Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme Agricultural Obligations) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme Agricultural Obligations) Amendment Bill.

SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website.

Hon SIMON WATTS: I move, That the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme Agricultural Obligations) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Primary Production Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 1 November 2024.

This bill will amend the Climate Change Response Act 2022 to keep agriculture out of the emissions trading scheme (ETS). It will pave the way for us to develop a fair and sustainable pricing system for agriculture that reduces emissions without sending that production offshore for farmers who are less efficient than they are here in New Zealand. This bill supports the Government coalition agreements and the National Party’s manifesto. It delivers on action number 12 of the quarter two action plan to finalise policy to keep agriculture out of the emissions trading scheme. But not only that, it actually supports farmers.

Agriculture is the backbone of the New Zealand economy. It contributes 81 percent of goods exported and New Zealand - grown produce feeds over 40 million people worldwide. This Government is committed to supporting our farmers and the sector to reduce its emissions in a way that does not put farmers out of business and shifts production offshore. Currently, under the Climate Change Response Act, agricultural processes will begin to pay for emissions associated with the fertiliser and livestock that they process from 1 January 2025. Animal farmers will begin reporting their on-farm emissions from 1 January 2026, and paying for those emissions from 1 January 2027.

Modelling commissioned by officials suggests that requiring agricultural processes to pay for their emissions under the emissions trading scheme would have a negative impact on both farm production and farm revenue, particularly for the sheep and beef sector. In our current fiscal environment, we cannot let agricultural production be sent offshore. Additionally, if agricultural processes are required to pay for on-farm emissions, that may mean that they pass these costs directly on to farmers, regardless of whether the farmers’ emissions efficiency rates are what they are. This means that there will be no incentive for farmers to reduce emissions and there will be no financial recognition for their individual effort.

The obligations on animal farmers that start from 2026 would add additional problems. These obligations could require up to 100,000 animal farmers registered, reporting, and paying for their emissions in the ETS. This would be overly burdensome for small farmers and would significantly increase the number of participants in that scheme, which could disrupt the operation of the scheme. This is why this bill is necessary.

In short, without it, the current system will present significant administrative, implementation, and compliance costs to our domestic agriculture sector. This Government is taking the steps necessary to support the development of the right tools and technology for farmers to reduce their emissions. We will invest $400 million over the next four years to accelerate the commercialisation of tools and technology to reduce on-farm emissions with on-farm measurement systems in place by 2025. This Government has commissioned a methane science and target review to consider the methane science and targets for consistency with no additional warming. These are only some of the actions that this Government is taking. More will be set out in the second emissions reduction plan, which we will begin consultation on soon.

In my maiden speech I spoke about how challenging times will require us to work together in the interests of all New Zealanders, and that is what this coalition Government is doing. Minister McClay and I recently announced that the Government has disestablished the He Waka Eke Noa - Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership. Instead, we are setting up a pastural sector group to work directly with the sector in a way that’s fit for purpose. The Government has committed to doubling the value of exports in the next 10 years to help rebuild our economy. We cannot allow production to move offshore to less carbon-efficient farmers. And that’s why this is important work that we work with the sector, not against it, to ensure consumers’ expectations of sustainability are met while maintaining profitability in the sector.

As I outlined earlier, this bill is an initial step in this Government’s plan to support farmers to reduce their emissions. The Government has signalled our commitment to introduce a fair and sustainable pricing system for on-farm emissions by 2030, and keeping agriculture out of the ETS is a key part of that commitment. I look forward to working with the sector, iwi Māori, and the public as we implement this plan and deliver on our climate change commitment. I am proud to commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I wouldn’t say it is my pleasure to take a call on this bill. Labour will not be supporting this legislation because this is a piece of legislation that is making a poor choice and it is a piece of legislation that is taking New Zealand backwards. If ever there was a can in New Zealand politics in the late 20th and early 21st centuries that has been continuously kicked down the road, it is that of agricultural emissions and where it fits in our emissions trading schemes (ETS), and, indeed, our emissions pricing schemes. This is something that it is time that we as a country had a clear plan for.

