Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill

This legislation is about detail, and today is a very, very sad day for this nation, in the sense of the surety that we tend to espouse. The legislation has simply been about going to Copenhagen; this whole bill is scribed in double Dutch. At the end of the day I plead with the Māori Party leaders not to vote with this Government at the end of this debate, because there are some simple fundamentals about this whole issue. The major polluters are being let off free, they are running wild, and that person from Napier who just passed a comment should have a look at Whirinaki, have a look at the creeks in Whakatāne, and more than certainly have a look at the rivers and the pollution that goes into Poverty Bay.

Why would this legislation be a negative for Māori? Quite clearly there is a Treaty settlement process, but one wonders why this bill was taken outside the process, and why iwi were settled with. I can say, being half Ngāi Tahu, that well be it in relation to the settlement. But in relation to the emissions trading scheme proper, the Minister for Climate Change Issues has been inventing the figures. He knows full well that he has to find money; we know full well where it has to come from. It has to come from health, from education, and from all of those areas that are very, very relevant to Māori.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I don’t believe it.

The Minister can shake his head, but some of us have been around as long as he has, and we know that that is what will happen to Māori. But he has plumped it up with a little addition on the side—the insulation of about 10,000 houses. That is one-fourth or one-fifth of all Māori households. I understand there will be the insulation of State homes, which the Government would have done anyway. The omission or the contradiction is quite simply that.

Dairy farmers this year received an extra $100,000 payout. But are they pulled up? Is there any prescription, in the sense of making sure that they do not continue to pollute? No—no way! There is a river in Whakatāne, in the electorate of my colleague Ururoa Flavell, that is so black and dark that all the life in it is stagnant or has been removed. There is a great overseas indigenous saying: “When the rivers have darkened and the fish are lost, and the mountain tops lose the snow, and the trees crumble to dust, then the world will understand that it is not just about money.” That is what Paul Quinn understands—moni, which translates to money. This is about moni.

The Māori Party came in here in relation to its mana, and Labour members were chastised about the foreshore and seabed. This is the foreshore and seabed situation again, but three or four times worse. With the accumulation of accident compensation charges and the 90-day employment legislation, Paul Quinn is punishing his people, and he knows it. His Government has accumulated negative issues like that 90-day bill and the new accident compensation charges, and this legislation on top of that is a shocker. Paul Quinn can sit there and try to abdicate responsibility for what he has done for the Māori people. He knows this bill is a shocker. He is supposed to be one of the bright macro minds in Māoridom; he knows about the corporate front, he knows about the top end, and he knows about making sure that they are looked after. But this legislation is about our people, and it is a disgrace.

I am saddened, because I know that the Māori Party leader, Minister Sharples, is well revered. He is a sensible person, but this process is shambolic. I am stunned that the Māori Party even cares to go with it. This is one of the biggest “brown” pay-offs—buy-offs—that has ever been made in this House. People have said that the foreshore and seabed issue brought in the Māori Party. No, the Māori Party brought in the foreshore and seabed issue.

Let me tell Mr Tremain that up there in Hawke’s Bay the unemployment rate is running at about 12 percent. What did the Prime Minister say? He said that the rate was great because it was 8 percent. That is relevant to this legislation, because it will be common language in the years to come, when our people, 60 percent of whom are under the age of 15, will suffer through it. They will pay for the legislation as taxpayers. People in Māoridom generally always have been taxpayers, but do members know that most freezing workers in this country have barely had 3 to 4 weeks’ work over the last 2 months? Do members understand that? [Interruption] I say that the deals with the five iwi that that member is talking about are done, and that is between that Government and them. But that is not the issue. I tell Paul Quinn that the issue is about what the legislation will do to our people. He knows that. He knows, as well, that the Māori unemployment rate is all over the place—and he can add to that. You can cry like one of us, but you do not know about Māori people. That is why they have stuck you back there, and not on the front bench. Do you care? This is the same thing—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The member is including the Chair in the debate, and I could take offence at that, especially at the vigour with which he is doing it. The member should be a little more careful about how he chooses his words.

💬 Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I have been listening very carefully to the use of “you”, and to including you in the debate. To your right there has been a constant barrage from Mr Quinn that included you in the debate. I wonder whether you could perhaps hear that breach of the Standing Orders, as well.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I had actually missed that. I apologise to the Committee, because I was making a general comment. When members use a great deal of vigour, which they are entitled to do, it can be quite offensive if the Chair is included. All members should note that.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Further to the point of order by my learned colleague, I just point out that Mr Quinn is not sitting in his usual seat, and there is a Standing Order that prevents members from moving seats for the purposes of interjection. As my colleague has said, he is one of the brightest minds of Māoridom in the National Party, and I am sure that he has something valuable to say, but it would be better if he chipped in from his own seat.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): In response to the point of order, I tell members that Speakers’ rulings are quite clear that members should not move to have an advantage. I do not believe that the member did that, but I would caution him that he has a loud voice, and he ought to show some decorum around that.

