Electricity (Renewable Preference) Repeal Bill

I would like to begin by responding to what the Hon Maurice Williamson said, which was that the answer to New Zealand’s electricity demand problems was to dam more rivers. He gave the impression that damming rivers was an easy thing to do, without significant environmental effects—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: I didn’t say that at all, so don’t tell lies.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairman. The member accused me of telling lies. The Hansard record will show that he stood and told the House that we should build more hydro generation. He should be asked to withdraw that comment.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: No; he just said “dam all rivers” and I didn’t say that.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Basically, that is a debatable point. The member who interjected really cannot accuse another member of lying, so on that account he should not use that terminology. It is a debating point, I guess.

Thank you. Well, it is not a debatable point as to whether I am a liar.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The point that the member was making was a debatable point.

Thank you, Mr Chairman, now that we have clarified that point. The member has said that he would dam more rivers in New Zealand, and that he thought the Greens were wrong to oppose the damming of rivers because that was undermining security of supply.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: I didn’t say “dam all rivers”.

I did not say that the member said “dam all rivers”; I said that he would dam more rivers.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: You just did say that.

Sorry; if I said that, I meant to say “dam more rivers”. Can I list for the member the number of rivers down my way, where we already supply far more power than we use to keep the member’s lights on in Pakuranga.

In my area the Taieri River is already dammed—one of our major rivers. So are the lower reaches of the Kawarau and so is the Clutha, in more than one point. The list goes on. So, too, the Waitaki River is dammed, so is the Tekapō, so is the Ōhau River, so is the Pūkaki River, so is the Waipori River, so is the Teviot River, so is Lake Manapōuri, the Wairau River, and the river system around Manapōuri and various other systems in Southland, which I must admit I cannot name offhand. In addition, consents in recent years have been issued for the damming of the Arnold River, for the damming of the Waiau River, and for another dam on the lower Waitaki River. When do we stop?

💬 Chris Hipkins: Do we have any left?

Well, we do not have many left down my way.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is Labour’s position to oppose any more hydro?

It is Labour’s position that we do not need much more hydro, that we—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: “Much more”—oh, you’re going to dam more rivers. He’s going to dam more rivers.

No; actually, people will not see Labour proposing changes to the Resource Management Act to enable more rivers to be dammed. It has been interesting that Contact Energy has said that it does not need just aided processes to get consent for more dams on the Clutha River; it needs a change to the environmental baseline that is provided by the Resource Management Act, so as to undermine the environmental protection that the remaining undammed sections of the Clutha River currently enjoy.

If members on the other side of the Chamber think they will be able to provide security of supply through damming more rivers and they think that they will do that down our way, then they should think back to the Save Manapōuri campaign and the Save the Clutha campaign, and they will realise that down our way, some things motivate people. One of them is that when generators have dammed so many of those rivers in Otago, South Canterbury, and Southland, and still want to do a lot more of that, then they ain’t seen nothing yet when it comes to civil protest and popular protest against what would be wrong.

We do not need to do that. So I am somewhat disturbed when I hear that Gerry Brownlee, who is on record as saying that we should have quite a bit more hydro, lots of little—[Interruption] Yes, the Minister has. I have heard him say it. He has said that now we have done all the big rivers, then we should do quite a few more of the small rivers. I put that on record.

I will move now to the issue as to whether we need to have some change in the legislation so that we can retire old thermal plant. The existing Electricity Act already specifically provides, at section 62G(1)(e), that an exemption can be given where new generation plant “will be connected and operated in circumstances where an existing thermal electricity generation plant will be retired in whole or part”, as long as there will be a 20 percent reduction in emissions.

So the existing legislation allows for new, more efficient thermal plant to be built to retire old coal-fired plant like Huntly, but if the Government repeals the legislation, then that will not happen. Instead it will get a new gas-fired station at Rodney, and it will get Huntly as well, so it will get increased instead of decreased greenhouse gas emissions. The existing legislation is necessary. A price on carbon alone will not guarantee where we need to go in respect of renewable generation.

