Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme—Forestry Conversion) Amendment Bill

Good morning. When we finished last evening, we were debating an instruction to the Environment Committee on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme—Forestry Conversion) Amendment Bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I also wanted to weigh in on this particular referral motion to the Environment Committee by the Minister Todd McClay. I think, like what the speakers mentioned last night, there is a particularly concerning trend where we’re looking at an incredibly truncated select committee stage. In this case, we’re looking at even just the default, and even if you’re looking at the lower end of that select committee process of being four months, instead of the full six months, what we’re seeing is a drastically truncated select committee process of seven weeks, which, to be perfectly honest, doesn’t give the public a lot of time to submit on it.

Now, I know that there are people who may be, potentially, looking at ways of amending the motion, but I just want to speak more broadly to the motion itself at this stage. One of the things that we do see as being the rationale for the truncated select committee stage going to 13 August 2025, as indicated in the motion, is the fact that according to the Minister, “The policy has been well signalled to the public through the second emissions reduction plan and our announcement on 4 December of last year.” But I think one of the things we need to be very clear on is that signalling to the public is very different from hearing from the public and consulting the public as part of our democratic process.

I think that particular positioning of just signalling at the end of last year doesn’t really stand, because there hasn’t been an opportunity for the public to submit on this bill or even to see this bill and the context of this bill. Indeed, the Minister himself has acknowledged that the bill adds some complexities to the emissions trading scheme’s registration. So there are a lot of details in this bill that are very technical by nature and will take time for the public to actually submit on it. Again, I don’t think that it is appropriate for us to have the truncated select committee stage of only seven weeks.

Additionally, the Minister commented in his address last night on the commitment to have the legislation in force by October 2025. There are a couple of things with that. Number one is: what is the issue? Like, for example, when we’re looking at a select committee report-back date of 13 August, from October 2025, if the legislation itself is dated that it will come into effect the day after Royal assent, that’s still a month and a half—seven weeks—in fact, between 13 August and October 2025. There’s more than enough time to extend the select committee stage, if the Government really cares about this bill, to actually put it on the Order Paper for the second reading, committee stage, and the third reading to be conducted within a two-week period, and particularly you could find any of the two sitting weeks in August to actually do something like this if you want the bill to be implemented in October.

Alternatively, you could actually push it out, for example, from 13 August to even just a few weeks later to give a few more weeks of time to, let’s say, 13 September—oh, maybe not 13 September, because there’s two recess weeks then, but the beginning of September—and you will then still have two sitting weeks at the beginning of September to be able to complete the bill for it to come into effect. Or alternatively, if you’re looking at it coming into force from August, August is a long month; there are 31 days. If it’s referring to any time in August, you can actually push the select committee and report-back date to the first sitting week of October, and there’ll still be sufficient time for us to do this and give the New Zealand public a little bit more time to consult on this bill. So I think it’s not impossible for us to delay it and give more time.

The other question I also have is: in this case, when we’re looking at the date of October 2025, why October 2025? What’s the rationale? What is hoped to be achieved before the end of the year, between October 2025 and December? Because again, if we’re able to look at having the legislation come into force, even just a little bit later, if it’s not a significant delay, we can actually push out the legislation date and also push out the date for the select committee stage as well. Because at the end of the day, this is an important bill that the Greens have supported to select committee stage because we wanted to see what the potential impact of the select committee process is. We also don’t think that having a seven-week select committee stage is appropriate for us to get as much information as possible from the officials about the fish-hooks to do with this legislation, bearing in mind that in those seven weeks not only will there be a submission period, a hearing period, but it will also require Parliamentary Counsel Office and other officials to help support drafting any amendments to the bill, which will also take weeks.

So, in fact, there are very little—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Everybody knows that.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: If that particular member thinks that everybody knows that, then why do we need a truncated seven-week stage and to add additional pressure to the select committee? It is, frankly, insulting and idiotic. This is the issue with this particular Government, because this Government claims they seem to know what the democratic process is, with some very senior members in this very House who have been here for ages. But, frankly, they seem to not understand the very basics of what a democratic consultation is.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Oh, you do?