He has a loud voice because he has a hearing impairment, and I excuse him for that. The brightest Māori member there is my cousin Hekia Parata, not him. But I apologise for that, Mr Chair.

I tell the Committee that there is no incentive under National’s plan for big polluters to reduce emissions, and National knows that that is going on all over the place. This legislation is about kissing or kicking off—as in Big Brother—in relation to Rio Tinto and all those overseas companies, and leaving ourselves alone. That is the reality. As the floods bash homes in England—the land where the colonisers came from—and set to on all those families, and as the fires burn in Australia, we do not have to be rocket scientists to understand what is going on.

That big buffoon over there who is bellowing does not care. He talks about energy and the costs that are going up. He is lacking energy at the end of the day, and at the end of the day we are running up costs of $110 billion that have to be taken from somewhere. Those people scorn that figure, but they talked about the closing of the gaps, they got into the “iwi Kiwi” debate, they flip-flopped, and they said there would never be any single targeting of Māori development—never!

But what is this about? It is a buy-off; it is a trade-off. Where is the guarantee? Minister Turia has been talking about Whānau Ora. What does that mean? It means “whanāu family betterment”. This legislation does not add to family betterment, yet the Māori Party came in here with basic fundamentals about kaitiakitanga, and all those things like awhitanga. They are all relevant to a good country, clean and dear to our soul. But what has that Government done? At the end of the day Mr Brownlee and company have really run off with this bill and rushed it through.

As a party, even though we did not see the detail, we have voted for the Treaty amendment; we have supported that. The amendment did not go even to the select committee, so a fair bit of this legislation has been run through, not by parties who care about it but by people who do not care. But I can stand here and listen to this waffle over the years about how we must not spend money on specific Māori issues. That member from Hastings knows about that, because the takutai moana is still there in his area but the Tūtaekurī River is just that. It runs out to sea with all the blinking damage of pollution, and over at Whirinaki the mill is polluting the air like hang. What is the member doing about it? He goes around kissing the Māoris on the marae to get a few votes, because he knows it is all about that, but at the end of the day he does not know, because people with plenty of money have chastised Māoridom into a lower and deeper phenomenon. I want to let members know about that, because that member has done a hue and cry about it but he knows that it is wrong. He knows that overall it is wrong. That member knows that Māoridom is not where it should be.

The Māori Party has simply traded away critical spending, in areas, as I have said before, such as health and education. We do care about that, especially when we listen to a Minister over on the other side of the Chamber who is hell-bent on just closing anything down and not wanting to ensure that Māori education is important. Members can mark my words as the years go along, and as our very, very young population—one of the youngest in this country—grows up and has to pay tax. Most Māori people from the age of 40 to 65 are from the labouring ilk—excuse the pun. They are people who have worked and paid taxes right from the age of 16. So it is rubbish about Māori not earning and paying taxes. They have paid them, and so have some of the working class Pākehā, but taxes will be put back on them again. The Government is looking after the top end and saying “Never mind the bottom end.”

I say shame on the Māori Party; it is adding to the injury of all this. Today is a sad day for Māoridom. There is nothing to crow about, and the fact that the Māori Party has held hands with National to do this is amazing. It is a disgrace.

I understand that the Chair will be happy to take a double-call, a 10-minute call. We are debating the name of the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill. Rather than calling it that name, why not call it the “Lost Opportunities Bill? Why not the “When is a Subsidy Not a Subsidy, and When is a Subsidy a Subsidy Bill”? Why not the “Tax the Poor Bill”? Why not the “Let Us Devalue Māori Fisheries Bill”? There are many names we could give the bill.

I am deadly serious when I suggest naming it the “Let Us Devalue Māori Fisheries Bill”. The reason I say that—and let me be very clear to National—is that, under this emissions trading scheme, beyond 2013 there will be no relief available to Māori fisheries whatever. Currently they generate some 600,000 emissions units, or carbon units, and the taxpayer is being given an allowance from the United Nations for those 600,000 units. We will continue to get that allowance; as a country, we will continue to get that allowance in 2013, in 2014, and for many years after. But will we pass the benefit of that allowance on to Māori fisheries—in fact, to all fisheries? No, we will not. We will stop it dead on 31 December 2012. And at what cost? Well, at $25 a tonne, those 600,000 units of emissions will cost the fisheries industry in New Zealand $15 million. That industry currently makes $60 million in gross margins. So a tax of this nature represents 25 percent of its profit. It is a trade-exposed sector. It is an emissions-intensive sector.

