Climate Change Response Amendment Bill

Part 2 of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill is the part that makes some amendments to a number of Acts, particularly the Forests Act 1949, and inserts some new provisions. One outlines just what a forest sink covenant is, and the regulating powers in relation to that. So this part is perhaps a little more technical, but National is again going to support this particular part because, again, it moves us into a position where we have a mechanism whereby ownership can be recognised individually. We see that as a crucial part of moving forward.

I will reflect on the relationship of this part to the bill as a whole. The bill is a Climate Change Response Amendment Bill. Principally it deals with issues surrounding forestry and carbon sinks. It is interesting to note in this debate this afternoon, in the Committee stage of this bill, that most of the contributions from the Government side—and there have not been many of them—have criticised National. Government members have not stood up and said: “This is our bill. We are proud of it. This is the blueprint that will take us forward because …”. We have not had that.

When I addressed Part 1, I made the point that this has to be more comprehensive than just dealing with the forest issue. Climate change is a complex issue, and if this is the Government’s response to the issue, I have to say that it is missing out. We have had the Minister, the Hon David Parker, say a little bit about working with the Greens, and we have talked about the sequestration through forestry in these carbon sinks. Well, it is much more complex than that. Can we just talk a little bit about the part that carbon sinks will play. It is good that the legislation identifies and has an interpretation of what carbon sinks are, how they are set up, the regulating powers, and all of that. It is good to have those outlined so that we have some understanding about that. But in reality, when our country is the worst-performing country in the OECD—

💬 Hon David Parker: It’s not.

It is very close to it, I say to the Minister. He might say it is not, but today in Nairobi a paper was tabled that stated that it was. Let us not get into the semantics of whether we are the worst or the second-worst; we are bad; our performance is bad in terms of proportionality of the greenhouse gases we emit. We have to look at New Zealand as a land mass and ask whether carbon sinks are the future. Yes, they are part of it, but what part will they play? We have very little land now that can actually be identified as probably being a preferable forest option. Yes, there are probably a couple of hundred thousand acres in the Manawatū–Wanganui area that need to be set aside into forestry, and maybe there is a wee bit up the East Coast. But when we are performing so badly, we could plant the whole of New Zealand out in trees, and the sequestration of that might bring us to our 1990 levels, which is what we promised to do under Kyoto.

But when we have the total land mass of New Zealand in trees, what do we do then? For a start, what do we do for exports? So, yes, trees are important and we need to encourage people to plant trees for all sorts of reasons besides the sequestration. But simply to present us with this bill as a blueprint for the way forward is very, very short of the other things that need to take place.

I note that in some of the debate we have had around this, speakers have said that trees are important. Yet we have had a number of Government speakers stand up to say that agriculture is the evil and causes about 50 percent of the greenhouse gases produced in New Zealand. Is it? I invite the Minister to take a call and explain to us why sequestration into trees that are consumed is good, but sequestration of carbon into grass that is consumed is bad and causes huge problems out there in terms of New Zealand’s profile in the world as a greenhouse gas emitter. It seems to me that we cannot rely on the science with trees and then discredit it on the grass, because the trees, by and large, are consumed—

I seek leave of the Committee to table an extract from the Horowhenua-Kapiti Chronicle of Friday, 3 November, which reports that 20 people attended the National Party environmental policy launch, not 40 people as claimed by Mr Guy in his speech.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I rise to speak to Part 2 of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, which makes amendments to certain other Acts of Parliament that are affected by this bill. They are the Forests Act of 1949, the Land Transfer Act of 1952, and various other Acts. This bill, and this part of the bill, deals with issues to do with forestry, carbon sequestration, and carbon sinks.

It is interesting to note—if I talk about forestry for a moment—that throughout the 1990s in New Zealand an average of 60,000 hectares of new forests were planted each year. Actually, I remember it very well, particularly the Kāingaroa Forest in the middle of the North Island, which was in full planting mode earlier than that but was in full production in the 1990s—if my memory serves me right. Forestry was a big industry with a lot of confidence, and a big export earner for New Zealand. What do we have now, after 7 years of this Labour Government? We have close to zero forest plantings. That is not exactly a fine record for the Government in terms of affecting climate change.

Why should we care about the amount of forest being planted? Well, I think there are several reasons that we should care about the level of forestry investment. The most obvious reason is that forests are the greatest absorbers of carbon, and planting forests is the best thing we can do for climate change in New Zealand. I think we must always remember—and I think the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues has quite forgotten—that we did not create the problem of climate change in the world, as we produce only 0.4 percent of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions, and we are certainly not the answer to the problem. However, we can make a contribution to solving it, which we are all doing by supporting this bill. And National does support this bill, but with some amendments, because we believe that environment policy should last for longer than the term of any Government.