In terms of what is consented and whether this is threatening security of supply, I make two points. Firstly, security of supply is a class of exemption. Anybody who has security of supply concerns can get an exemption to the restrictions on baseload thermal generation from the Electricity Commission making a recommendation to the relevant Minister that would then be adopted. But that is unlikely to be necessary, because we have so many renewable projects that are already consented. I have heard National members say they are not economic. I ask why these current-technology renewable projects are already being built by, in respect of geothermal generation, Contact Energy, Mighty River Power, and up north by Top Energy. Additional wind farms are also being planned for construction by a wide range of generators including Contact Energy, Mighty River Power, and Meridian Energy, which has the Mākara project currently under construction with the potential for close to 200 megawatts at that facility. There was an announcement recently of a Mighty River Power project over to the south-west of Wellington, and some very large wind farms are being proposed for Otago, some of which are consented and some of which are in consent.

There is ample new generation. In fact, there are already more than 655 megawatts of consented projects. To put that figure in perspective, 150 megawatts of extra capacity is needed each year to meet increasing demand. In addition to those consented projects, there are already an additional 2,875 megawatts of other renewable projects in consent processes as of 1 July 2008, and, indeed, some of those projects have already moved on to be consented.

One of the things we should remember about National power policy is that it was National that visited upon the country the so-called Bradford reforms, which were introduced under the control of Max Bradford but voted for by the previous National Government. It is interesting to reflect on how much easier it would be to go to renewable generation if we still had the old Electricity Department structure. Under that structure, all that would have happened would be a meeting between the Minister and Electricity Department where the Minister would say “Hey, look, is it possible to build renewables instead of thermal, please?”, and the department would say “Oh yeah, that’s economic, and that’s possible.”, and then the Government would say “Could you please do that, and not build any thermal.”, and that would have happened. I ask members to look at what we have now got ourselves into because of the ridiculous so-called reforms of the Bradford years, and the plan now for Genesis to build more facilities using gas.

I ask one other question of the Minister in the chair, Gerry Brownlee. Last week we had Genesis put prices up, and this week we had the Governor of the Reserve Bank say that given inflation pressures in the economy and the fact that we have a recession around the world and decreasing rates of return in virtually every other sector of the economy, it is about time the electricity sector decreased its expectation of ever-increasing profits no matter what the economic cycle. He said that electricity companies should not charge so much. Well, the Minister is part of the Government that owns on behalf of the taxpayer the major State-owned enterprises like Genesis Energy, Mighty River Power, and Meridian, which produce about two-thirds of New Zealand’s power. I ask why the Government does not simply say its expectations of rate of return from these companies has dropped by 2 percent. If the Minister said that to those generation companies, it would immediately cause them to not increase their power prices.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Where were you for 9 years? There was a 63 percent increase in prices.

Well, in the last 3 or 4 months the world’s economy has gone down. In fact, I have heard the Government’s own Minister of Finance acknowledge that reality. Maybe the Minister in the chair has not caught up on it. The solution lies in the Government’s own hands. It should not blame it on anyone else. It should get off its hands and tell those State-owned enterprises that they ought not to be putting up their prices, because in hard times the Government expects its companies to bear some of that pain, to not put prices up, and to not expect the same high rates of return during this part of the economic cycle that they expect in every other part of the economic cycle.

A long time ago we were at the beginning of the second reading debate on the Electricity (Renewable Preference) Repeal Bill, and I remember the good Minister of Energy and Resources, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, talking about the elephant in the room. I wonder whether the Minister can remember that comment. We thought it was a self-referral, but the good Minister was able to put us right. He told a story in which it became apparent that the elephant in the room was the Huntly power station, that great gargoyle that burns so many tonnes of coal and emits vast quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. He said that if there was a moratorium on some new plants that would replace this great gargoyle, this great monster that needs to be replaced, would not be replaced, that therefore we need to get rid of the existing legislation, and that that is why the Government has introduced this bill. That was roughly his contribution in the second reading. We know that it was nonsense.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: It is very rough.

Well, I did it in 1 minute. The Minister spent 10 minutes, but that was the essence of it.

There are two reasons why it was nonsense. The first reason has already been outlined by Jeanette Fitzsimons and David Parker, and it is that the legislation the Minister is ripping out of the statute book says, if members care to read it, that where there will be a significant improvement in energy efficiency, then of course that plant can go ahead. You see, a straw man was set up, and it has been knocked over by black-letter New Zealand law. The Minister needs to forgo that argument in all parts of the Committee stage, and so does Dr Paul Hutchison and anybody else who runs up that particular flag—that under the moratorium it is not possible to build a more efficient fossil fuel station and back off a less efficient one. It is possible. It is a matter, as I say, of black-letter law.

