thank the Hon James Shaw for the work that you have done, because I know how hard it has been, how challenging—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

—and for the fantastic work and leadership that you have shown—sorry, that the Minister has shown—by working alongside industry, by working alongside scientists, by working alongside all aspects of this House. We know it has not been easy, but the member has produced an absolutely outstanding bill that recognises some of the challenges, that industries in my own community, in particular the primary production sector from my community, can look to and say, “At least we’ve been heard.”

We’ve heard a lot about the reduction of greenhouse gases and emissions. Now, what the Minister has done in terms of setting out a two-phase approach to greenhouse gas emissions—

💬 David Seymour: The member’s slowing down.

Thank you! What we need in communities like mine, and we learnt this through the 80s, is that when we make radical economic reforms without a plan, if we don’t have a just transition for communities like mine that rely heavily on industries that are primary production - focused, if we do not have a plan, a just transition plan that allows us to transition from point A to point B, it’s the workers who get left behind. So what we do have is a two-tiered approach to the way that we look at the reduction of greenhouse gases.

A 10 percent reduction by 2030 for methane gases: now, we’ve heard a lot of discussion from that side of the House and a range of commentators in the news, but what I will say is that I was with my good friend and colleague the member Mark Patterson just last week. We went up and visited a biotech company—an agri-tech company. The opposite side of the House asks where we are going to get these solutions to bring about a 10 percent reduction by 2030. Well, ask the guys who are doing it. The agri-tech companies are already doing it. LIC, our biggest biotech company in New Zealand, which is working on securing future breeding programmes, have said that right now they are working towards a 10 percent reduction in methane. That’s what their focus is. If we look at what’s happening over at Massey, there’s a whole commission set up there—the greenhouse gas—

💬 Mark Patterson: Alliance.

Alliance. Thank you, Mark. Their whole focus is on looking at how we can get the productivity of these sectors reduced down by 10 and, ultimately, 30 percent. So let’s not be so lacking in ambition and let’s not be a country that focuses on driving a wedge between the rural sector and environmentalists, between the regions and the city folk, because that doesn’t help anyone; that does not do this debate justice. I look over at the other side of the House. Now, I know Erica Stanford. She’s a greenie; she’s a greenie at heart—a “teal green” or whatever they’re called. I know Sarah Dowie; she’s another one. But they didn’t speak in this debate—they didn’t speak in this debate. The Opposition got their rural folk up to talk. No, no, no, this is an injustice to this debate. If we are to be responsible in managing how we, as 120 members of this House, approach something that is intergenerationally so significant, let us be responsible in the way that we approach it.

Right now, if we look over to the Pacific Island where we have primary responsibility, in Fiji 40 villages have gone because of sea rise—gone for ever. If we look all throughout our own country, we’re watching the erosion of coastal lands. Like I said, in the mighty East Coast, I’m watching the erosion of my coast and watching that sea level rise. We’re watching insurance companies that no longer want to provide insurance for coastal properties. These are issues that we can no longer afford to be flippant about.

This bill here creates a binding statutory target for the Climate Change Commission. We’ve got this guy Professor Jonathan Boston; he talks to us a lot about how important it is to have public policy that goes beyond three-year terms. This Climate Change Commission is something, and I’m pleased to hear Dr Nick Smith commend its capacity and its ability to do that future forward-looking. There needs to be a mechanism that takes away the politicisation—that takes it away from us, being able to step away from our obligations every three years and turn to debates like this, which are so critical to the way that we survive as a nation beyond the three-year term. So I think that both sides of the House can agree that this is a pragmatic and necessary step, and that’s something that this bill brings in.

Please let us not drive a wedge between the urban and the rural, between the primary sector and the environment, because we know on this side of the House that my rural primary-based community will no longer be thriving in the way that it can be if we don’t have the land to farm, if our communities are ebbing away in extreme weather events. The toll that the Edgecumbe flooding took on my community and our farming community was drastic. So I challenge that side of the House as they go through the rest of this debate and consider this legislation: when you say “Well, there’s nothing in this legislation for the farmers.”, please reconsider that position, because there is absolutely something for all of us in this bill.

I move, That the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 21 October 2019.