I reflect that Nick Smith wrote to the Minister back in January this year—am I right, or was it December last year—offering a bipartisan approach on the issue of climate change. National members have not had an answer to that letter, but here we stand in the Chamber today, supporting the Minister’s bill on climate change. At least National is prepared to work in a bipartisan way on climate change.

Why else should we care about forestry planting in New Zealand? We should care because vast areas of eroding hill country, mostly in the North Island, desperately need to be planted in trees. But we need incentives to plant forests on that eroding land. Why else should we care? We should care because the forest industry is our fourth-biggest export industry. Well, it was, until the current Government’s policies shut down the forest export industry, and caused a huge loss of confidence within that industry.

This Climate Change Response Amendment Bill goes part of the way—and we do support it—but it must be said that climate change response is a little more complicated than sequestering carbon in forestry. Carbon sequestration is very important, but is that it for the Government’s climate change policy? The Prime Minister last week, in her “get out of jail free” card conference speech tried to turn the agenda from some of the unpalatable issues that Labour has been faced with, and talked about carbon neutrality, which is a very worthy aim—very, very highfalutin. How are we going to do it, though, when all we have on the books is a Climate Change Response Amendment Bill that deals with carbon sequestration? We know that it goes part of the way, and we support it, but, gee, I say to the Minister that there has to be an awful lot more from him. Has he read National’s A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand? I can tell him that it is very good, and it has been so well received that it has actually been embarrassing. You know, it is very embarrassing, because—

💬 Eric Roy: Printed on recycled paper.

Yes, with natural vegetable dye inks. People would think that this party came from the greener end of the spectrum. Well, in fact we do. National takes the environment very, very seriously. I myself was a member of—and some of the older members in this Committee will remember it—Ecology Action.

It is very interesting to listen to the debate that is taking place in the Chamber at the moment, and I acknowledge the comments from the Greens about this Parliament being a Parliament that agrees with things. However, this is also a very good opportunity to rub the Government’s nose in it, around the saying “Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.”

R Doug Woolerton: Where did you learn that?

I tell the member that I did not learn it from listening to him.

The Kyoto Protocol has been around for a long time, in the sense that it was there and it was waiting to be progressed and developed. When we in the National Party said that we would wait until our trading partners signed it, so that we would not totally disadvantage ourselves, that was very wise. When we look at the bill we see that today we have another change—a change for the better—whereby those who have the opportunity to commit to supporting and developing carbon sinks will be able to do so. There was a rush to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol and, if I remember matters, the Minister’s comment at the time was that National would burn a $200 million cheque. Again, Minister Hodgson was wrong, and in actual fact the countries that have not signed up to it—in particular, our neighbour Australia—have been more successful over the ensuing years than this tired Labour Government has been.

Let us go back to the “fart tax”, because at that time I was on the board of Meat and Wool New Zealand. It was very interesting to try to get the message through to the then Minister, Pete Hodgson, that all the science was being done. But that was not the angle he was coming from; he saw that measure as a chance for him to win the debate in the public arena, to be able to screw farmers for a second time, and to be seen to be the one who was doing the utmost to live up to our Kyoto obligations. The Government was not only proposing to rob people of the credits for forestry but was going to reinvent the research and development work on ruminant controls and methane emissions.

💬 Jacqui Dean: Poor cows.

Poor cows and poor farmers! Farmers struggle under the burdens of the Resource Management Act and all the other regulations that this Government puts up. So it is good to see that, at the end of it all, a bit of common sense is starting to show through.

There were 7 long years of nothing. It is interesting to see the Minister scribbling away there with his pen. He will take me to task on that, but he must be prepared to, because at the end of the day when we look at Project Aqua—again—from the rural perspective, we see that the Government did not have in place the necessary framework so that we could work through to a logical, a coherent, and an acceptable situation. I reiterate the saying “Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.”

We have 8 million cattle and 40 million sheep in New Zealand, and when we look at the issues around climate change, we see that, effectively, they concern agriculture in the south, and industry, cars, and electricity generation in the north. We cannot have a one-size-fits-all solution, and on that basis, when I look at our recent release A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member needs to come back to Part 2.

I tell members that it took a fair amount of consideration for the Government to appreciate just how important the forestry side of it all is. This part amends the Forests Act by inserting new Part 3B, which talks about carbon sequestration. That is quite significant, because Marlborough has a very interesting group of primary producers who are hugely concerned about the failure of the Government’s policy in terms of promoting agriculture and forestry. Some areas in that region do erode quite noticeably. On that basis we need to reinforce the issues around climate change.