Unfortunately, what we’re seeing in this bill that has been brought to the House by the Government is clear evidence that there is no plan. The only plan is to further kick that can down the road and to delay the inevitable, which, for many decades, has been tumbling along. When we see the objectives of this bill are twofold—to keep agriculture out of the ETS by repealing all New Zealand’s emission training schemes obligations for agricultural activities from the Climate Change Response Act of 2002; and also ensuring that agricultural emissions are not subject to surrender obligations under the New Zealand ETS, and all the languages about removal and prevention—once again, we are seeing not a glimmer of what the vision of this Government might be, what the plan might be, and where they may be going.

Farm-related emissions—biogenic emissions—make up 49 percent of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. Of those, methane makes up the majority of those. It is agreed across this House, and there is multipartisan support, that we need to reach net zero by 2050. That is an area that we have agreement on, but what we have to have is this Government start to front up and tell us how they plan to do this. They don’t plan to do it in the same way that we as a Government plan to do it, and that was by having a plan, that was by actually cutting emissions. The Minister of Climate Change continually telling us “Wait till you say see emissions reduction plan 2.” is not good enough. We need to have transparency around what those plans are and we need to be debating them across this House.

When the zero carbon Act was passed in 2019, it was a watershed moment for New Zealand. It was a moment when we could come together, put politics aside, and agree on a direction of travel as a country in this House. We are a better country for having done that. But it is disappointing that we’re not seeing us grasp the most difficult of nettles by having a plan. It is vital that we have a plan to reduce our agricultural emissions, to meet our various obligations, not at least of all our agreed target to be net zero by 2050, to meet our nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement and various other international obligations. But I would also point to the economic necessity for New Zealand to meet these obligations. I would like to acknowledge the work and the huge amount of work that was done in our Government by my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor—not only as the Minister of Agriculture but as a man who went and negotiated successful trade deals in both the EU and the UK, and understood that market access into these most lucrative of markets was actually contingent on us having some ambition in climate action—that includes agriculture.

If we want to continue to sell our high value agricultural products into certain markets, us being an international laggard is simply not going to cut it. We have within those trade agreements clauses that speak to the necessity for both parties of those agreements to fulfil their international climate obligations, and time and time and time again we are seeing from this Government a walking back of what action is being taken to fulfil those obligations. In this case, in this piece of legislation that we’re debating here today, that is around agricultural emissions. We’re seeing it in transport, we’re seeing it in industrial and process heat, we’re seeing it in every part of the New Zealand economy—a walking back of the actions that we were taking to get us there.

What we have is a Government, in doing this, that is putting New Zealanders’ future at risk—not only our ability to get our agricultural products into high value markets and to fulfil our trade obligations but the jobs of the future as well. Thank you.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. It’ll come as no surprise that the Greens will be opposing the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme Agricultural Obligations) Amendment Bill today, so I’d like to walk through some of the rationale for it.

Firstly, I just wanted to acknowledge my forebears, particularly in the Green Party, the likes of whom the Hon Dr Megan Woods did, particularly the Hon James Shaw for the work that he has done, because, funnily enough, with the new path that this Government has decided to embark on, with yet another working group, they may indeed find that He Waka Eke Noa was “He Waka Eke Nowhere”. Once again, we are seeing the can kicked down the road when it comes to climate action.

This Government also tells us that they want to see pricing on agricultural emissions by 2030. Let’s just unpack why agricultural emissions should be priced in the first place, because I think that’s kind of a foundational argument, which has kind of been avoided thus far in the debate. Agriculture is currently the only sector within our economy that does not carry with it a price, in terms of the emissions trading scheme. It is the only sector which currently is excluded from the emissions trading scheme. Its inclusion is a debate that we have been having in this place, in Parliament and across politics in this country, for approximately 20-odd years, and we have not yet found any meaningful conclusion where farmers across the board, or rather the peak bodies that represent them, will say, “Hey, guess what? We actually want to be priced.” As it turns out, that would happen to be the role of Government, to make those necessary, bold decisions to say that we are going to treat industries across our economy equitably.

Let’s talk about that equity. Well, as has been pointed out by the Minister of Climate Change, particularly speaking about export numbers, we should provide a little bit more context here. Agriculture is responsible for 5 percent of the GDP in this country—5 percent of GDP in this country. Those aren’t my figures; those figures are from Infometrics.