The Minister for Climate Change Issues knows it, because he said exactly that in his minority report on Labour’s emissions trading scheme just on 12 months ago. And did he take the opportunity to fix it? Did the Māori Party insist upon it being fixed? No, they did not. They left the trade-exposed, emissions-intensive fishing industry to be hung out to dry in 2013. All I can say to the Minister is that if the Sanford fish processing plant in Nelson should close at some stage in the future, it will be on his head, and I hope his constituents are aware of it.

💬 Hon Maryan Street: Sealord, not Sanford.

Sorry, it is Sealord. I apologise, and thank Maryan Street. It is the Sealord plant in Nelson, not the Sanford plant.

This has been a reckless process. We heard that this bill was pushed through the Finance and Expenditure Committee in 6 weeks. I gave credit to Mr Foss, the chairman, and he deserves credit, because he was given a hospital pass. Mr Foss was given instructions to give submitters less than 24 hours’ notice. We had 380 submissions, of which 170 said they wanted to be heard orally, but Mr Foss’ riding instructions were to hear only 30 submissions and to hear them in 2 days. The Labour Party said the committee was given 1 day; my recollection is that it was given 2, and that is what my minority report says.

But I also give credit to Rahui Katene, who sits alongside me, because she had the courage and the wisdom to vote with the Opposition and the ACT Party to allow the people who wanted to submit on this bill to submit. [Interruption] Yes, she did. And I say to Mr Cunliffe that although the Māori Party may be coming in for some criticism right now, I think we need to acknowledge that had it not been for Rahui Katene voting with the Labour Party and the ACT Party, we would not have heard 90 of the 125 people who came to the select committee. So I give Rahui Katene full credit for that. And I give Rahui Katene credit for the Māori Party press release that she passed to me as she was walking back from the Prime Minister’s press conference on Monday afternoon. What does it say? It says: “It is estimated that as a result of the Maori Party concessions on petrol, power and insulation, households will save at least $4 a week.” That is it—$4 a week.

The ACT Party genuinely believed that the Māori Party had secured some concessions over and above what was in National’s original bill; it had secured some additional concessions. When I questioned the Minister in his office on Tuesday morning, he confirmed to me that there were, indeed, no additional concessions. Electricity will go up by 10 percent on 1 January 2013, and there will be massive windfall profits for electricity companies that generate from water—hydro power—and from geothermal energy. It is estimated that those profits run at about $300 million a year, so we are talking about projections to 2050 that some billions of dollars will be paid by ordinary New Zealanders. To whom? To the shareholders of Genesis and Meridian Energy, which is us, and to the shareholders of Contact Energy and TrustPower. So it is little wonder that there has been speculation today that the ruling council of the Māori Party is meeting because it is very, very concerned about the Māori Party’s support for this bill, because the poorest New Zealanders will pay the biggest proportion of their incomes for basic staples like electricity. They can go without petrol—they can ride buses—but everyone needs electricity. People need electricity to cook and to light up their homes. Electricity is a major component of living cost, certainly for low-income New Zealanders.

Pete Hodgson said earlier that the ACT Party is not interested in climate change, and that it calls it a hoax and a scam. He was extremely critical of Rodney Hide. Well, the science is unproven. In the last few days the data processing system—the computers—of the climate science unit at East Anglia University were opened up to hackers, and the scientists at that unit have had to acknowledge that some of the leaked emails are indeed true. At the very least, that indicates dishonesty on the part of those scientists; at the worst, it indicates massive fraud. The ACT Party has said, and said consistently, that we should not be pushing headlong into doing this. The Minister well knows, although he may wish to deny it, and the National backbenchers know—the National backbenchers are not dumb—that they will have to go to their constituencies and defend this bill. They will have to defend it next week, and they have to defend it at the 2011 general election. We could have postponed the effective introduction date of Labour’s emissions trading scheme. We could have sought a much better compromise. We could have looked to protect the fishing industry in exactly the same way as we are protecting the farming industry beyond 2013. There is so much more that we could have done.

Earlier this afternoon Rodney Hide took possession of a petition from Neil and Esther Henderson. They were in the gallery earlier this afternoon; they may not be there now. They are farmers from Gisborne. Over the last 6 weeks they have collected over 10,000 signatures opposing this emissions trading scheme. Why have they done that? Well, it is a well-known fact that some 50 percent of our emissions come from agriculture, but at the present time the maximum use of technology will reduce those emissions by only 13 percent—only 13 percent. So if we are to have any realistic chance of a 50 percent reduction in emissions by 2050, essentially we are saying that the other half of our economy has to reduce its emissions by 87 percent.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: 50 years.

