Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. I want to make some formal comments about the process and then end with some more personal comments about some of the issues that have been raised in debate, over what has been almost a 2-year process of consultation since the Hon David Caygill was appointed to start the process. As I said, this does reflect a long and comprehensive review. It generated significant public debate, and I do want to thank all of those who have participated and engaged constructively with the review and the subsequent amendment. I also want to acknowledge the excellent work and quality advice provided by New Zealand officials. I thank the Hon John Banks and the Hon Peter Dunne for their support of, and contributions to, the bill.

It began, as I said, in December 2010 with the appointment of the Hon David Caygill to chair an independent panel. That panel received 162 submissions on its issues paper and presented its final report to my predecessor in June 2011. In response to this report the Government outlined proposed amendments to the emissions trading scheme in April 2012, and following a number of general meetings and hui around the country it received 359 submissions from the public. Following on from the first reading, the Finance and Expenditure Committee received 758 written submissions from interested groups and individuals. The select committee heard in person from 73 submitters from amongst those who wished to be heard. The committee reported back to the House on 17 October this year, and the bill has now had its second reading and has passed through the Committee of the whole House.

Overall I am pleased that following this long and comprehensive process the bill meets the Government’s three objectives for the scheme. First, the amendments improve the operation and administration of the emissions trading scheme, and I thank the select committee for its contribution to recommending changes to the bill. The changes that it has introduced have brought more flexibility into the emissions trading scheme, specifically relating to the exportability of forestry units, a levy rate for synthetic greenhouse gases, and eligibility criteria for offsetting; secondly, they have provided flexibility to cater for various potential international outcomes in the period from 2013 to 2020; and, thirdly, they are supporting the Government’s economic growth priorities more effectively.

I appreciate that some sectors looking to sell carbon credits would like to see a higher carbon price to incentivise greater participation. I will make some observations on that in a moment. However, given the global climate in terms of the international economy in this case, the Government had to make some tough decisions to not artificially inflate the short-term cost of the emissions trading scheme to households and businesses.

Let me pass now to some more personal comments on this, as I say, extraordinarily protracted debate in the country that has taken almost 2 years to conclude and to reach this point where we are today for the third reading. I think what has actually confused much of the debate is that the final stages of this very long, drawn-out process have coincided with an extraordinarily low international carbon price. Let me make this very clear: in my view, our Cabinet might well have taken a different set of decisions if we had seriously believed the international price would for ever remain at this extremely depressed level. But, actually, what this debate has always been about—and I do know there is at least one member in the Opposition, and I will not mention who, who fully understands this point but for political reasons has chosen to conflate the two issues—is the structure of New Zealand policy. It is not a debate about the international price. We have inherited the broad structure from the previous Government, and after a lot of internal debate, which is all on the public record, this Government decided to carry through the structure but take off some of the speed at which it is going down what I call the climate change highway. Why? Because we campaigned quite explicitly on the basis of the formula that we wanted New Zealand to pay its fair share, but not to lead the world.

Much of the debate that I heard in Committee, and have heard around New Zealand, has really carried that debate on from the point of view of the election campaign.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: It’s a sell-out.

It is perfectly legitimate for Mr Cunliffe, or anyone else, to continue to argue the alternative proposition—that we want to lead the world—but that is not the position that we have taken, and it is not the position that I think is the right position for New Zealand in trying to establish a more robust economy, and trying to compete in a very, very difficult economic environment, and to not pass costs on to households and businesses. I think the fact of the low carbon price has confused much of the debate amongst some of our stakeholders, but this, I am certain, will not pertain. What this debate is about is aligning New Zealand in a slow, progressive way to the world price. What happens to the world price is very largely outside our control.

There is a second—actually, also unrelated—aspect around the environmental integrity of some of the units that are being imported. Here, actually on a personal basis, I have great sympathy with those who are expressing concerns around this issue. The Government previously moved against some units that were associated with some extremely—let me use ordinary slang—dodgy activities going on around hydrofluorocarbons around the world, which have a global warming potential of 23,000—from memory—times that of carbon dioxide, and some utterly perverse outcomes seem to be possible. I give full credit to my predecessor for banning the importation of those units once he had received technical advice. Because I am personally very sympathetic to this concern about the environmental integrity of units, I have also recently asked for further technical advice, given heightened concerns around some other units. I will await that technical advice, and if that technical advice suggests that there is good reason to ban it, then that is the position I will be recommending to Cabinet, and no doubt I will consult stakeholders to make sure there is not an alternative view. On this side of the House we actually share that concern, and we have demonstrated already a readiness to move on that.

It is very important to the integrity of the scheme, because there still are climate change deniers out there in this country—absolutely. I am not one of them, but they are out there, and nothing will undermine support for a response on climate change more than this being revealed as a scam that may, in fact, increase emissions if done the wrong way. But the key point I am making is that this is a scheme about a structure of a policy for the long term. The future Government of New Zealand, whoever that might be in 2015, will have an opportunity to look at the settings, but we now have got a stable policy framework.

The second broad observation I want to note is around the issue of this leading the world and how you would actually measure this. Well, I mean, obviously this is not a scientific matter, but the true fact of the matter is that only Europe, Australia, and New Zealand out of all the regions of the world have got a policy in place that tries to address a comprehensive price on carbon—only Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. We may be joined in 2015 by Korea, but it should be recalled that Korea’s scheme has 95 percent free allocation for all energy-exposed and all trade-exposed industries, and has no statement about what will happen in 2020 and after that. So at the moment it is only Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Yes, there are promising pilot plants being talked about in China. Yes, there is a regional scheme in certain states of North America, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, rather interestingly referred to as a ReGGIe, but this scheme is in serious trouble. There are serious legal challenges, and the price of carbon has fallen through the floor. So when people talk about this, it is really important to remember this cliché about distinguishing between talking the talk and walking the walk.

Finally, let me conclude with agriculture. There is not a country in the world that has put a price on biological emissions. We do put a price on processed agriculture, but we do not put a price on biological emissions, and that is a decision that the Government—whoever forms the Government in 2015—will take. What we have done is require the compulsory reporting of biological emissions at the point of obligation of the processor level, and we will work with stakeholders to bring it back to this, but this is ahead of us. Finally, although I would like to expand on this, Fonterra—the biggest dairy exporting company in the world. Really, the Green Party, in particular, should reflect on where Fonterra is going—20 percent reduction in carbon emissions is its target by 2020. By 2014 it will not pick up any milk from any of its suppliers if they have not got a nitrogen plan in place. This is a company that is ahead of every dairy company in the world on sustainability, and it is about time people started looking at the facts. I commend this bill to the House for its adoption.

I was reading an article from the Independent that was published on Monday—

💬 David Bennett: On an aeroplane—don’t try and make it look like you’ve thought about it.