Mike Butterick: 82 percent of export income.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: And, to those speakers presently heckling me, or rather those members in the National Party presently heckling me, 5 percent of our GDP is responsible for more than half of our emissions profile.

Mike Butterick: Different gas.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Yet, it is the only sector that’s currently not priced for those emissions within our emissions trading scheme. What that means, to that National member presently heckling, is that every other part of the economy that this Government professes to care so much about carries the burden for the sector presently not priced.

Interestingly, as was canvassed at scrutiny week with the climate Minister, and, actually, the Minister of Finance as well, this Government is also saying that they are still committed to what is currently baked into the legislation, for a 10 percent reduction in methane emissions by 2030. Yet, we have no idea of the pathway to get there, because they’re kicking the can down the road on this pricing issue. More so than that, something which is very deserving of interrogation, is the fact that this bill also takes us back to the future on reporting requirements for processors’ emissions. This is a really, really important point, because, actually, it wasn’t until 2020 that there was publicity given to processor-level emissions, but it was actually in 2011 when processors were required to report that information to Government bodies. The Government, in this bill, with the swipe of a pen, is taking away those reporting requirements.

The only conclusion that we can come to as a result of that is that they just don’t want to know, so, therefore, they don’t have to deal with the issue. This is really something that I’d like to hear from the Hon Todd McClay about. Why, the Hon Todd McClay, is your Government removing requirements for reporting on emissions, because you have committed in your coalition agreements to making decisions based on data and evidence? Further, the climate Minister was crowing about the fact that there is a new working group when it comes to the idea of no additional warming. Here, I would implore all members to look at the evidence and the data that is already there amply. The Climate Change Commission released three draft pieces of advice at the beginning of this year, two of which referred explicitly—and they haven’t done this before—to the agreement between the National Party and the ACT Party, and said that if we were to pursue that no-additional-warming framing that they are putting out there, we would see a far higher burden on every other household and sector of the economy in this country. But, more so than that, to purse such a policy position would obscure the bigger question of whether we should pull our weight and reach our targets internationally.

Now, those targets are often spoken about as though they’re some kind of abstract numbers on a page, but those targets are actually the scientific reality, the scientific fundamentals, for life on Earth as we know it—actually, for food-growing capacity, which this Government says they care about. It also is the case that those nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement put us on the hook, by 2030, for anywhere between $3.6 billion and $24 billion, and the difference is whether we get our act together and do something domestically. The Greens oppose this legislation.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a great joy to be here today giving benefit to this bill and ensuring that it passes. This bill, the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme Agricultural Obligations) Amendment Bill, this ag emissions trading scheme (ETS) backstop, has been hanging like the sword of Damocles over the farming sector for the last six years. One of the best things, or perhaps the only good thing, that came out of the whole He Waka Eke Noa process was the Government report in October 2022 which laid out the costs of He Waka Eke Noa, but it also laid out the costs of agriculture going into the ETS.

Chlöe Swarbrick: How much does your group cost, Andrew? We don’t know.

Hon ANDREW HOGGARD: Well, let me give you some numbers on what this will cost rural New Zealand. No, I’ll give you the cost from the figures.

Chlöe Swarbrick: No, but give us the costs on your working group.

Hon ANDREW HOGGARD: No, no, no, calm it.

SPEAKER: I’d ask two things: one is, I don’t need to know the numbers, nor does an interjector in your speech.

Hon ANDREW HOGGARD: OK. Milk production will be down by 8 percent under the ETS; lamb by 19 percent; beef, 44 percent; wool, 18 percent; venison, 37 percent. We introduced the ag into the ETS. Those are the reductions you will see. Based off the latest situation for primary industries, what does that equal? From the dairy industry, $2.4 billion; from the lamb, $600 million; beef, $2.1 billion; wool, $68 million; venison, $81 million. All up, that’s around $5.3 billion gone from regional New Zealand.