I say to Dr Smith that technology may well develop over the next 40-odd years to allow agriculture to reduce its emissions beyond 13 percent, but we do not know that it will. We cannot be certain of it. For this Government to enter into any binding commitment to that sort of reduction by 2050 without knowing how it will be achieved is no more than reckless. If this Government is to make any commitment at all, it should be making commitments based on known technology. The select committee heard that we can make improvements. The output of the Kinleith mill has increased by some 50 percent while the absolute level of emissions has reduced. But in terms of agriculture we are talking about changing the digestive system of a cow or a sheep. We are talking about developing grass. We hear the Green Party express concern about genetic modification, but those members seem to be very—

Thank you, Mr Chairperson—[Interruption] I am sad to hear such disappointment that I have been called to speak. I have been sitting here thinking that for about 4 hours a week for at least 20 weeks of this year I have sat on two select committees hearing about the emissions trading scheme, and it has been a very interesting time. During those hearings we have heard from environmentalists who say that the emissions trading scheme does not go far enough, from business interests who say that the emissions trading scheme goes too far, from farmers who argue that they should not be part of an emissions trading scheme, and from Māori interests who argue that they need to look after the interests of Māori households, the environment, and the Māori economy. It is very clear that whichever way the Māori Party votes, somebody will be unhappy.

We had to look very carefully at what we were going to do about the emissions trading scheme. We did not enter into our decision at all lightly. I was a little bit concerned about the things that have been said in the Chamber today. Some of the things that have been said today have been very ironic. For example, the Greens are very concerned that the Māori Party is about to be shafted. The Greens should know all about being shafted. They were shafted when they got cosy with Labour. Indeed, when Labour was passing its emissions trading legislation and conning the Greens, Labour came to the Māori Party and implored us to support its scheme. Labour members preferred to work with the Māori Party because they did not want to be working with—and this is a direct quote—“the crazy Greens, who are off their tree”.

💬 Paul Quinn: Is that what they said?

Yes, it is what they said. The Greens know about being shafted because their legislation to remove age discrimination from the workplace was renamed as the Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill, which was a mini version of the 90-day Mapp bill both Labour and the Greens vigorously opposed. But with the change in the name of their bill they, along with Labour, ensured that young people would continue to be discriminated against. Sue Bradford, the sponsor of the bill, recognised the principled stand of the Māori Party, which voted against that bill, when she said: “I would also particularly acknowledge the Māori Party members, who are opposing the Bill in its amended form, but who are in fact its fiercest supporters. I am grateful for the Māori Party’s unflinching and uncompromising support for the bill as originally conceived rather than in its watered-down version, and I hope that one day their party and ours, and others, will join in going the whole way in abolishing youth rates altogether. This bill, even as it was originally drafted, was a compromise all along. Right from the start I was criticised in some quarters—and rightfully so—for putting up a bill that did not do away with age discrimination altogether but maintained it for workers under 16.”

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. As endearing as it may be for the member to read through the list of other bills that the Māori Party has welshed on, I point out that it is not relevant to the bill at hand. I ask that you bring the member back to the bill in the remaining 5 seconds she has.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): By tradition, the speeches on the preliminary clauses have come to cover a wider issue, and I think the member is only following a pattern that we have had throughout this debate.

Just to point out—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. If you are happy for the member to refer to completely different legislation from the bill that is supposedly the topic of this important debate in the Chamber, I ask that the member at least clarify for the Committee which bill she refers to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Members do refer to other things in order to support the arguments they are making. I am prepared to hear members and see them draw a conclusion from what they are saying.

Speaking to the point that the Māori Party supports this bill and will continue to support it until it is enacted, I say that we are very interested to hear the points that other parties have to make, but we are not persuaded by them. Those arguments are made out of pure self-interest. We will continue to make that point because the existing scheme has nothing at all to do with Māori. There is nothing Māori in the existing scheme. We are very pleased to be working with a party that is able to see beyond its self-interest; to see how Māori contribute to the economy, to the environment, and to households; and to see that this bill will help them to do that.

I am very pleased to know that others outside of this Chamber support this bill. We are pleased about that.

I am happy to take a call on the title and commencement clauses of this terrible Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill.