I will respond to a few of the statements that have been made today—

R Doug Woolerton: You’ll be going for a week!

That is right. Correcting some of the errors that have been mentioned in the few speeches we have heard from the National Party on just this part will take some time.

First of all, Eric Roy said that the Labour members of the Committee had said that agriculture is the evil supplier of 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. I have been here during the whole debate, and that has not been said. It is true that agriculture does account for 50 percent of New Zealand’s emissions, but that does not make it evil. I have never said that; neither has this Government. It does mean that progress is needed in the agricultural sector, as it is in other sectors.

The second point I would make is about the repeated claims to environmental responsibility on the part of the National Party. The self-praise its members heap upon A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand can be judged from the statement made by the last speaker when he once again attacked the Resource Management Act. That Act is the central piece of legislation that protects environmental sustainability in New Zealand. People cannot say they are in favour of environmental sustainability when they attack that Act.

This part of the bill, in terms of the contribution it will make to sustainability, encourages the afforestation of areas of land, especially those that are of marginal value and prone to erosion. The benefits from the afforestation of those areas include improved water quality as a consequence of reduced erosion. This bill will make a difference. All parties in this Chamber, it now appears, agree that this is sensible legislation, and I think that is progress. It is one step along the difficult road that New Zealand and the world have to take in order to remediate greenhouse gas emissions.

In terms of the suggestion made by the member that New Zealand did not create the problem, although it is true that we did not create the problem on our own, we have created it more than most countries. New Zealand’s rate of emissions on a per capita basis is higher than most countries’ rate. We cannot fix the problem on our own, but we should be part of the fix. How are we part of the fix? This bill is an example of that. It will see increased afforestation through the measures regarding permanent forest sinks that will sequester carbon and therefore reduce the world’s problems relating to greenhouse gas emissions.

I will follow on from the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues and just say there is some real merit in what the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill is doing in establishing the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative. We should applaud that initiative as a whole, as members are doing today.

Part 2 relates specifically to setting up the development of the tools that will allow landowners to access the value of the carbon sequestration on land by the establishment of the forest sink covenants. I referred to the Hansard debate on the second reading of this bill, and I will quote from Jeanette Fitzsimons’ speech, in which she said: “I have met a number of forestry companies that are just waiting for this bill to go through in order to take up the commercial opportunities that it offers. Some of them want to plant native production forests with continuous canopy; that is something that we badly need.” When we get signals like that because of the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative, then that has to be good. As the Minister alluded to, the ability to plant farmland and countryside that is prone to dramatic devastation caused by erosion or flooding is encouraging in terms of starting to put that right.

One of the good things about getting involved in these debates in Parliament is that one actually does a little bit of reading and learns something. I have to say that I did not know a lot about carbon sequestering. I now know a hell of a lot more, and I thought I would share with the Committee how highly effective forestry is in delivering on that. When we read the figures, we realise how important it is that we move forward on this and arrest the decline in forestry by planting a lot more trees. For example, I did not know that a cubic metre of wood contains 250 kilograms of carbon, while a cubic metre of air contains 0.17 grams of carbon. That means that a cubic metre of wood contains the same amount of carbon as 1.4 million cubic metres of air.

💬 Rodney Hide: Are you sure?

I suggest to the member that we have to be pretty happy that the trees are doing their job. Photosynthesis and the trees’ ability to lay down wood, which is cellulose and lignin, act as a powerful concentrator of carbon from the atmosphere in a fixed form. That has to be good for New Zealand, for sure. So now that we understand the power of a tree to suck so much carbon out of the air, we have to be very concerned that our afforestation rates, which historically were very powerful—up to 40,000 hectares a year—have fallen sharply over the last 5 years. In 1994 we had 100,000 hectares and last year we had 6,000 hectares. We do have to be concerned at that impact, and National therefore—as the Committee is doing—fully supports this initiative in setting up the sink.

The Commerce Committee received a submission from the Farm Forestry Association; it talked about the three possible drivers for decreasing plantation rates. Two of them, I thought, were quite relevant: that future returns on plantings are not sufficient to encourage planting, and that new investors who might have established new forests may have been discouraged by negative press regarding the forestry industry. I suggest that this bill is putting forward positive press. It is encouraging plantation opportunities within the forestry industry so that the sector can move forward, and we have to be very pleased with that.

So I am supportive, as is the rest of this side of the Committee, of what this bill is doing. As I have alluded, Part 2 is the mechanism that gives the opportunity for the sink to be established. We have to be pleased, understanding as we do—and as I have just shared with my colleagues here—the power of a tree and how much carbon it can take out of the air.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 67 in the name of the Hon David Parker to Part 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2