I know Mr Bennett does not like to read, but it is actually quite a useful thing to do from time to time if we want to know what is happening in the world. If he wants to follow the lead of the previous speaker, Tim Groser, and lay some sort of claim on behalf of his party to be doing something about this issue in a credible way, he might like to do some reading as well, at some point.

The Independent tells us that the world is destined for “dangerous climate change this century—with global temperatures possibly rising by as much as 6C—because of the failure of governments to find alternatives to fossil fuels,”—and this is all contained in a recent report, not from some group that this Government might like to try to malign as interested or fringe, but from a mainstream consultancy, the accountancy giant PricewaterhouseCoopers. What PricewaterhouseCoopers concluded was this: “it will now be almost impossible to keep the increase in global average temperatures up to 2100 within the 2C target that scientists believe might avert dangerous and unpredictable climate change, … An analysis of how fast the major world economies are reducing their emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels suggests that it may already be too late to stay within the 2C target that was set by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,”. This was a key finding of the PricewaterhouseCoopers study. In order to try to get within that target, the global economy would have to reach what it described as a “decarbonisation” rate of at least 5 percent a year for the next 40 years, and obviously we have not seen anything like that happen since records began to be kept at the end of the Second World War.

Even if we doubled the current rate with which we are dealing with this concept of decarbonisation, there would still be “emissions consistent with 6C of warming by the end of the century. To give ourselves a more than 50 per cent chance of avoiding 2C will require a sixfold improvement in our rate of decarbonisation,”. So we might as well just start planning for a warmer world. That is the conclusion from PricewaterhouseCoopers—it is too late. It says this: “This isn’t shock tactics, it’s simple maths. We’re heading into uncharted territory for the scale of transformation and technological innovations required. Whatever the scenario, or response, business as usual is not an option.”

What is the response from the New Zealand Government to this phenomenon? Well, we just heard it: “We do not want to be leaders in this area.” If only that were just the simple truth. The Government does not want to do anything of practical effect in this area. Not only does it not want to do anything of practical effect, but also it wants to hide and obscure the effect of what is being done.

I was astounded when I began to read the select committee papers relating to this bill, the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, to see the extent to which Ministers, and officials under the instruction of those Ministers, have been seeking to obscure the truth of what is going on now. What I am sad we did not hear from the current Minister, but I am hoping we might hear some enlightenment from Dr Nick Smith or other speakers, is this: why is the Government seeking, for example, to exclude emissions trading scheme units from being valued in the Crown’s financial statements? The translation of that is that Ministers are asking whether local carbon credits given away by the Government as corporate welfare and compensation should even be shown as a cost to the taxpayer, and whether the taxpayer, who is paying for these things, should even be allowed to know, first, that they are doing it, and, second, what it is costing them. This Government has systematically suppressed detail on the cost of the emissions trading scheme.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Not true.

It absolutely has, Dr Smith. It has done so, so that this very complex scheme is harder still to monitor. It is absolutely breathtaking, in my view, that a Minister would ask officials to consider not valuing something that, when given away, means the recipient has to pay no tax. Such gifts must be recorded as costs to the taxpayer. This is in line with simple, generally agreed accounting practice. It is in line with the sort of openness and accountability that we expect from Governments and that actually the law requires, because we have a Public Finance Act in this country, and we do require transparency from Government. If we do allow this sort of obscurity to take hold, then it will be, as was predicted, longer than the 2-year time frame that the Minister seems to know about. This debate has been going on for a lot longer than that.

As was predicted at the time that the Government originally introduced its so-called moderation of the scheme, this is a recipe for corruption, because if the public cannot know the value of the subsidies it is paying through the now perverted and ineffective emissions trading scheme that we will see emerging out of the other side of this legislation, then we will have a major problem with transparency in this country.

The chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee will no doubt speak later in the debate. I hope he takes a close interest in this issue, because we will all be looking to him to ensure that this does not happen. Yet we have a Minister responsible for this issue who wants to obscure the facts and who wants to make it far more difficult for us to know what the cost of this subsidy scheme is.

On the question of transparency, I think the most disappointing thing for me out of the debate over the last week or so in the House was the voting down of one of the Supplementary Order Papers put up by my colleague Moana Mackey. I said in an earlier contribution that one of the things I was heartened by in earlier parts of this debate years ago was Dr Smith’s professed commitment to transparency. But this commitment seems to have absolutely vanished, because National voted against this Supplementary Order Paper 146. All it would have done was require the Environmental Protection Authority to publish annually the amount that industries charge their customers for carbon—that is all. It would have allowed the public to see through some of the opacity that this Government has now introduced around what is—thanks to the changes it has made—a massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to polluters. But the public is not going to get that chance, because National and its allies Mr Banks and Mr Dunne voted this amendment down.

There is no evidence that the benefits of either the low carbon price, which the Minister mentioned, or the Government’s so-called moderation of the scheme are being passed on to consumers. They are being kept as profits by these polluters. I was astounded in question time in the last session of Parliament when Simon Bridges, as the Acting Minister for Climate Change Issues, was questioned in the House on what evidence he had that prices were being brought down by Government policy in this area. The only answer he could come up with was that his constituents told him so.

Evidence to the select committee, which all the members who sat on that committee know about, showed that through fuel and electricity prices consumers are still being charged a carbon price of between $15 and $25.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: No evidence at all.

Absolutely. That is absolutely the evidence. And we all know that the actual carbon price is about $1, so where are those profits going? And if I am wrong, Dr Smith, why is the Government so scared to be transparent, to introduce a requirement that the Environmental Protection Authority have transparency around whether or not there is any pass-on of a reduction or whether these profits are being retained by the corporates?

To give you an example, Contact Energy has yet to review its levies introduced in 2010, which add to consumers’ power bills 0.77c per kilowatt hour for electricity and 0.27c for gas. It even wrote in its 2012 annual report that additional savings from carbon unit costs helped cause its improved profits in the last year. This is what the emissions trading scheme has become under this Government—an unjustifiable mess that cannot be penetrated as far as those who wish to see what is really going on here. It is simply corporate welfare and an opportunity for corruption, and we must be very, very worried about it. We must be very worried, indeed. The tragedy of this bill, which we are now reading a third time, is that it will do so much to make a bad situation even worse.

This Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill is important legislation for New Zealand, and it is New Zealand doing its part as part of international climate change action. The great travesty is in the last speech from that last speaker, Charles Chauvel. It was full of bunkum across the board. You see, New Zealand is not leading, nor are we lagging behind other countries, but we are doing our fair share. We are adding integrity to a New Zealand system and futureproofing it. Members opposite are saying that there is a great challenge at the moment because of the price of carbon. Well, last year it was sitting at around $20, and before that $25. As the Minister for Climate Change Issues has said, the price during the course of this year has gone down significantly.