That was an extraordinary contribution from Rahui Katene. I thought that the contribution from John Boscawen was very fair; indeed, she did vote with Labour at the Finance and Expenditure Committee to ensure that all submitters could be heard. I really appreciated that support, and I know that the submitters did, and I think that comment was only fair. John Boscawen left out the Greens, of course, who also supported that motion. But, suddenly, Rahui Katene was pulled into line by the Government, which realised that she might also allow us an extension of time so that we could consider the bill properly. She was told that she could not vote with the Labour Party any more. She even said to us that the Māori Party would be voting with National all the way through to the end, before the committee had considered the rest of the bill.

I have been thinking about what other names we could have for this legislation. I think we could call it the “Climate Change Response (Money-Go-Round Rob Peter to Pay Paul) Amendment Bill”, because the Minister in the chair—the Minister for Climate Change Issues—and other National members are very fond of going on and on about how they will halve the cost to households of this legislation. What Dr Nick Smith does not say is that the reason they are doing that is to allow companies dealing with liquid fossil fuels—the petrol companies and the power companies—to retire only half the emissions units that they would otherwise have to retire in terms of the emissions that they put out. That means that the taxpayer picks up the rest. On the one hand, the Minister is telling us that taxpayers should be grateful for the fact that they may not have to pay, I think, $165 a year, but, on the other hand, who will have to pay for the difference? It is the taxpayer. Well, I think that is what we would call Tory charity—take with one hand and give with the other. That is exactly what is happening. It is a money-go-round.

Within that, there is absolutely no mention of the $110 billion liability that is being put on future taxpayers. National members conveniently leave that bit out. When they talk about the cost to consumers, they conveniently leave out the fact that New Zealand taxpayers under this amendment bill—which is supported by the Māori Party—will now have to come up with $110 billion so that our big polluters can keep on polluting. Grassroots Māori, who have absolutely no influence on the way that Rio Tinto controls and handles its emissions, will have to pay for those emissions, and Rahui Katene says that is OK. Grassroots Māori families have absolutely no control over the way that all the big emitters in this country control their emissions—because they cannot make big companies like Rio Tinto reduce their emissions—but they will have to pay for it. The Minister thinks that is fair and Rahui Katene thinks that is fair.

Labour has always accepted that there would be a transition period and has always accepted that there would be free allocation, for many of the same reasons that the Minister has given. But for the Minister to try to claim that what Labour wanted to do and what National wants to do are the same is incredibly misleading. Labour wanted to transition New Zealand to a low-carbon economy, and we were looking at complementary measures that would assist that. We wanted to have an emissions trading scheme that would reduce New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, as opposed to one that would give incentives to increase greenhouse gas emissions as long as the emission of greenhouse gases per unit of production remains the same. And the Māori Party says that is OK.

The Minister also likes to go on about alignment with Australia. He gets really angry with my colleague Charles Chauvel whenever he tries to claim that there is no Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme law in Australia, which there is not. There is no Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme law in Australia. Maybe we could call this legislation the “Climate Change Response (Alignment with Unicorns, Leprechauns, and Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Law) Amendment Bill”, given that those three things do not exist. The Minister has been getting very tetchy whenever my colleague raises the possibility that we may be aligning our scheme with a scheme that may never happen.

I thought this bill was a terrible bill, but I did not think that it was so bad that the Hon Nick Smith could almost bring down the leader of the Liberal Party in Australia; it appears that this bill is as bad as that. It appears that Malcolm Turnbull, the Liberal Party leader and Leader of the Opposition in Australia, may be rolled at some point this week.

Minister Nick Smith has been getting very upset with my colleague when he has said that there is no Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme law in Australia, but the Minister has not explained why we are aligning our scheme with Australia’s. For example, why are we insisting that agriculture face the same kind of regime as industrial processes in Australia? Why are we aligning with a scheme that does not include agriculture, when our scheme does? Agriculture contributes 50 percent of our emissions and only 15 percent of Australia’s, and agriculture will not be included in the Australian scheme. Why are we aligning our scheme with that scheme, when we do not know when it will come in—if, indeed, it ever does come in? It is changing by the day.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Because we promised we would.

A lot has changed since the election, I say to the Minister. The Minister has done many things, and his Government has done many things, since the election, and they have claimed that is because things have changed. This week we have already seen the Labor Government in Australia making a lot of concessions and a lot of compromises, trying to get cross-party support from the Liberal Party. It has been a changeable feast. Our Government will blindly align our scheme with that scheme, when we do not even know what will be in it, if it exists at all. I think the Minister would have done very well in the Committee stage of this debate to accept the amendment from my colleague Charles Chauvel that removed that requirement. The Minister still could have been working towards alignment, and still could have been doing all the work that I know he is currently doing with the Australian Government over alignment. I ask why we are setting ourselves up like that, or is the Government opposing the amendment just because the Labour Party put it forward?