When you think about the economic multipliers—somewhere between 1.8 to 2.7—that’s going to feel like $10 to $15 billion to regional New Zealand. We heard before, “Oh, this will take New Zealand backwards. Implementing this will take New Zealand backwards.” These are costs rural New Zealand, regional New Zealand, and New Zealand cannot afford. You know, we’ve heard about “What about the market access?” Well, no offence, but we didn’t get a hell of a lot of market access for dairy or beef in the EU trade deal. So, I’m sorry, but I don’t see how that’s relevant to this situation. And we’re the best in the world. We have the lowest footprint. If they’re going to say, “Oh, you can’t export your food here, because of your emissions.”, well, our emissions are lower than theirs.

We’ve heard about this whole thing around, “Oh, the Climate Change Commission says it’s going to cost some people more.” Well, the problem there is because we have a very silly nationally determined contribution that was put in place by the previous Government. It didn’t take into account split gas. So, internationally, we have a non - split gas approach. Nationally, we have a split-gas approach. We’re charging ourselves too much, and that’s why they came out with that report. But I think it’s important we’ve just got to go back to the whole point: methane is a short-lived gas. No additional warming makes sense. That is what the basis of the Paris accord is—limit warming to an additional 1.5 to 2 degrees. We are aiming to ensure that New Zealand agriculture doesn’t add anything to that. That is a sensible and smart goal to work for, not reducing agriculture by $5 billion and making New Zealand poorer. These are sensible, smart decisions that New Zealand needs to take into account. So I commend this bill to the House, and well done.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme Agricultural Obligations) Amendment Bill. What I’d like to say first is that we have world-class farmers that are probably the most efficient farmers in the world. They’re also facing some unique challenges and those unique challenges at the moment are affecting the agricultural sector. This bill here actually provides some support to them.

New Zealand First supports this bill because it aligns with the party’s principle of safeguarding the interest of farmers and ensuring that climate policies are pragmatic and effective. By removing the agricultural obligations from the New Zealand emissions trading scheme, the bill removes unnecessary compliance costs and administrative burdens on farmers. It recognises the impracticality of a one-size-fits-all approach to emission pricing and supports the split-gas approach that is more suitable to the New Zealand agricultural context. New Zealand First believes that this bill is a step towards achieving a balanced and a fair climate policy that supports both environmental sustainability and the agricultural economy. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā rā tātau e te Whare. E tū ana ahau ki te waha i ngā kōrero mā Te Pāti Māori i te rangi nei, ā, e kaha whakahē ana i tēnei o ngā pire e takahi ana i tō mātou nei taiao, ō mātou nei pepeha, ki tōku iwi ake, ki tōku rohe ake o Hauraki/Waikato, ki te awa o ōku tūpuna, arā ko Waikato. Ka tiki ake au i tētehi o ngā tongikura a Kīngi Tāwhiao i a ia e noho ana ki te riu o Waikato: “wai hōpuapua ka mimiti noa, nei ko Waiarona; he manawa whenua e kore e mimiti.”

[Thank you, Mr Speaker, indeed greetings to us all in the House. I stand to give voice to the statements of the Māori Party today, and we strongly oppose this bill that abuses our environment, our expressions of identity, to my very own iwi, my very own electorate of Hauraki/Waikato, to the river of my ancestors—i.e., the Waikato. I recall the proverbial saying of King Tāwhiao while he was in residence in the Waikato basin: “ponds of water will diminish, like Waiarona; a deep water spring will never diminish.”]

Just as the waters of the Waikato spring deep from beneath the earth, Waikato people, like the river we take our name from, we will never go dry.

Te Pāti Māori is deeply concerned about the changes to climate change legislation that is not mokopuna focused. What this bill does: this bill amends the Climate Change Response Act 2002 to remove pakihi ahuwhenua—agriculture—from the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme.

This bill does away with He Waka Eke Noa, a partnership effort between Government, iwi, and the primary sector to address climate change in pakihi ahuwhenua. Te Pāti Māori is concerned that the words “iwi” and “Maōri do not appear once in this new legislation.

Why Te Pāti Maōri opposes this bill: we oppose this bill in the name of mana motuhake. These changes are being proposed without consultation or input from te iwi Maōri, whereas He Waka Eke Noa was at least particularly developed in consultation with Maōri. We are not included at all in the pastoral sector group that will replace He Waka Eke Noa or Māori whakaaro.

We oppose this bill in the name of mana ōrite. Māori have been locked out of the conversation around climate change in agriculture. Māori farmers who want to transition into sustainable farming will not be supported to do so.