This piece of legislation is not about the price today; it is about making sure that the Government, current and future, has the tools to make sure that our emissions trading scheme can be robust, so that New Zealand is doing its fair share—not lagging behind, and certainly not out the front of other countries. I say to the Minister who spoke earlier, Tim Groser, that this is a pragmatic approach to climate change. The amendments to our emissions trading scheme will make it future-protected while supporting jobs in this country and not increasing costs on New Zealanders who are vulnerable.

The last speaker in the debate, Charles Chauvel, said that there are companies in New Zealand that are profiteering because they are charging much more for carbon than the actual cost today. Well, it will interest that speaker to know that we asked officials to go and get us proof of this and they said they could not find any. Indeed, I have done a little bit of research myself and I have spoken widely outside of this. Just a couple of weeks ago I had a chance to talk to a carbon farming company, which creates credits through growing trees, leasing land, and buying land and planting on it, and then it enters into contracts with New Zealand companies to provide them with those credits. Although the company is saying at the moment that it wants the cost of the carbon units in the New Zealand scheme to be higher, it also admits that in some of its contracts—forward contracts it had entered into—it is getting paid $18 to $19 for those. So it is not a simple case of saying the cost of carbon in New Zealand is low and therefore it can be passed on straight away. The reason for that is that climate change is extremely complicated, and the New Zealand emissions trading scheme is extremely complicated at the same time.

What this legislation does is ensure that the tools are there for a robust system. I want to mention a couple of those tools. The first one is the regulation power to deal with the quality of international units. Already this Government has banned some international units that we viewed as not being environmentally robust. Research was done, some good scientific basis was found, and they were excluded. So already we have taken action in this area, because we are concerned about the veracity of the New Zealand scheme. Secondly, there is a regulation-making power in the legislation over the quantity of international units. It is already possible under this legislation for the Government to ban a quantity of international units that enters into our scheme. Indeed, when these international units are due to expire internationally in the next couple of years, in the absence of any second commitment period—because there is no second commitment period on the table at the moment, because the Kyoto Protocol is running out—it means that there is no great certainty that they will be available to the New Zealand scheme, but the Government has the tool to deal with it. Also we have set up an auction scheme under this legislation to allow certainty for the Government, industry, and households.

Again, I challenge Opposition members. If they think that this has been done purely because we want the price to stay where it is today rather than be a fair market price, then they are fooling themselves. It is not about the challenges on a day-to-day basis that we have around us. It is about what is happening for the scheme overall and making sure the tools are there. We have allowed the offset of pre-1990 forests to allow better productivity on land, and that is important for jobs and our economy. But at the same time we have said to others that if they want to remain in the scheme and not offset their land, they too can get credits for that. And, finally, there is a levy rate for synthetic gases that can be adjusted in the future—not set in stone, but adjusted in the future—as it needs to be. Those are tools for a robust emissions trading scheme that are in place for the Government to use and act upon.

What is needed here is international momentum to deal with climate change. New Zealand certainly has a role to play, and this legislation is our part of that. But for the sake of jobs and income in New Zealand we must do only our part, and all countries of the world must reach agreement. It does not matter, actually, for the sake of the world’s climate what we do in New Zealand; unless other large developing countries also play their part, then the world’s environment will continue in the direction it has been going.

I want to touch on two last points before I finish my intervention, and they concern agriculture. We have heard from the Opposition that unless agriculture is put into this scheme, consumers of the world will turn their backs on New Zealand and New Zealand produce. That is absolute rubbish, because there is no country in the world that has included agriculture. So I challenge Opposition members to tell us where these consumers are going to go to see any country taking their concerns around climate change more seriously. Just in the last week or so the Daily Mail in the United Kingdom printed this: “Buy New Zealand lamb to save the planet,”. The UN has come out with a report that says the carbon footprint of New Zealand agricultural produce is lower than all produce in the UK, except onions. So we are doing our part. Our farmers are doing our part, and the United Nations is recognising that.

To finish here, I say that these changes will give increased certainty to participants by extending the way the scheme fundamentally operates until such time as comprehensive agreement is reached on a global scale. The Government has indicated that the emissions trading scheme should be reviewed in 2015 following the development of a new global agreement. I say to the members opposite that they should be supporting this legislation, supporting new businesses, and focusing on international agreement so that all countries can do their fair share, rather than saying we should be doing more than others and putting jobs and industry at risk, to the detriment of our economy. I commend this bill to the House.

It was very disappointing to hear the contribution from the member Todd McClay, who has just resumed his seat, because he is the member of Parliament representing Rotorua, which is an area surrounded by forests and forestry jobs. This bill, above all others, will have a significant impact on jobs in that member’s electorate. On this day, when we have heard about the highest rate of unemployment for years, the member stands up and says not one thing in defence or support of the forestry workers, who are not down the other end of the country and not on the other side of the island but in his very electorate. That member knows, because time after time after time our select committees have heard it from the forestry industry, that unless there is a significant change in the Government’s attitude, the forestry industry would be in trouble. What is it about good jobs, decent advice, and pleading from the forestry industry that that member did not understand? I think, actually, it is all three of those points. He clearly did not take any of it on board and has the ignorance and arrogance to stand up in this House, after getting his riding instructions from his Minister—whom, presumably, he wants to sit alongside in Cabinet—and not say a single thing in defence of the workers in his electorate.

I think—and perhaps it is a bit old-fashioned, as the member for Rotorua thinks—that the security of a decent job is really important to every human being. I think that when we are passing legislation and we have had leaders in the forestry industry coming to Parliament and saying: “This is wrong; here is how to fix it.”, Parliament’s response should have been to listen to them.

The other point the member made that I was fascinated by was that he stressed so adamantly that New Zealand should certainly not be leading in this area. The member seems ashamed to think of New Zealand as a country that could lead the world. We have in other things. We led the world in the right for women to have the vote. We led the world far more recently in being nuclear-free, having nuclear-free areas designated. I do not know why we would not want to at least struggle to catch up with the world, actually, on having a focus on clean, green, and clever technology, and having secure employment as a result. My colleague from Dunedin North, Dr David Clark, has just commented that perhaps the only thing we lead the world in is the current account deficit, and I am not sure that that is something that we would be particularly proud of, but it is an accurate comment.

So we get to the end of this debate on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill after a disgracefully rushed process. Not only did the National Government not listen to the clear submissions that were given to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, not just on this occasion but other times as well, but it has used a disgracefully rushed process, to the point that members of the select committee often did not get advice on particular matters they were considering in time to be informed before they made a decision. The chairman of the committee has got his riding instructions; he has been told what to do. Who cares about listening to evidence, facts, or information? Clearly it is not the current member of Parliament for Rotorua.