I will also respond to something else that the Minister said earlier, when he spoke before the lunch break and question time. I think we could also call this bill the “Climate Change Response (Hon Dr Nick Smith Walked Away from Negotiating with Labour Because He Did Not Want Phil Goff to Get Any Credit) Amendment Bill”. Let us be quite clear: when we were in negotiations with the Minister, he told the Labour members who were in that room that some people on the ninth floor of the Beehive thought that the negotiations with Labour were a mistake, because they might give Phil Goff the boost that the section 59 negotiations had given John Key. He told us that.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Not true.

The Minister told us that. That was exactly what he told us. The fact is we knew that that was a reality for the National Government, and we accepted that, but we thought that cross-party agreement was very important in this area. Remember that just about every submitter from the business sector who came to the select committee said that what they wanted was certainty. What they did not want was a scheme that would go backwards and forwards between National and Labour, with both parties putting forward their versions while in Government, and creating enormous uncertainty. We agreed.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Well, stop playing politics.

Oh, please! The Minister stood up in this House and misrepresented what Labour members said in those negotiations. He asked why we had agreed to things in our negotiations when we do not agree with them now. He does not understand that we were there to reach a compromise with the Government. We were there. We appreciated that we had not won the election, that the Government has a mandate to make changes, and that we would not be able to get our way on everything. That was why we were prepared to compromise, even if it was on things that we would not do if we were in Government. We thought those negotiations were going very well, we thought we had a real chance of getting a durable emissions trading scheme, and the Hon Dr Nick Smith walked away from it. He walked away from it. He said that we should have just known that he was dealing with the Māori Party. Well, that is fine. I ask the Minister to answer me this question: why did he not pick up the phone and tell Charles Chauvel—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Because he would’ve leaked it.

—no, the Minister should listen—that he was walking into a room now to announce that National had done a deal with the Māori Party? He could have talked on the phone, then walked straight into the room and made the announcement. Why did he not do that?

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Because he would’ve leaked it.

The Minister says that Charles Chauvel would have leaked it in the 5 seconds between the Minister telling the Labour Party and the Minister making the announcement. Labour members believed that they were in a good position with the National Government and that they were making progress. We had had a great meeting the week before. We had sent through a document for the Minister to respond to, with a proposed summary of the issues—where we should go from here, what information we wanted from officials, and what we wanted to see from officials before we were able to commit—and then we found out through the media that the Minister had done a deal with another party. And he says that we acted in bad faith.

💬 Paul Quinn: Yeah, that’s what happens when you have a Dutch auction.

I know that Paul Quinn is the master of absolutely everything, but he was not in that room. Mr Quinn was not in that negotiations room. [Interruption] No, he was not.

💬 Paul Quinn: I didn’t need to be.

He did not need to be, because the facts do not matter to Paul Quinn. But the fact is that we were very, very close to getting a durable agreement, and the Minister walked away.

I move, That the question be now put.

Members of this House come to this Chamber today with both a privilege and an awesome responsibility. We do so because the issue of climate change, which is before us today, is the most important issue that will be dealt with by this Parliament, or, indeed, by any New Zealand Parliament. That imposes a particular standard on us, a standard of responsibility that requires us to examine our consciences and to do the right thing. I fear that the reality is that we are about to do absolutely the wrong thing. I ask the members of the Government parties—National, United Future, and the Māori Party—to examine their consciences and, regardless of the instructions that they come to this Chamber with, to consider again—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I apologise to the member for interrupting an important contribution. I have twice before raised the issue of Mr Quinn rudely chipping across the Chamber from a seat that is not his own. You have chosen to infer that he did not move for the purposes of chipping, and you have asked him to restrain himself. There is nothing particularly substantive in his interjecting—it is just noise—but it is very discourteous to the member speaking, who is trying to give a considered contribution to this House, and it is inciting disorder amongst my colleagues, and that is not helping the public of New Zealand to understand the arguments. I ask—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I would note that Rahui Katene gave a speech only 15 minutes ago, and all the way through that speech there were rude and aggressive comments from members like Mr Cunliffe. Although I am very keen to hear what Mr Kevin Hague from the Green Party wants to say, I think there has to be some consistency. If members ask for courtesy, it should be applied to members on both sides of the debate, and not just to his side.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: I appreciate the Minister’s point that there has been vigorous debate in the Chamber, and that is to be expected on a bill of this nature. But there is a specific case here of a member who is not in his own seat, and the Chair has previously warned him and it has had no impact on his behaviour, which is now disorderly to this House.