The second reason is even more interesting. The Minister’s mind is in this frame: “Is it going to be gas, or is it going to be coal?”. It could be in another frame altogether, such as “Is it going to be renewable generation, or is it going to be coal?”. I invite the Minister to make the paradigm shift from gas as a source of baseload generation to renewable generation. Of course, he may be thinking “Ha ha! It doesn’t always rain.” and “Ha ha! It doesn’t always blow.” But we have an integrated electricity system, and the Minister knows as well as I do that the spread of the catchments of our hydro facilities and the spread of wind generation—especially in the foreseeable future—is such that there is very good integration across the land. Of course there can be dry years. We have had a few. I hope we do not have any more any time soon, and I am delighted that the lakes are at a state of considerable replenishment right now.

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: Yes, happy Christmas, Minister.

Happy Christmas to the Minister. That is where the reserve generation capacity comes from, and that is the future of the Huntly plant. I ask the Minister to take out one of its driveshafts, to take out 250 megawatts—or, indeed, to invite the Electricity Commission to consider doing so, because he does not have the ability to do it; it would have to be done by the commission. Let us see whether that is a future possibility. When National fetches up paper tigers and straw men and runs red herrings up flagpoles, we can pick them out pretty quickly. Fortunately, there is an erudite Opposition here to point out the error of the Government’s ways.

You see, there is no particular need to scrap the existing legislation. Ideology is what is at play here. Government members claim that it is bad legislation because it was introduced by an awful, horrible, bygone Labour Minister in an awful, horrible, bygone Labour Government, and that is why it has to be thrown out. It is actually quite elegant legislation. It gives a market signal in law, it puts exceptions in place where exceptions may be needed, it is time-limited, it is designed to ensure that the base of New Zealand energy will be renewable energy, and it is designed to have New Zealand heading towards 90 percent renewable energy by 2025. And 90 percent by 2025 means no more fossil fuel power stations, thank you very much, between now and then; otherwise, those who build them will have to wreck them in order to meet the target.

The moratorium is simply a way of signalling, in law, that the Government’s intention is serious. If the moratorium is going to be ripped down, it seems to me that, ipso facto, the Government’s target, which is the same—90 percent renewable energy by 2025—is one that it does not intend to keep. I put it to members opposite that I do not think that it is remotely possible for us to achieve the Government’s own target of 90 percent renewable energy by 2025 by allowing more fossil fuel generation. I do not think it is arithmetically possible. Therefore, the Government should be saying: “We have told porkies, and we need to change our target.”, or it should get rid of the legislation before us now. It needs to do one or the other. It should change its target and say it has been telling porkies, or it should get rid of the legislation before the Committee right now.

I think those are the two options. I think they are the only honest options, and the fact that the Government is not prepared to take either of them means that it is designing a future that is based on sophistry. We will catch this Government out within 3 years, and we will replace it at the end of that time.

There has been a consistent theme running through the legislation that has been rammed through Parliament in the last week without any public scrutiny, and that theme is a lack of logic. Apart from the absolute outrage of rushing through legislation that does not need to be rushed through uncontested under the cover of Christmas, there is a lack of logic. It runs through every bill that has been passed in the House in the last week, and it does not make sense. It is as if the National-led Government is living in a parallel universe.

National policy says it believes that New Zealand is a responsible international citizen and, as a country that values our clean, green environment, must act to reduce our greenhouse emissions. That is National policy. This week the mantra of John Key and the National Government has been “balance”—balance of environmental issues against economic interests. It sounds more like code to me than balance. But according to National we must have thermal generation, to ensure security of supply and to keep prices down, even though there is enough thermal generation already—and everybody on this side of the Chamber has talked a lot about this tonight—to ensure security of supply.