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: And being a first-term MP, I seem to know what it’s like better than some long-term members in this House.

I actually do think that this is actually a really worthwhile debate. [Interruption] And I’m really glad, to the member, that I’m hearing a little mosquito buzzing in my ear, giving me additional things to talk about for the last three minutes of this particular contribution. So I very much thank that mosquito.

In terms of this, like I said, we would like to have a longer select committee stage, because we would like to be able to ask officials—this is complex—because we do want to hear from various ministries on this that are relevant to this, not only the Ministry for Primary Industries but the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and other officials as well. I do think that it is worthwhile—and I’m sure that other people will have contributions and will have amendments—for us to really look at the motion and particularly the report-back date of 13 August 2025. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise. I move, That the report-back date be a period of four months. I do so because that gives effect to some of the previous contributions that have been made by members on this side of the House last night.

In relation to this bill, for the benefit of those tuning in at home early this morning, the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme—Forestry Conversion) Amendment Bill—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: No, they’re tuning out.

TANGI UTIKERE: Well, they might be tuning out as we get to the Rt Hon Winston Peters later in the morning. I think he’s here because he knows that the Racing Industry Amendment Bill is on the list and he’s wanting us to get to it. But he will just have to wait until we get to that point.

It was really interesting. I was not in the House last night, but I did listen and watch the contributions of members, so I want to reflect on some of the concerns that I have with what is a shortened report-back date. There was some confusion last night, and, thankfully, the Minister was able to clarify what date he actually meant. Members on this side of the House thought that he said 30 August as opposed to 13 August. The amendment that I have proposed is slightly longer than that, but does give somewhat of a runway for the community to engage in this process.

I think it’ll be over, obviously, to the Environment Committee to work through the submission process, but I think it’s also very, very important that when the House issues an instruction to select committees, it is followed through. Despite what members in this House might say, it is the resolution of the House that specified direction that is what is important. I say that because we have had, in the past—in the recent past, actually—a situation where a Chair has been questioned about the decisions taken around the time frame that seemed to be at odds with what was, effectively, a referral period from this House. So that’s a matter for the Environment Committee.

However, in seeking a four-month report-back date, I would hope that that provides a little bit more certainty—well, it will provide certainty, because it’s specified—to the community to be able to engage in this submission process. Now, the good thing, of course, is that this is a bill that is going to go for a submission process. Unfortunately, we often see the modus operandi of this Government, which is that when bills are introduced under urgency, there is actually no select committee referral process. So that is helpful.

But this is a bill that is complex, and I don’t say that because that’s my own view around that; that is the view of Government Ministers that are responsible for shepherding this bill through the Parliament. In fact, New Zealand First Minister the Hon Mark Patterson indicated that in terms of the impact on rural communities—and he is the Minister that holds the rural communities portfolio—this is a significant issue. So one would have thought, actually, that if it is a significant issue, and that’s not, perhaps, a word or a descriptor that that particular Minister uses from time to time, but if he is saying that it is significant for rural communities, the ministerial warrant that he holds, then I would have thought that being able to engage with the rural and non-rural community for an extended period of time, albeit a shorter period than the normal six-month report-back process, would have been a no-brainer. So it is concerning that we are looking at 13 August in relation to that complexity.

It’s interesting, because last night I received an email from a constituent who was interested in the progress of this bill through the House. I indicated that it hadn’t actually made it through the House yet. What that demonstrates is that there is quite a level of interest in this. While fundamentally this might limit the amount or the quantity of land that could be basically used or converted to forestry for the purposes of the emissions trading scheme, this might impact on rural communities directly but it also has an indirect kind of relativity to a whole range of different community members. So this debate is about what is the appropriate length of time that this House would set aside for this matter to be looked into.