We oppose this bill in the name of mana mokopuna. This bill was a part of a suite of policies that will allocate climate change and ensure our biggest polluters are let off the hook. The polluters should pay; instead, it will be our mokopuna.

Hei whakakapi ake i ngā kōrero a Te Pāti Māori i tēnei rangi: ko te toto o te tangata he kai; ko te oranga o te tangata he whenua: While food provides for the blood in our veins, our health is drawn from the land. Nō reira koinā aku koha ki tēnei o ngā pire; e kaha whakahē ana Te Pāti Māori.

[To conclude the statements of the Māori Party today: while food provides for the blood in our veins, our health is drawn from the land. And so these are my contributions to this bill; the Māori Party strongly opposes it.]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We, of course, are supporting this legislation. It’s extremely important so we can lay the foundations and groundwork to actually find an enduring solution to agricultural emissions reduction. Because, sadly, after six years of the last Government, that wasn’t achieved; the only thing that was achieved was “Do what we say or else we’re going to tax you, and for some of you farmers, we will tax you out of existence.” Now, if we were the worst carbon-emitting food producers in the world, that would be an argument with merit. However, we’re not. We’re some of the best—if not the best—most efficient food producers with the lowest carbon footprint.

And all that happens if you put a tax upon agriculture—which is what the last Government legislated for by putting agriculture into the emissions trading scheme (ETS) next year; of course, it’s not in at the moment, it comes into effect on 1 January without this change—is that jobs and production goes overseas. What that means is that in the European Union and the United Kingdom and America, where their farmers produce food with a greater carbon footprint and more emissions than New Zealand farmers have, they will produce the food, the climate will be worse off, New Zealand will be poorer if farmers go out of business, and we won’t do that.

But we are absolutely committed to meeting New Zealand’s international obligations when it comes to reducing emissions. The members opposite are right: the agriculture rural sector must play its part. But it must play its part in a way that doesn’t put them out of business and merely makes New Zealand feel like it’s done the right thing but sends those jobs and production overseas. Speakers from the Opposition have said, “Well, what’s the Government’s plan?” It’s really clear: we campaigned on it, we were elected, and we are putting it through. Number one, we will commit to having an independent review of the science and targets of methane against additional warming this year so we can set the target of what agriculture has to do.

You see, the last Government said by 2050 agriculture must reduce its methane emissions by between 24 and 47 percent. That’s not a business plan, that’s not a target; it’s a hope that they can sort it out later on. How about we come up with exactly what agriculture needs to do and then work with them, not tax them, but work with them to achieve that?

Number two, we said next year we’ll stand up a system for on-farm measurement of methane. So the Labour Government previously said “From 1 January we will tax you, but we haven’t even set up the system to know how much methane you are producing to measure so we can work out what the tax would be. So we’ll just chuck you into the ETS.” Well, we won’t do that; we’ll deliver on it next year. We’ve said a pricing system set up by 2030, and a pricing system, a price of tax is used for one of two things: it’s used so that you will change behaviour. The problem is, with what the Labour Government did, the behaviour they want to change is there’s no farming as a consequence because they’re not the tools, and their systems are not there to allow farmers to reduce emissions without reducing production—i.e., closing down farms—then that tax is actually just putting people out of business.

What we’re also doing is saying we’re going to invest much, much more in the research and development. And if you go and talk to our scientists in New Zealand, they are developing the solutions that New Zealand farmers and the world’s farmers will use to reduce emissions, reduce methane, produce the same amount or less—i.e., becoming much more efficient. And we announced $400 million and will continue with a lot more focus on that.

The final thing I guess I want to say is, yes, we have disbanded He Waka Eke Noa—because it was dead; there was no partnership. The farming sector worked tirelessly over many years to come up with solutions, and the previous Government, in part with Labour, but, largely, the Green Party that come to this Parliament and lecture everybody and said, “Well, we don’t accept that, we’ve got a better idea.”—and, therefore, it’s that point that they drove a great big diesel tractor through the middle of the so-called partnership and destroyed it. And so, yes, it’s gone, because it doesn’t exist anymore. In part, though, in its replacement, we’ve established a pasture sector group with just those that represent methane—i.e., pasture farmers, to find enduring solutions. Number one, they’re committed to reducing emissions; number two, they’re committed to doing it without reducing production; and, number three, the Opposition is right—we are going to work with them to achieve that because it is important for New Zealand and also it’s important for our economy.