We already have these new generation projects coming on stream over the next 4 years, and we need about 150 to 200 megawatts built each year to keep up with demand—and we have heard David Parker list them tonight. Our security of supply margins have been improving all the time. So given that this Government claims in its policy that it wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—

💬 Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. We have a Minister in the chair who never takes a call, who would not defend his biofuel legislation, and who is not taking a call here, yet he abuses his position in the chair in respect of his access to the microphone. He abuses the convention of Parliament that the Minister in the chair will not make interjections whilst in the chair and will instead exercise his right—indeed, his duty—to take calls periodically. I request, Mr Chairperson, that you call the member to order.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I will uphold the point of order. It is in breach of Speaker’s ruling 59/4. It is the convention that the Minister in the chair will not interject when the microphone is on.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek leave to table for the good benefit of the member on her feet the press release by Mr Pete Hodgson announcing Labour’s construction of the Whirinaki diesel-fired power station, noting that—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is anyone opposed to that course of action? There is no objection. Under the Standing Orders the member will have to table that document today.

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

Why is National ramming through reckless, backward-looking legislation that does not take into account the reality of secure supply and is a kick in the teeth to New Zealand’s reputation as a nation that takes climate change seriously—a nation that is willing to do the right thing?

As Stuart Nash said in his maiden statement tonight, Labour always asks: “Is it right?”. Well, unfortunately, I do not think that this Government is concerned about what is right. It is more concerned about having a blind commitment to some other agenda. Hmm, I say to myself! Anyone would think that another agenda is going on here, but I am a bit of an optimist and I always like to think the best of people—I do. I would like to believe that a brilliant new strategy is being developed that is so brilliant it requires a review of the emissions trading legislation, a reconsideration of all the principles of climate change, and disinvestment in the biofuels industry.

I would like to believe that this really brilliant new strategy will somehow magically reduce our emissions, but despite my optimism I have a horrible feeling. We all know that in this time of economic crisis across the world, confidence is the key to dealing with the problem—confidence in the financial system, confidence in the institutions, and confidence in the Government because it knows what it is doing and has a plan.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Absolutely.

I tell the member that this bill destroys confidence, as have all the bills that have gone through the House in the last week. The repeal of the legislation requiring oil companies to mix petrol and diesel with biofuel undermines confidence in new industry, the 90-day bill undermines confidence amongst workers, the education bill undermines confidence amongst teachers and children, and now this bill undermines confidence in New Zealand’s commitment to addressing climate change.

I am sure my colleague Clare Curran will be able to take another call and carry on with her excellent speech.

I refer us back to Part 1 of the Electricity (Renewable Preference) Repeal Bill. Part 1 repeals Part 6A of the Electricity Act 1992. I think it is worthwhile to take just a moment to reflect on the purpose of the part that we are repealing. The purpose of Part 6A is, in part, to implement a 10-year restriction on new baseload fossil-fuelled thermal electricity generation capacity, except where an exemption is appropriate—for example, to ensure security of supply. I find it difficult to understand why the National Government would want to repeal something like that.

This restriction is part of a wider plan in respect of our sustainability that the Labour-led Government had been working on. Yesterday in the House we heard uncertainty as to whether the emissions trading scheme has been suspended or whether it is continuing in some other form. We also know that as part of our emissions trading scheme Labour and the Greens had agreed on an insulation package, we had the biofuels obligation, and we had brought through this renewable preference focus. That was Labour’s plan to help address our issues of sustainability—a long-term plan to start dealing with a long-term issue like climate change. In Part 1 of this bill we see “short-termism”, whereby National says that it made a promise on this issue and it is going to go through with it. It is short-term logic and it does not follow through on the importance of the issue of climate change. National does not seem to have a plan.

Earlier today we heard the Minister in the chair, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, say we just had to wait—that is what he told us. Well, climate change is a pretty pressing issue. We need a plan, and we need to know what is going on in terms of the National Government’s overall sustainability plan. How will it address those climate change issues? It is not acceptable for National to bring a bill to this House and say that it is getting rid of the renewable preference, but that it does not know what else is happening. It does not know what the rest of the plan is. It is not even sure where we are going on the whole issue of sustainability.

This is a reckless bill. It looks backwards. It takes us backwards. It is a nail in the coffin for New Zealand internationally. I have stood on the world stage and talked about New Zealand’s environmental record, and I have been proud to do that. I was proud to do that under a National Government when I was working at the United Nations in New York because Simon Upton, a former Minister for the Environment, stood up for New Zealand. He stood up and said that New Zealand had a record that we could be proud of. He meant what he said when he talked about sustainability.

