Urgency

I move, That urgency be accorded the passing through the remaining stages of the Climate Change Response (Auction Price) Amendment Bill.

This bill enables the setting of a confidential reserve price for auctions in the New Zealand emissions trading scheme. It’s essential to ensure that the clearing price in these auctions reflects the prevailing secondary market prices to prevent the sale of units significantly below the market price. And the reason that this is being done under urgency is because the first auction takes place on 17 March and this change needs to be in place before that auction happens. With tomorrow being a members’ day, there aren’t enough sitting days left to progress this bill one stage each day through its remaining stages, and so hence we’re having to use urgency to do it. The timescale that we put in place for this bill was designed to enable the maximum time for the select committee to consider it, compared to what would have been available had we brought it back in order to pass it through its remaining stages on a more regular timetable.