Instead of a decent length of time—instead of, say, normally having 5 or 6 months for legislation to go through Parliament—this bill has been squashed into a 7-week time frame. This is not a minor matter. This is a significant, important, and complex matter. It is one that is now directly threatening jobs, employment, in our country, in the member’s electorate of Rotorua, and in the electorate of another member of the committee, actually—John Hayes, who I am sure will be taking a call. I hope he speaks in defence of the forestry workers in his electorate because their submissions, their pleading, and their understanding of the impact of this bill was significant. So John Hayes and Todd McClay, amongst the other members of the National Government whose electorates will be directly and negatively impacted by this legislation, should stand up and speak in defence of their workers, who are now at risk of losing their jobs.

The introduction to this bill was really an example of amazing spin on the Government’s behalf. It should come clean in this third reading stage and say that what the bill does is just significantly weaken the emissions trading scheme. I do not know when the Hon Dr Nick Smith might be getting back into Cabinet, but I certainly hope it is soon. Even though Dr Smith would not see me as a strong supporter of his, I am desperate to have somebody in the National Cabinet who knows something about these issues, who actually cares about the environment and conservation, and who can charge through that bulldozer machine of Gerry Brownlee and Steven Joyce, who are clearly running the whole show at the moment while the rest of Cabinet just sits around and agrees. I know that it may not have made Dr Smith popular among some of his colleagues in the past, but at least he had a clear conscience on issues of principle in conservation and the environment, and at least he understood the emissions trading scheme. What we have now is a total lack of any understanding of the scheme, complete ignorance, and a bulldozer approach. What we are ending up with is, basically, as my colleague Charles Chauvel so clearly spelt out in his excellent contribution to this debate, corporate welfare—something that I thought the National Government would be pretty embarrassed about.

This bill is fundamentally flawed. Not only does it not do anything to progress New Zealand’s position in terms of gross greenhouse gas emissions but it actually moves us backwards in that regard, and that should be of dismay to this Parliament, rather than something that the National Government will push through with a very slim majority. One of the votes that it will be relying on is from another member of this House who will have forestry workers in his electorate and who, frankly, has had the experience through his time in Parliament to understand this legislation and, therefore, in my view, should not be casting his vote in support of it, and that is the Hon Peter Dunne. He knows that his legacy, by putting his vote against the Ayes lobby on this bill, will be job losses, which no member of Parliament should want to stand up for, and a massive carbon deficit for future generations. I do not understand how somebody like the Hon Peter Dunne, who has had experience in this area, could put his name alongside this bill and I certainly hope that before the end of this debate he comes to his senses and votes against it.

Labour sought to amend a bad bill to make it better. We had four Supplementary Order Papers: one was to restrict the international units, one was to follow the recommendations of the review panel in regard to the transition period, one was to give consumers the ability to know when they are being overcharged for carbon, and the final one was to ensure that agriculture had a fixed date to enter the scheme. That certainty is actually more important to the industry than the National Government gives it credit for. All of those Supplementary Order Papers would have made a bad bill better. It would have remained a bad bill but it would have been significantly improved. The National Government, for blind ideology—that was the only reason I could understand—voted down those four Supplementary Order Papers.

We have now ended up with a scheme that is taking us in the opposite direction to that which most New Zealanders would be proud to have their name attached to. It is a scheme that is being led by a Minister who clearly has not got to grips with it and a select committee chair who does not stand up for what is good for his own electorate or the rest of the country and does not listen to submissions, and who is prepared to be pushed around in promotion of his own career.

This is one of the biggest disappointments amongst many from the National Party, and I certainly hope that its very slim majority on these issues—significantly slimmer because the Māori Party listened to the voices of the submitters throughout the process and is, I understand, going to vote against the bill—changes before the end of this debate.

The New Zealand Parliament is about to enact an iniquity. With a bare minimum of numbers, it will amend the emissions trading scheme and guarantee dangerous climate change for our children. There can be no issue of greater moment before this House than legislation designed to avert dangerous climate change. Climate change is not just another problem. It is about the future of the planet, the future of life on earth, the future of the human race, the future of our children and our grandchildren.

Anybody in this House—anyone, anywhere—who belittles the matter of climate change, whether they are a sceptic of the science or not, is committing the greatest moral iniquity of all time, for they are playing with fire, assigning the future of the planet to the vagaries of chance. They are gambling with the lives of our children. They are taunting the gods, playing roulette with the biosphere of the planet, and they know not what they are doing. They who conceive and give birth to their children, they who labour so long and lovingly succour their infants, protect and clothe and feed them, ensure their good health, provide for their education, enjoy fulfilment as their children grow to adulthood and produce grandchildren with the cycle of life beginning all over again—who among us can provide such human devotion to the present and such inhuman disregard for the future? For that is what we are doing. That is what we are doing. In our manic devotion to the illusory security in the present, we erode the security—the real security—of the future.

Where is the concept of guardianship in the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill—guardianship to our children, to the earth that nourishes them? It is a test of our intelligence—our collective intelligence as a species, as a global community, as a nation with pride. In each case, we are failing the test.

I level the charge of ecocide at the leadership of this Government. I charge John Key and Tim Groser with moral ecocide: the conscious despoliation of the planet’s environment, its carrying capacity that sustains life on earth. Ecocide is a legal crime in some countries. It is not yet in New Zealand or in international law, but it is a political crime of the highest moral order. Those who commit ecocide in our contemporary global age are guilty of the act of omission to the point of criminal negligence, breaching an obligation erga omnes, violating the sacred trust in upholding the values and action that sustain civilisation. I charge Mr Key and Mr Groser, both honourable men, with gross negligence in failing to take due care of the New Zealand people in combating climate change. I charge them with breaching their fiduciary duty to humankind.

This amendment bill is described as a balancing act. It balances our international reputation, doing our fair share, with New Zealand’s national interests in economic recovery, and, indeed, future growth. It balances, they say, predictability for the sake of business investment at home with flexibility in international negotiations abroad. In calibrating such an exquisite balancing act, the Government loses the plot. The aim is not to position ourselves on the deck of the Titanic; it is to turn the ship round. The goal is not to prevaricate in the present; it is to secure the future. The task is not to soften the pain for the current generation; it is to ensure the survival of the next. The leaders of this Government have lost sight of the goal. They are committing us to purgatory, and thence to hell. Purgatory is the next decade, hell is the decade after. I charge them with the moral crime of ecocide.

As we watch the polar ice melt up in the Arctic, we defer entry of agriculture in the New Zealand emissions trading scheme. As we hear warnings about the thawing of the permafrost in the northern tundra, with the potential release of methane, we continue with our one-for-two surrender obligations. As we anticipate ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica, with a potential long-term sea level rise of 10 metres or more, we retain regulatory settings that appear wilfully detrimental to foresters.

Do we realise the effect that climate change is already having on our monsoon cycles in the tropics, on the warming and acidifying oceans, on the boreal forests with their searing summer fires? Do we know, down here in Aotearoa, about the global water and food shortage that is coinciding with the energy shortage? Are we aware of the epidemic diseases creeping in? Do we care about the decline of the frog population and the collapse of the bee colonies around the world? Are we mad? Are we so blindingly stupid that we do not see what we are doing here? Are we so craven that we cave in to the nearest, latest commercial demand put upon us? Are we so intellectually weak that we can postpone action we know to be essential now, because the consequence is not physically before us until it is too late?