The Labour Government came in and tried to carry that on. In Part 1 we see the repeal of one part—one aspect—of that attempt. It repeals a part of legislation that says that we will put a restriction on baseload fossil-fuelled thermal electricity generation. There are exemptions. There will be times when we will allow that to happen. But we want to send a signal out to the world, to New Zealand, and to the environment that we can work with renewable generation. Somehow or other National seems to be telling us that security of supply is incompatible with renewable generation. That seems to be what it is saying. But we have heard time and time again in this debate that that is not true.

💬 Hon David Parker: New Zealand used to be 90 percent renewable.

That is right. New Zealand used to use 90 percent renewable energy. We are working away, with 1,400 megawatts of new generation projects coming on stream over the next 4 years. David Parker has outlined those projects; they are meeting the demand that we need to meet.

Why does National want to repeal Part 6A? This repeal bill sends a signal to the rest of the world that we do not take seriously our sustainability challenge. The fundamental thing that New Zealand needs to do is show the world that we are taking the sustainability challenge seriously. It is not just about the environment or the future that we want to leave for the next generations; it is about our economy, because it is about how we are seen in the world. We have already seen this with the statements Gordon Brown has made and his policy—which we are looking at—that could restrict people travelling to New Zealand if cost is a factor for them. Now we will see it again and again.

The National Government has to wake up and realise that our reputation internationally is important not just for foreign affairs officials but also for our economy and for getting our goods sold overseas. The image we are sending with this bill is that we do not want to go towards a renewable future. Everyone else in the world might be going towards a renewable future, but we do not want to! We want to go backwards to more coal and more gas, rather than to look ahead to our natural advantages. Part 1 repeals one of the most significant things that we could do. It is a key part of the picture, yet National has decided it wants to go backwards.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: You’ve gone backwards for 9 years.

We have not gone backwards for 9 years.

I rise to take a call to build on the previous speaker’s comments about New Zealand’s international reputation. I have just returned from a climate change conference in Viet Nam that I attended with Dr Paul Hutchison and Sue Kedgley, where we hung our heads down in shame. This conference was about climate change and the effect on population and population demographics. We used to be looked at, in this forum, as leaders in the world.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Absolute rubbish!

And I will build on another conference I went to in Chile where I was asked with Ministers of Conservation—I say to Dr Nick Smith—to also give a paper on conservation and climate change. People at these conferences were looking to New Zealand to be a leader, and to take keys and intuition from the way that New Zealand was going.

I think that the trifecta the Government has plonked in the House under urgency brings shame on this Government. What did we see? We saw the gutting of the emissions trading scheme and that Dr Paul Hutchison now has to chair a select committee—with no gender perspective on the terms of reference, I note. Women are hugely affected by the effects of climate change and we will make sure that we fix that. The emissions trading scheme special select committee is going to waggle on for some time, giving no clues to the market about the investment signals that the previous Minister of Energy had been very clear on, with our energy strategy stating that we would have 20 percent renewable generation by 2025.

💬 Hon David Parker: 90 percent.

It is 90 percent. What a line in the sand that was.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: 20 percent! That’s about right. That’s where it was heading.

I will correct that, I say to Dr Smith. It was 90 percent renewable generation by 2025. What a wonderful signal that was by the previous Minister of Energy. We also had the biofuels target. Shame on the Government now for the damage it has done to the biofuels obligation and to investor signals in what was a lofty goal for New Zealand.

Now tonight there is the trifecta: this ridiculous Electricity (Renewable Preference) Repeal Bill. I am ashamed that after all the work we did, led by the then Prime Minister Helen Clark, we are now looking at a cumulative effect that is not going to let New Zealand hold up its head in international fora and say we are leaders on climate change.

So what do we have? We now have a Prime Minister who has also made himself—and I thought it was very clever at the time—the Minister of Tourism. As well as looking at footballs for the World Cup, he will also go around the world as Minister of Tourism touting the brand of clean, green New Zealand. I think our Prime Minister needs to look very closely at this trifecta, which signals a slipping and sliding back to the times before Labour came into Government in 1999. It is a sad day for us.