At the Fieldays a week or so ago, the Labour Party turned up and said, “We are creating the red band group. And what we’re going to do is going to work with farmers, we’re going to cooperate with farmers, and we’re going to listen to you because we care about you, farmers.”—the Labour Party in Opposition. And the first thing they’ve done, they left their Red Bands that were shining at the door and they walked in here and said they are voting against this because farmers are bad people and they want to tax them. And I can say to members of the Labour Party, you shouldn’t have spent your own money on those Red Bands because you wasted that money. If you actually support agriculture, you would be supporting this in first reading so the committee can have a full discussion and debate against it, but, oh no, you want to tax them out of existence.

Thank you, Mr Speaker—a lot to respond to from that last speech. But I want to acknowledge the role of my parents in my thinking about both the rural economy and the environment. Because I have a mother who grew up in many rural areas throughout both islands—sorry to Stewart Island; both the main islands—and tells me all the time, “Rachel, make sure you’re not being mean to farmers.” That is one side of my growing up.

The other side, I have my father who is a historian, and a rural historian, who gets very excited about different types of grass that have grown over many years in this country and the type of sheep that feed on that grass and where we export to on refrigerated boats. So I am not from a rural upbringing at all, but I do come from this place. And, of course, most people in the House will know that I care very deeply about the environment and the very privileged position to be Labour’s environmental spokesperson.

Also, I care very deeply about our climate. Because, of course, if we have all of the terrible things that we know can happen with climate change, if we do not reduce our emissions, we know that we get more of the storm events, but we also know there comes sea-level rise, there comes changes to our climate of where different crops and the like can grow as well—so it’s extraordinarily important. It’s also extraordinarily important for our biodiversity. If we have a climate that changes too drastically, then our native indigenous species will go extinct, and that is not something that I want to happen.

So, in that context, why is that relevant to talking about this bill removing the backstop for agricultural emissions? It’s very clear. This bill amends the Climate Change Response Act, and that Climate Change Response Act happened before I was a member of this House, and parties agreed that we need to reduce our climate emissions. Not only do we have to adapt but we also have to decrease emissions. That is decarbonisation, and those emissions are across gases. So we say “decarbonisation” but we are not just talking about carbon; we are also talking about methane and nitrous oxide and some fluorides and other gases as well.

So we’ve all agreed that that has to happen. There’s a difference in opinion of how half of those emissions, being agricultural emissions, are reduced. We know that the last Government worked very hard—and I’m sitting next to the Hon Damien O’Connor, who worked very hard with the rural sector to try and work out a way through so that we can reduce those agricultural emissions. What happened is that there was a backstop in the Act, so that if that hard work and progress did not result in an agreement for a change, then there was a backstop so that the emissions were in the emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Now, what this bill does, of course, is remove that backstop. And we’ve heard from the members opposite that they have a plan. They have a plan to revise methane science. That is not a plan. They have a plan that maybe they’re going to have a pricing system by 2030. And, if that is the case—that there is going to be work towards a pricing system—then what is the problem with including a backstop in this ETS? They could amend the backstop, they could change the date, but that’s not here.

And this is all in the context of the $3 billion of cuts to climate emission reducing projects. This is in the context of the CERF being gone, the Climate Emergency Reduction Fund. This is in the context of the Spatial Planning Act being repealed and the Natural and Built Environments Act being repealed—all pieces of legislation that try to do much better planning to reduce those emissions. But that’s not happening, and agricultural emissions are not being reduced either. This is a shameful thing to be happening. This Government has no plan and I condemn this bill.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. As chair of the Environment Committee, I’m looking forward to having a full select committee process around this piece of legislation. As the previous member, the Hon Rachel Brooking, has just said, there are differing views. But on this side of the House, we trust our farmers. We take our commitments to climate change both domestically and internationally very seriously. I’m looking forward to hearing what submitters have to say in the select committee and I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a bill which takes New Zealand backwards, back to a time when we had no leadership on the Government meeting its obligations internationally to climate change and no pride in the role that New Zealand plays on the international stage of leadership as a small island nation in the Pacific and doing our bit for our Pacific neighbours to stop the effects of climate change, which are affecting us and our closest partners.