What have we done to deserve such leadership? What are we to say to our children when we go home tonight? We weakened the New Zealand emissions trading scheme today because we wished to retain flexibility in uncertain times, because we were not prepared to place our trade-exposed firms at risk, because we have signed an agreement with a coalition partner not to strengthen the scheme, because we do not give a damn about the future, because I choose not to look you in the eye. I charge Mr Key and Mr Groser with the moral crime of ecocide.

I recalled in the first reading of this bill the global emissions gap that the UN has calculated. We have been unable over 20 years to achieve a binding global agreement to reduce global emissions, so we content ourselves with voluntary pledges, except everybody knows—they knew then and they know now—that voluntary pledges will never work. None of this surfaced in the deliberations of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. The report ignores the global climate change that is occurring around us as we debate. It focuses on the mechanics of an already dilapidated vehicle called the New Zealand emissions trading scheme. Well, it is well named, because what this scheme does is it trades in emissions. It does not reduce them; it trades in them. It may witness their reduction, or it may not. Either way, it is ancillary to the intent of the scheme, which is to trade, except we put it on credit for the kids to pay off with their lives, because the global economy will be in such disarray from a thing called climate change turning into climate chaos.

We are proving to be a very stupid species, and we in New Zealand are doing our fair share. I charge the leaders of this Government with the moral crime of ecocide. I trust that in due course they stand accountable before the children of this world, the children of John Key, the grandchildren of Tim Groser, and mine. The Green Party in Government will be 100 percent honest, 100 percent accurate, and 100 percent defiant in the face of increasing odds in this dramatic battle to avert dangerous climate change. We shall oppose this bill with all our strength.

Just before I call the next member, can I advise members that I did not want to interrupt Dr Graham, because I felt that he was making a very passionate speech about something he believes in very sincerely, but I wish to advise members that there are 409 Standing Orders that grant us good grace and good order, and it is an opportunity in this House for all members to make a commanding contribution. I would urge all members to play the ball and not the member. Remember that and we will preserve an excellent field for the full play of ideas. Thank you.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wish to take issue with you. When a member gets up and accuses members of our side, lays a charge of ecocide, and you are asking us to sit here and tolerate that, I find that offensive—

No, the member will be seated. I have asked members to restrain themselves. There were continual interjections. Under Speaker’s ruling 60/5 interjections are to be “rare and reasonable”—rare and reasonable. I have no problems with a robust debate. I think that is good for Parliament, but interjections are to be rare and reasonable. What we have on the cross benches, because people are in close proximity, is actually interference with the microphone. Had the interjections been done from here—a different matter. I ask members just to understand that.

That speech from Kennedy Graham actually exposes the disservice that is done to the environmental movement by the Green Party. If we are to have a rational debate on these issues, it is vitally important that we actually do stick to the facts. The claim is made of hell on earth in a decade. Actually, the scientists predict that in a decade’s time global temperatures are likely—in a decade’s time—to be 0.3 of a degree higher than they currently are. Remembering that the temperature varies every day here in New Zealand, which is a more mild climate, by as much as 10 or 15 degrees, it is a gross exaggeration to talk about hell on earth. Equally so with the completely over-the-top claims of ecocide and the like in the language that that member uses.

Let us get down to earth and debate what this bill, the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, is about. There are two important questions in this bill. The first is whether we should double the costs for manufacturers and for homeowners on 1 January next year to step up New Zealand’s climate change initiatives. The second question is whether we should include biological emissions in 6 weeks’ time in the New Zealand emissions trading scheme. We are a Government that campaigned on New Zealand doing its fair share. Is there any other country on 1 January that is going to double the costs of emissions trading on its core industries? Is there any country in the world, Mr Kennedy Graham, that is going to include biological emissions in its emissions trading scheme on 1 January next year? The answer is not only not one, but there is not a single other country in the world that is even considering in the next 10 years including biological emissions in its trading scheme.

This difficult issue of climate change is actually a balance between how much progress we wish to make as a nation in curbing our emissions down on that long-term challenge, compared with what costs we are prepared to impose on our economy. I firstly would point out that a Ministry for the Environment report that was tabled in this Parliament last week showed that in contrast to the previous Government, when emissions from New Zealand increased from 63 million tonnes a year up to 78 million tonnes per year, in the 4 years of this Government emissions have come down. So my next challenge to Mr Graham is this: if the John Key - led Government, in reducing emissions, is guilty of ecocide, with what would he charge the previous Helen Clark Government, which the Green Party propped up, and which did nothing in 8 years in this key area?

But the further point I want to make is this. I have heard Labour and Green members repeatedly say—and not surprisingly, with the job figures today of 7.3 percent unemployment—that this Government should be totally focused on jobs. Well, can a member next say this: how will doubling the costs of the emissions trading scheme on every manufacturer in New Zealand on 1 January help protect jobs? How will doubling the costs of the emissions trading scheme for every manufacturer in New Zealand—and members opposite claim there is a crisis in manufacturing—help jobs?

The second question I have got for them is this. Both the last Green member who spoke and Labour members repeatedly have said the biggest economic issue for New Zealand is its balance of payments. Well, let us just ask what New Zealand’s biggest export industry is. It is primary industry. It is agriculture. Can I ask the question of how we increase exports by imposing additional costs on to that primary exporting industry? The answer is you do not. The answer is that this bill is balanced, it is sensible, and it is progressing our climate change policy consistent with the promises that National has made, and that is why members on this side of the House are taking that sensible, responsible view. W should progress this bill.

I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Once again, New Zealand First reasserts that we oppose any emissions trading scheme of any nature. We know that any such schemes are just basically Ponzi schemes around the world for others to make money at New Zealand’s expense: at the expense of our corporations, at the expense of our companies, at the expense of our taxpayers, and at the expense of the people—the men, women, and children—of New Zealand. Emissions trading schemes are all about other people getting rich from our money. New Zealand First does not support that. We do not want to see people in Chicago, New York, Frankfurt, London, and other places making money out of good taxes that are paid in New Zealand.

What New Zealand First wants to see is proper attention to pollution and emissions within New Zealand, and sorting out our own emissions problems within New Zealand, and sorting out our own pollution problems within New Zealand. If some of the money that was being taken in terms of all these carbon credits and all these various other levies was actually applied here in New Zealand, we certainly would see a far better outcome for our country, for our companies, and for our people, rather than paying to some offshore scheme that has gone from over $25 per unit and is now scraping the barrel at something like $1 per unit for the carbon credit taxes.