I think the other thing about all of these signals is that these are deemed to be “urgent” measures—lifting a 10-year moratorium on baseload thermal energy. It is absolute rubbish that we have to be doing this in urgency, and that it will not go to a select committee to allow the Major Energy Users Group, the small energy-developers, and the consumers to come before that select committee to give their view. I am ashamed of the process that this legislation is going through now; it is absolutely shaming. The country is noticing it and soon it will wake up to realise that this was the genesis—as Jeanette Fitzsimons said—for allowing the production at e3p and Kaipara. Of course this was what this was all about—opening up the way to gas—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: e3p at Kaipara?

—no, at Huntly—and opening up other thermal baseload generation. The spokesperson, when he was in Opposition, kept asking David Parker why he was so risk-averse about lifting the 10-year ban. I also want to mention the first role of the Minister of Energy, which was to come into what was my old electorate, which I love dearly, to open the Kawerau power station. And how did that happen for Mighty River?

I move, That the question be now put.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the Electricity (Renewable Preference) Repeal Bill. Another hour passes and another Act is repealed by the National Government, another round of select committee hearings is bypassed, and another regulatory impact statement fails to be produced to this House.

I find that part quite amazing, I have to say, given the rhetoric from that side of the Chamber about the importance of regulatory impact statements.

💬 Hon Member: They have a Minister.

Absolutely! Those members think the issue is so important that they have a Minister for Regulatory Reform, yet the House has not seen one adequate regulatory impact statement.

We are speaking on Part 1, which repeals Part 6A of the Electricity Act 1992. Given the brevity of the bill before us, for the edification of members I would like to read from section 62A, which gives the purpose of Part 6A: “The purpose of this Part is to reduce the impact of fossil-fuelled thermal electricity generation on climate change by creating a preference for renewable electricity generation through the implementation of a 10-year restriction”—I highlight that part, for the edification of members—“on new baseload fossil-fuelled thermal electricity generation capacity, except when an exemption is appropriate (for example, to ensure security of supply).” That last part is particularly interesting, and I would like to dwell on it, if I may.

💬 Moana Mackey: You may.

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: Yes.

I will; thank you, colleagues. We have heard that one of the reasons for the existence of this bill is to give that all-important security of supply. No one is doubting the importance of security of supply. That is why Labour legislated for it; that is why we pointed out its importance in the purpose section of Part 6A of the Act. Now we see it being used as an excuse for Part 6A in its entirety to be repealed. I see that the Minister in the chair, Gerry Brownlee, has a picture book in front of him at the moment, so perhaps he is not concentrating fully on the happenings of the Committee. I have a question for him: what is the point? If this bill is all about security of supply, and Labour has already set out provisions for that, what is the point? In fact, the Minister has heard speakers on this side of the Chamber point out that plenty of new generation is coming on stream over the next 4 years. In fact, we need much less generation than we have coming on stream. We are prepared, so what is the point?

All I see on that side of the Chamber is a complete lack of aspiration. I know that National members would like to patent that word. It is their favourite. It is the word of the hour: “We are going to turbocharge aspiration.” In fact, as far as I can see, turbocharging aspiration is code for ramming legislation through the House. Their turbocharged aspiration has brought us the repeal of Labour’s biofuels legislation and, now, the repeal of Part 6A of the Act. What does this tell us? If we might actually have to build a new industry, we might actually have to bring forward entrepreneurial Kiwis to create jobs, and we might actually have to be a bit creative in the work we do, the National Government believes that it is too hard and we should get rid of it. That is what aspiration means to the National Government, and that is all that we have seen.

There is a lack of aspiration for our environment, and that is the critical part for me. I am standing here proudly as a child of the 1980s, but with some shame at what members from the 1970s, 1960s, 1950s, and beyond, have brought forward for us. What does this bill say to the next generation of Kiwis?

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Oh!

Where is the can-do attitude, I ask Dr Smith. Where is the can-do attitude? I can tell members that the Labour Government had aspiration for this country. We saw what was possible, we combined it with our absolute dedication and commitment to improving the environment of New Zealand, and we put forward legislation, which the National Government is now busily repealing. I would also add—to look forward a little—that I know that the National Government is also very keen to get to work on the Resource Management Act.

I move, That the question be now put.