This is a disappointing and embarrassing piece of legislation, which takes us back to a time when it was not the role of Ministers of Cabinet to lead our agricultural sector to do the best they can possibly do, where it was not the role of Ministers of Cabinet to get out and have those conversations with our great farmers to do better and to plan for the future and to act in a way where their responsibility and the responsibility that they take to care for the environment, which we are so proud of, is well rewarded. No, they’ve gone for the lowest common denominator here. They’ve gone for a solution, in this bill, which represents stepping back into the worst players in the market getting rewarded and those who have done their best, those who we are most proud of in our agricultural sector, are being punished.

I say it takes leadership, because I have watched the Hon Damien O’Connor do exactly that—get out and have those hard conversations with the sector and earn their respect for that, and have a partnership that actually was getting us somewhere where great agricultural sector players were doing really well out of working closely with Government and making those arrangements happen, because they know that in 10 years from now and 20 years from now and 30 years from now, our agricultural sector depends on us honouring those commitments that New Zealand has internationally to our climate change goals and being the greenest, best performing sector that we can possibly be.

I’ve seen Ministers on this side of the House making hard decisions about the way that the Government prioritises our impact on climate change. I’ve seen things like the Climate Emergency Reduction Fund that the Hon Rachel Brooking talked about being used to make targeted investments in those sectors to help them improve their performance in emissions and make sure that we are planning for the future, because it does have to be Government alongside industry in this. We all want Government to be partnering with those people in the industry making decisions about our total emissions profile, and we know we can’t do that as Government alone. That’s the kind of leadership I’m talking about, and that’s not what we are seeing here in this bill.

So what is this bill? Well, it’s a clear indication to anyone watching today that the Government has no plan to address the impacts of agricultural emissions on climate. On one hand, they want us to believe that they will use the emissions trading scheme, which is a great scheme, to improve our emissions, but, on the other hand, they won’t do anything to help the agricultural sector become a part of that. So we have this tool now which is a dead duck in the water, because, really, it doesn’t apply to some sectors and it doesn’t apply to the sectors it needs to most.

We have a tool here which was world-leading. The emissions trading scheme is something we can all be proud of and is something which has been borrowed by a number of other jurisdictions and used to great effect overseas. But there’s always been this outstanding question of how agricultural emissions are going to be included in that or included in another market mechanism similar to that. We have now taken this away in this bill. There is no further forward momentum for those leaders in the sector to be able to draw on and bring people with them. Instead, we go back to a system where those people who do not see it as their obligation to care for the environment and do not see it as their obligation to do their part for the rest of the sector are the winners here. And that is bad decision making by this Government.

The Government are leaving farmers in the dark when they desperately need something clear about the road ahead. We need a proper policy which outlines where we are going with this and that allows us a cross-partisan way of having this conversation. They are doing everything they can to delay taking action on climate change with this kind of move, and it’s the wrong side of the debate to be on, because when we look back at this, we will see this legislation for what it is, which is hurting New Zealand’s reputation on the world stage, which is hurting New Zealand’s agricultural sector, which is hurting our exports, and which is hurting those farmers who are doing a great job now. I’m disappointed about this bill, I’m sad to see it progressing in the House, and I do not commend it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill is great news to New Zealand farmers, to the 360,000 New Zealanders that are employed in the sector, to the 70,000 businesses that are associated with it. New Zealand farmers are already the most carbon-efficient producers per unit of product in the world. Why would you penalise them by putting them in the emissions trading scheme when there’s no viable mitigations? That’s what the other side of the House would have had happen—reduce production here, resulting in that same production being driven overseas. Net result: increased global emissions and a poorer New Zealand. Our commitment is to keep our farmers farming, keep them doing what they do best, which is growing food, providing jobs, earning over 80 percent of our export income. That’s how we pay our bills. Our commitment is to also work with the sector, to provide the tools that are viable, to allow them to reduce their emissions while allowing them to keep the lights on. We back our farmers—we always have and we always will. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Primary Production Committee.

Instruction to Primary Production Committee