It is just shocking that New Zealand even got involved in such a scheme. I could see that many years ago. I could see this 4 or 5 years ago, when we were first negotiating these things, and I thought, goodness gracious me, we are going down this track again, getting involved in some Ponzi global scheme to appease other people sitting in other countries. It started at $25, and, lo and behold, earlier this year it had dropped to $10, then it dropped to $5, and in recent weeks we are hearing it is trading as low as $1. Basically, what a waste of time the whole scheme is.

This serves to turn environmental protection into a carbon credit bank to make environmentalism a speculative business. It is issuing tradable credits, and it is verging on a Ponzi scheme to give good money from some to pay for the wrongs of others. There are much better mechanisms for New Zealand than uncontrollable financial machinations such as emissions trading schemes. This will cost New Zealand more than $2 billion. An emissions trading scheme will cost New Zealand more than $2 billion—$2 billion that this country simply cannot afford. These funds should be retained in New Zealand in order to provide better funds to tackle our own pollution problems and emission problems here in this country, and help to keep New Zealand “100% Pure New Zealand”.

We should not be paying for somebody in China or India or some other country who is a bad polluter to get payments to rectify their problems. As we have seen so many times in the world figures, New Zealand has something like 0.001 percent of total emissions in the world. Our total emissions in 1 year are less than 1 day of emissions in China. What impact would a little place like New Zealand have in that global environment when China in 1 day can produce more than we do in a whole year? Yet it is the likes of China, India, and other countries that will benefit from this scheme, because they will receive the payments to try to reduce their pollution. So we are paying for other countries and other organisations to get rich, while we—our taxpayers—get poorer.

It is disturbing that we are ignoring things. Here in New Zealand I have written to the Associate Minister of Transport asking about emissions in terms of diesel emissions in our trucks and our buses. We have buses that go back as far as Euro 1 buses and Euro 2 buses, and trucks as well, that are still pouring a lot of diesel out here in this country, yet we are not addressing issues such as that. There are technologies available to address our own emissions in this country, but we ignore that. Letters that I have written to the Associate Minister basically come up with no solutions at all, yet we pay into an emissions trading scheme.

I would far rather see some of our good money going into sorting this out—and perhaps some of our older trucks, our older fleet, and our older buses being retrofitted to reduce our own emissions and our own pollution, and our own pollution in the likes of Lambton Quay, Queen Street, or around Christchurch from our buses and trucks—than be paying into some scheme where some guy in New York or Chicago or London is going to get rich from our taxes.

The emissions trading scheme does not decrease emissions; it just trades them and moves them around the economies that can afford to buy carbon credits. The emissions trading scheme was devised by this Government, and it is unsustainable. It is nothing more than another tax on the people and production of New Zealand. New Zealand First is about proper solutions to solve our problems here within our country, and not helping people in international markets to get richer. New Zealand First opposes this bill or any other bill that proposes any form of emissions trading scheme.

The Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, which we are talking about today, is in its final reading in this House. I think there are a couple of things that people listening should be aware of. The first is that the Labour Party and the Green Party want to bring agriculture into the emissions trading scheme. They oppose this bill for the reason that agriculture is not being brought in at this time. So they would attack our biggest export-earning industry with a carbon charge. This would be the only country in the world that would be attacking that industry with a carbon charge. And they would be doing it in a way that is going to, at the same time, create a growing economy! Go figure how that is going to work. That is the Labour-Green economic model, which is rubbish. It is total rubbish.

Those members come into this House high and mighty, like some kind of false prophets that have had some ability sent to them to come and tell us that they are here to deliver the world from evil and failure and that. The real world is one where you have to pay your way. The Green members sit there enjoying this place, flying on planes all around the country, and travelling in cars all around the country, not doing their bit. If they believe that New Zealand needs to do our bit, why do they not do their bit? But, no, they want to have a first-class standard of living, and they want somebody else to pay for it. They want to be able to turn their eyes away from it and say: “It never happened under my watch. I was perfect. I was innocent. I was cleaner than white.” Well, look in the mirror and see what you actually do, and look at the truth in your life.

The Green Party and the Labour Party have a second fundamental thing that they want to do, and that is that they want to set a carbon price. When they set that carbon price at $10—because that is the next stage of their argument: it is not just to deny agriculture; it is to set a carbon price—that will then lead to higher costs on New Zealand consumers. The very people those members purport to look after will be paying through the nose for their policies, and that is not in the best interests for New Zealand, going forward.

That was a short and interesting contribution from that member opposite, David Bennett. Probably—

💬 Hon Members: Short.

It was short, say my colleagues. They are more than willing to agree with that statement.

There is actually not much to say. I think that speech spoke for itself, but I do want to take up some of the earlier points raised in the debate on this matter, and in particular, firstly, some of the points raised by Andrew Williams, who indicated that New Zealand First would not be supporting this bill, the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

I was confused by some of his logic in his argument, because some of it, to me, seemed to be an argument for supporting the bill, and some of it was against. He was concerned about the cost to taxpayers of the international Kyoto agreement. We have signed up as a country to the agreement. Indeed, Jenny Shipley signed up to it originally, and it was ratified by Helen Clark. So we know that is something that has happened.

The original emissions trading scheme that was brought into this Parliament was supported by that member’s party, the New Zealand First Party. So New Zealand First supported it coming into legislation. If it is opposing the bill on the basis of the fact that it will now cost taxpayers more to meet those obligations, then that I can understand, because that is indeed the effect of the bill. The bill is designed to increase the subsidy to polluters, to prolong the period in which polluters are not in the scheme, and to make sure that polluters do not begin to meet the costs of their pollution, thereby keeping industries trapped as they are today and without change—in effect, discouraging businesses from making positive contributions in the climate change area.

The bill, as it was originally drafted, was designed to encourage businesses to consider carefully their investment decisions when making decisions around future infrastructure and investments, to ensure that they did not invest in carbon-intensive activities unless they thought they had a very real advantage internationally in that area and, therefore, could afford the offsets that would be required for whatever activity that might be. That might be for activities around mining and producing the materials necessary to make windmills, which make a longer-term contribution, or solar panels, or whatever it is. There are reasons, as we know, that many of today’s activities that are regarded as amongst the dirtier activities are actually required, in the shorter term, to take our country forward.

The scheme, as it was designed, was designed to ensure that those industries that were engaged in those things that had an environmental cost were encouraged to offset that cost, and also to consider whether there would not be a better way of doing things. The changes proposed in this bill make that question a little less directly posed, because the carbon price is effectively lowered with the two-for-one deal extended indefinitely by this Government. So already the Government had offered to pay for half of the pollution made by those industries that have not transitioned to a lower carbon solution. Now it is saying it will do that for ever, and again is advantaging those businesses, at the cost of taxpayers generally, because, of course, it is the taxpayers—when the Government offers those subsidies to polluters—as a whole who end up paying for meeting our Kyoto obligations that the Government has signed up to. So it is, effectively, a scheme that is designed so that taxpayers pick up more of the bill. It seems, I guess, at least consistent with the kind of ill-thought-through legislation we have often seen this National Government bring to the House: legislation that increases costs on business, and that means the taxpayer picks up the bill.