💬 Paul Quinn: Speaking to the point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): No, I do not need the member’s assistance. I think we have at times throughout this process had quite vigorous interjections from members who have not been in their seats. The Speakers’ ruling is quite specific about moving to gain an advantage. When the Chamber has fewer people in it, people tend to congregate down the front, and there is a degree of tolerance of that, but I think, generally speaking, all members of the House should be advised that it is expected that interjections be rare, reasonable, and, if possible, humorous. I ask members to have some consideration for other participants in the debate.

Thank you to the member for raising that point. I was commenting on the gravity of the issue before us. I have spoken previously in the debates on other parts of the Climate Change Response (Moderating Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill about the inadequacies of this bill. The gravity of the climate change situation facing the Earth requires all Governments, all Parliaments, and all countries to do everything that is in their power to mitigate the disaster that looms. This is a bill that does not contribute to that purpose, but, rather, weakens the law that already exists. Compared with the law that already exists, this bill will result in increased emissions.

We are debating the title of the bill, and the words “Moderating Emissions” seem to me to be completely inappropriate for a bill of this sort. The Green Party will be introducing an amendment in the name of Dr Russel Norman to change the title of the bill to the “Climate Change Response (Polluters Get Paid) Amendment Bill”. He has another amendment to change it to “Climate Change Response (Payday for Polluters) Amendment Bill”. Both of those names would be more suitable names for this bill.

Earlier today, a brief flame of hope flared when the news hit this House that the national council of the Māori Party was intending to meet today to reconsider its position. It seemed that, for that brief window, the Māori Party was prepared to listen to the evidence and the arguments, and to reconsider. I have to say that it was with great regret that I read the comments of Te Ōrohi Paul dismissing that rumour as nothing more than rumour, and saying that the Māori Party was a party of integrity and a party that considered that its word was its bond.

In my intervention last evening about Part 1, I referred to a number of comments that the co-leader of the Māori Party, Tariana Turia, had made in her speech in March last year in relation to emissions trading. All of those comments are totally at odds with the position that the Māori Party is now taking on this bill. I ran out of time before I was able to come to the last comment that I wished to use. It was a comment from Tariana Turia in relation to the Greens’ position on that bill. What she had to say was this: “A billion dollars was the price of the Green Party support for a scheme that achieves almost nothing. We predict that that $1 billion will seem like 30 pieces of silver once the full impacts of climate change start to be felt.” If Te Ōrohi Paul is correct and the Māori Party is a party of integrity, then I call on the Māori Party members to reconsider, examine their consciences, and actually consider what it is that their party stands for, because what they stand for in this debate is at odds with everything they have stood for on the issue of climate change until this debate, and it is at odds with everything they have come to this House with, and represented their members and their voters on, prior to this debate.

I will quote from OraTaiao, one of the submitters on this bill. It is an organisation of senior health figures—doctors, nurses, and other health professionals—and mirrors, in fact, the global interest and urgency that the health professions are bringing to the issue of climate change. One of the things that it had to say to the select committee was this: “We submit that if passed, the bill would render the current emissions trading scheme completely ineffective, resigning it to irrelevancy. An ineffective ETS means falling between two stools for health, failing to mitigate the threats to health from climate change while introducing a regressive policy with a high economic burden on those who can least afford it. Such a policy also passes on significant costs to future generations.” What OraTaiao was saying is what health professionals around the world have been saying: that the health consequences of not dealing with climate change effectively are extreme—and this is a bill that proposes to increase emissions. OraTaiao enumerated many of those consequences in its submission. In particular, I want to point out that those consequences are most severe for Māori.

We have heard a lot in the debate from the Government about the need to balance the economy and the environment. It is very clear that it is possible to do both—and the Green Party has given many examples of how—and to actually have a meaningful emissions trading scheme and also a productive economy. It is with great regret that I have to say that National and the Māori Party have chosen instead to favour an economy that is based on the short-term thinking of current business.

I will conclude by quoting from an editorial by Professor Hugh Montgomery in the New Zealand Medical Journal from 9 October. He says this: “There is a real danger that politicians [at Copenhagen] will be indecisive, especially in such turbulent economic times at these. Should their response be weak, the results for international health could be catastrophic. We must all act now to ensure that there is a deal, and that it is meaningful rather than fanciful. At present, voiced aspirations for large targets for 2050, or small ones for 2020, are nothing more than dangerous hot air. A weak deal will represent not an historic international agreement, but a suicide pact. Now is the time for us all to act. If not us, who? If not now, when?”. That applies equally in this House today as it does in Copenhagen next week.