But I want to strongly suggest that it is foolish for the long-term future of this country. The original scheme was itself fairly modest. It set out expectations of a future carbon price, and asked businesses to be making decisions, and consumers to be making decisions, that helped transfer New Zealand into a future lower carbon economy that would be competitive in the years to come and also, obviously, concerned with doing its fair share and its bit towards reducing emissions on our planet.

We know and we acknowledge, and the countries that signed up to Kyoto acknowledge, that the world needs to move to a low-carbon future if there is going to be sustainable life on this planet. In order to do that, we need mechanisms to achieve that. An emissions trading scheme is just one such mechanism. The Government signed up to the Kyoto obligation. It is not at this stage proposing to renege on its international obligations. It is not proposing that we pull out of the UN agreement we have signed. It has said: “We’ll meet the costs, we’ll meet the whatever billion dollars it costs, but we’re actually going to shove that on to the taxpayers. We’re not going to encourage businesses to change. We’re not going to provide the incentives. We’re going to provide the subsidies to not change. We’re going to encourage businesses to stay stagnant. We’re not going to encourage them to change, and we’re certainly not going to reward those, relatively, that are making the positive change.”

I think that is disappointing. I think that is very disappointing, because this is a Government that talks a lot about business but often makes changes that are actually bad for business. Again, this legislation actually increases the uncertainty for business. We know that businesses that face costs associated with their emissions are not always going to be happy about that. When I worked on the original legislation I remember talking to businesses of higher energy intensity. People who were their representatives told me: “Look, we will squeal. We will squeal if you put a price on carbon. But we’ll squeal a lot louder if we don’t have some certainty around it, if we don’t have a neat transition in.”

What businesses really want is certainty for planning, so they can make wise investment decisions that are in the interests of their business. The role of the Government is to make sure that those wise business investment decisions are aligned with the wider interests of society. What we see clearly in this bill is a Government that is reneging on its responsibility to align the wider interests of society with business interests.

Let me give some specific examples. The transition phase—National expects to end the transition phase by putting a date back in using its review system. That creates regulatory uncertainty. In the agricultural sector the National Government intends that agriculture will enter at a date set by its review of the scheme. Again, that is creating uncertainty. Businesses cannot plan in that environment. It will depend upon the international negotiations, the Government of the day, and a range of other factors. It is very hard to do business planning on that basis. So it is disappointing for business.

It is particularly disappointing in the agricultural sector, where the costs to be imposed were just 5 percent of pollution. Although it would have placed New Zealand dairy products at a premium place in the market, because it would be shown that we were taking our international obligations seriously, instead we have a situation where New Zealand is seen to be fading away from its international obligations. It has high per capita emissions, and our international reputation is taking a battering.

On top of that, we have a situation where foresters are the losers. In this updated scheme we have a likelihood of forestry going downhill. There will be job losses. In the electorate of Mr McClay, who chaired the Finance and Expenditure Committee, we will have job losses in the forestry sector directly. Forestry is the real loser in the way in which this scheme suppresses the carbon price indefinitely. The amendments that were put up in the name of Moana Mackey included one very good amendment that would have seen some guarantee, at least, of some of the units having some value, which would have advantaged the foresters, but we saw there that that was defeated by the Government, because it does not want a price signal in the market. Effectively, it is saying it does not want a market solution.

This Government seems determined to put all of the costs back on to the taxpayers, and I think that is very disappointing—very disappointing. I personally believe that markets are often a very good solution. If they are properly regulated, they make excellent servants; they just make terrible masters. When we let the markets rule when they are clearly errant—when they are not working—we allow them to make us their servants. This is disappointing because we as taxpayers are carrying the can for this bad legislation. That is why the Labour Party opposes this legislation forcefully and regards the passage of this legislation as a great disappointment to New Zealanders and an embarrassment, really, for this Parliament.

I rise to speak to the final reading of the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Specifically, this bill seeks to modify the emissions trading scheme. As a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee, I can honestly say that I believe that, as a country, we do our fair share in regards to this. Broadly speaking, this Government intends to maintain incentives for reducing emissions without loading more costs on households and businesses. Our emissions trading scheme is helping to contribute to a stronger and more productive economy. These are arguments that have been played out many times, not only in the select committee but also in the previous readings, speeches, and debates that have been brought through today. It is straightforward and sensible—something that the person who has just sat down in the Opposition benches, David Clark, will probably always fail to appreciate, but that is his loss. This is a pragmatic series of measures that have been put together with a sensible approach in these troubled economic times.

My colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith posed two very sensible questions, which the opposing voices have not been able to answer. What other countries have included agricultural emissions? None that are intending to—not very many. Apparently, Australia, South Korea, Japan, China, and possibly some American states might look at introducing emissions trading schemes. There is political mayhem in their own countries about this, and it is unlikely that anyone is going to do it before 2015. I would like to reassure those who are sensibly following this debate and these discussions that this Government will be monitoring other countries’ contributions very closely. The emissions trading scheme should be reviewed in 2015, but that will follow the development of a new global agreement.

The other interesting question that I think the Hon Dr Nick Smith posed, which again was not answered by anyone else on the opposing side of the argument, is how doubling the costs from 1 January next year will actually help us in one of the biggest challenges facing our nation, which is to increase jobs. It will not, at all. Members opposite have avoided that question, because they know that the proposals that they are putting forward, the la-la land stuff that we heard from the Greens, is completely unlikely to do anything to improve our job situation.

I must say, and my colleague David Bennett touched on this, that the Greens, with the nonsense about false prophets, the holier-than-thou nonsense that was delivered to us—it would almost be laughable if it was not quite so tedious and self-righteous. I would urge them to get a grip on the reality around these arguments if they want to make a useful contribution to this House. I commend this bill to the House.

I understand that this is a split call. The Hon David Cunliffe—5 minutes.

I appreciate the opportunity to take a 5-minute call towards the end of this debate on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. It is often the role at the end of the third reading to do a bit of a sweep-up of the arguments that have been mounted by the opposing side, and also the key issues from our own side. Perhaps to start at the highest level, what is the order of logic here? Is the climate changing? Resoundingly, the world’s scientists say that, yes, it is. Is that change generated by human-induced emissions? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there is a 95-plus percent probability that we will get a human-induced change between 1 degree and 6 degrees Celsius this 21st century. If that does not sound a lot, 6 degrees in one century is species threatening. That is our species. That is a catastrophe. Let us hope and pray that that does not come to pass, but there is certainly a very high probability, 95-plus percent, that we are in the danger zone already.

Can we stop it? Is the science good enough? Do we know the causality? Yes, we can, as Barack Obama would say—and good on him for getting a second term. Climate change denying did not help Mitt Romney with the American voters. Can we stop it? Yes, we can. We know the causalities. We know the mechanisms. We know that it is methane, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and sulphur dioxide. We know that 53 percent of our emissions come from agriculture and the rest from transport and industry. Having an emissions trading scheme in New Zealand without agriculture as part of it provides an inappropriate subsidy to farming, and it provides an inefficient penalty to industry, transport, consumers, and, of course, taxpayers, who are picking up the tab.

Is there an economy/environment trade-off here? The Government’s arguments are based upon that assumption. As my colleague David Clark has, I think very eloquently, pointed out, that assumption is false. Indeed, getting price signals right so that they contain the signals for investment and business to take account of environmental needs is something that both sides of the House should surely strive to agree on. In fact, a sensible emissions trading scheme does represent the middle ground in this debate. It is an economic instrument. It is designed to help commerce take the long-term view and find an equilibrium position that is pro-economy and pro-environment.

What about the jobs argument, raised by Maggie Barry? Well, you know, there are lots of jobs in smart agriculture. I was in, I think, David Bennett’s electorate last week, on a Fonterra dairy farm—I do not think it was yours, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, but it might have been—and the dairy farmer said to me: “What we really want is a reliable price on carbon, because then we would know what we were managing to. It would support our efforts towards greater sustainability in the dairy industry.” Farmers who are managing effluent and other issues wanted to see a carbon price.

Then there is the forestry industry. Without a carbon price we are restricting the ability to develop carbon sinks and forests, which will be of long-term benefit to New Zealand. We are restricting the ability of that industry to grow.

I will say a couple of words on contributions from the National speakers. Nick Smith—the tragedy of Dr Nick Smith is that with all his intellect, I would warrant, with a good dose of goodwill towards this issue, he seems to have missed the point that he is being used. The token Bluegreen element from his side is not reflected in mainstream National policy, and his advice to his colleagues has been largely ignored. Then on to Todd McClay—there are no such qualms there. He turns a blind eye to the needs of the forestry industry in his own electorate, just as Mr Bennett has to the interests of sustainable dairy and other agricultural industries.

In the last contribution to this debate, in the second reading, I was pretty passionate about this, not just as an MP but as a father. Because when you put all the economic arguments aside, and you put all the scientific details aside, and you put all the partisan bickering aside, we are left with an inescapable fact that in our lifetime, our children’s, and our grandchildren’s, these chickens come home to roost. The climate is changing. Super-storm Sandy may have impacted the US presidential election. It was without precedent in the United States. Mitt Romney, the climate change denier, did not get the job.

New Zealanders know what the right thing to do is. They do not welcome a bill that is gutting the emissions trading scheme and that could have found a sensible middle ground—

Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to oppose the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. With the Arctic melting, super-storms, droughts, floods, heat waves killing people right now, and the global temperature inexorably increasing, here in New Zealand our Parliament is passing a bill to gut our country’s main response to climate change. Climate change is real. Climate change is happening, and climate change is hitting us faster and worse than scientists predicted only a few years back.

In my previous speeches I talked about my motivations for opposing this bill. I talked about my children and my desire to leave them a safe climate. In the last call I talked about how a carbon price signal through a strong emissions trading scheme was the main economic opposition to opposing this bill. What we are doing by gutting the emissions trading scheme, our main mechanism to reduce emissions, is going to cost us all. It is going to cost taxpayers, who are subsidising it. It is going to cost the country with the increase in fuel bills and sham credit imports. But we are also missing the boat. We are missing the biggest economic opportunity of our century, which is to invest in, and transition to, a clean economy.

But in this speech I do not want to talk a great deal about the detail in this bad bill, this bill that significantly weakens the emissions trading scheme, removes agriculture from it, and entrenches those sham credits and those State subsidies for polluters. I mean, we all know it is bad for the environment and the economy. The Government benches know it is bad for the environment and the economy. That is why we have seen such a rushed, shoddy process. Everyone in the country knows it is a bad bill for the environment and the economy. With this bill, and the weakening of the emissions trading scheme that we have seen before—the removal of other measures to tackle climate change in New Zealand—the public are hearing the message, loud and clear, that this Government does not take the climate seriously.

Where do we go from here? That is what I would rather talk about in this speech. The Government has clearly shown it will not act on this fundamental environmental, economic, and, most of all, moral challenge. If the Government will not act, it is up to the people. The challenge for Kiwis and communities now is to build a movement to make it impossible for any Government of any hue not to act on the climate. We need to hit the streets, we need to organise. We need to speak loudly the scientific truth about climate change and what it means. It is that 6 degrees that the International Energy Agency is warning us about. It is about just saying no to new coal and to risky oil. We need to give people hope that we can act and we can rise to the biggest challenge of our time.

In 4 weeks’ time a thousand young Kiwis are gathering in Auckland for Power Shift, and this is where I take my inspiration from. This is where the leadership, the passion, and the honesty to address this great challenge comes from. I hope that we can triumph over this challenge. I believe we can put our global, long-term interests based on the science first, over the narrow, short-term thinking, partisan politics, and vested corporate interests. I believe we can do that. I believe New Zealand does matter to the world. I believe our emissions do matter. The fact is, per capita, we have got one of the highest emissions per person on the planet. We can also show leadership.

The answers are obvious. They are available right now and they will benefit our economy, because what we are talking about—tackling climate change—is about jobs. It is about new jobs in clean energy. It is new jobs in energy efficiency, new jobs in forestry, new jobs in transport, and new jobs in smart farming. It is about farmers and city dwellers working together, coming together, for localised food production. It is about people installing insulation in their homes. It is about communities coming together and investing in a wind turbine. It is about Kiwis being able to put sustainable biofuels in their fuel tanks. It is about Kiwi firms putting solar panels on people’s homes. It is about Kiwi businesses innovating, exporting, and manufacturing. It is about measuring the things that really matter. It is about tackling climate change to give our kids a safe future.

Tackling climate change is not the cost you hear about from those Government benches; it is the biggest economic opportunity of the century. This bill just leaves a bigger bill for the taxpayer, but it misses that opportunity. We can rise. I believe we can rise to this big economic, environmental, and moral challenge. We are not going to do it with the leadership we see there, so it is up to the people. It is up to the people. We can do this. I do have hope. After all, what is at stake is our future—our planet. Kia ora.

I am proud to rise as the final speaker in this third reading of the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. It has been very clear from the National speakers in this debate that we are 100 percent committed to a clean, green future. Unlike the previous Green speaker, Gareth Hughes, I can say that—having witnessed it in the Taupō electorate—the emissions trading scheme is actually driving investment in renewable energy. It is driving investment in energy efficiency.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: It was—it was.

It is driving investment in tree-planting, and that is providing jobs in the Taupō electorate, which I think is important. Thank you.