I too rise with great sadness, given the response of National and the Māori Party to what has to be the most fundamentally important issue facing the world today. We are seeing this afternoon in this Chamber a bill being passed that weakens the provisions that this country had already put in place to play our part in dealing with the issue of climate change. There is increasing evidence that the changes taking place will change the world as we know it. Many examples have been given of the consequences for human life, for human habitat, for our animals, and for the future of this planet. This is a serious issue, yet we are addressing a bill that weakens those provisions. It is environmentally irresponsible, economically inefficient, and socially inequitable.

I think, as have others, that this bill needs to be renamed. I have a couple of suggestions. I thought perhaps the “Climate Change (Responsibility Transfer Costs from Polluters to Taxpayers) Bill” might be a possibility, or the “Climate Change Response (Missed Opportunity for Cross-Party Consensus) Amendment Bill”, because those titles are more accurate reflections of what we are facing here today.

Our response as a country should be to put in place a strong scheme to deal with emissions. Instead, we are weakening the response of the previous Government. This legislation, which modifies Labour’s emissions trading scheme and is being passed under urgency, is fundamentally flawed. In fact, as others have argued so cogently, it may have the perverse effect of increasing emissions, and it will undoubtedly load costs on to ordinary New Zealanders.

The criticisms of this bill come from all quarters. I think it is worth reflecting on some of these criticisms, although I know for certain that the Government will arrogantly dismiss them because, of course, they are right. Brian Fallow stated: “The changes agreed are all about transferring cost from the emitter to the taxpayer, and to that extent it defeats the purpose of the exercise.” Greenpeace stated: “We now have on the table a pathetic ETS which won’t actually do anything to reduce emissions … our emissions will just keep climbing and taxpayers, rather than polluters, will have to pay for them.” Rod Oram stated: “National’s changes would drive up emissions, perpetuate old technology, necessitate ever-greater subsidies and reduce New Zealand’s international competitiveness and reputation.” The New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development stated: “Overall, this proposed policy appears to greatly reduce incentives to heavy emitters to reduce emissions, increase costs of subsidies to them, slows down the timetable for reducing emissions …”. The Institute for Policy Studies stated: “It does not provide a path forward to decarbonise the New Zealand economy in an efficient, effective or equitable manner. It will barely reduce emissions. It imposes high costs on the economy for the benefit of a favoured few.”

I repeat the phrase “for the benefit of a favoured few”, because that is what the essence of these changes is all about. It is about transferring the cost from polluters; whether they be Māori or Pākehā polluters, they are having their costs transferred on to ordinary taxpayers.

What about the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, the independent Officer of this Parliament with the role of reviewing environmental policies and actions? The commissioner commented: “New Zealand should not align itself with Australia’s proposed scheme. A cap on the number of carbon credits freely allocated is vital to create the right incentives, and to reduce fiscal risk to the Government and policy uncertainty for business. The phase-out of free carbon credits is far too slow.”

Criticisms have come from every quarter, yet the Government intends to push this legislation through. National, with the support of the Māori Party, will today push this legislation through the House. The process has also been flawed. I will not go into detail, but I know that my colleagues have raised the fact that this is probably the worst process they have been engaged in in their parliamentary careers.

I move, That the question be now put.

I will quote Speakers’ ruling 112/4 because I am going to rule out some of the amendments to clause 1. Speakers’ ruling 112/4 states: “An amendment to the title of a bill must be a serious or objective description of the bill rather than an attempt to criticise its contents.” In that respect I am ruling out the following amendments in the name of the Hon David Parker: to omit clause 1 and substitute “This Act is the Permanent Pollution Payments Entrenchment Bill.”, to omit clause 1 and substitute “This Act is the Climate Change Response (Increased Government Debt) Amendment Bill.”, and—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I appreciate that you are in the process of ruling, and it is with some hesitation that I raise this point. You have referred to a Speakers’ ruling that requires your ruling to be based upon an assessment that the nature of the amendments is, first, an attempt to be pejorative, and, second, not based in fact. Now, taking as an example the one by my colleague the Hon David Parker around permanent pollution payments, the Government’s own analysis indicates that there is an infinite stream of subsidies, and that the phase-out rate does not reach zero. I would submit to you that, in fact, the amendment is a perfectly accurate description of the bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I have had plenty of time to give this matter serious consideration, and I have looked at other precedents. I am ruling out these amendments specifically because of the ruling’s words “a serious or objective description”. They are ruled out for that reason. Furthermore, the amendment in the name of the Hon David Parker to omit clause 1 and substitute “This Act is the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Property Rights Creation Bill.”, the amendment in the name of Russel Norman to omit clause 1 and substitute “This Act is the Climate Change Response (Polluters Get Paid) Amendment Bill”, and the amendment in the name of Russel Norman to omit clause 1 and substitute “This Act is the Climate Change Response (Payday for Polluters) Amendment Bill.” are also ruled out of order.