It’s interesting, because what the House heard last night from some Government members, by way of interjection, is that the public already know about this. Well, there are a lot of things that the public already know about; what’s really important, though, is: what are the parameters by which this House sets to allow for the public to engage in that process? Yes, we are in urgency, but I’ve looked at the regulatory impact statement (RIS), and there are a number of matters in there. What I find really interesting—and this goes to the point around the haste with which this Government seeks to truncate or shorten the report-back period of time—is that we have a RIS, and, again, that’s good, because sometimes this is a Government that doesn’t actually want to put a RIS up for some of its bills.

The other thing I’d say—and the Hon Dr Deborah Russell has indicated our cautious support for this—is that we are not in opposition to this bill receiving its first reading; in fact, we’ve actually already voted in favour of it. But what we want to make sure of is that there is adequate and ample time for the community to engage. When I look at the regulatory impact statement, what I find quite interesting is that this is something that was completed—the initial regulatory impact statement—in October of last year. There had been some amendments; Ministers had taken decisions, as we understand it, in March of this year, and so the analysis comes here. This is not something that, as Opposition members might say, you know, the public have not been aware of—yes, they have, and I appreciate that the Minister has indicated that the Government has given a public commitment that they want to see this enacted by October 2025. I think that is the driving reason behind the shortened report-back period that this Government seeks for the House to entertain.

Now, this was a piece of work, or a suite of changes, that was in the pipeline for some time. You know, what we’re starting to see is there are a number of things that are in the pipeline, but, for some reason, the Government wants to truncate what is a really important scrutiny aspect when it comes to particular bills. So let’s not forget that part of the purpose of the select committee process is to allow the committee time to work through not just the submissions but also what the responses are going to be in relation to the specific submissions that are received, and also the advice that officials and officers of the committee may provide. So my amendment of a four-month period I think strikes an appropriate balance between not the full period of time but also not a shortened truncated period of, you know, 13 August or thereabouts.

The final point I wish to make is that the regulatory impact statement does raise a few issues around—and my colleagues have touched on this, and I’ve delved into it a little bit—the qualitative versus the quantitative sort of response. What is really clear in the RIS is that this is a suite of changes that has not had the opportunity for public engagement, and we know that, because when we have a look at that time frame from October of last year right through to March and April, and as recently as last night, the Government obviously has been working on it.

So we would like to see that this is something that is given the fullness of the House’s attention, and we think that a four-month—well, I think—period is an appropriate report-back time.

Members, the question for the House for debate is that the amendment be agreed to. The amendment is now debatable together with the motion. Vanushi Walters.

Mr Speaker, thank you for the ability to take a call and to support the proposed amendment by my colleague Tangi Utikere. I must say that having returned to the House, one of the things that I am very disappointed with is the sense that there is a lack of understanding that the locus of democracy in New Zealand sits with people; it doesn’t sit with Parliament. The role that people play and the voices that they have and their opinions must be taken into account when we’re making legislation. It’s simply not optional.

It’s important because, in my view, democracy is an experiment in trust; it’s not a given. To show that we are using that trust responsibly, we must take legislation through an appropriate process. I think what we’re seeing in terms of some of the data that’s coming out in terms of trust, we’re seeing a real lag in trust for our democratic institutions. We saw a report come out from the Helen Clark Foundation earlier this year that said that only—[Interruption]

The Government members may laugh but, actually, it is important what the public think. On the basis of data, it is important what the public think, and what the report found was that only 42 percent of people believe the Government acts in their best interests most or all of the time. Civic engagement is low. People aren’t participating because they do not believe that their voices will be heard in Parliament. And it’s a trend we’re seeing. It is a trend that we’ve seen over a number of years as well, that we’re simply not seeing engagement with parliamentary systems and we’re seeing a significant lack of trust in Parliament. This data is important.

This is a Government that clearly doesn’t believe that it’s important to go through the proper processes of lawmaking, because sometimes mistakes can be made. We certainly saw that through the use of urgency a few weeks back through the Budget debates, where we debated the Invest New Zealand Bill as one of the bills coming through Parliament. We’ll see it up in the House later today as well. But during committee stage, it was very clear that the intent of the bill was to name the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment as the individual who could be appointed as a special visor by the Minister. However, the bill did not state that. The bill did not state that, not because that wasn’t the intent, clearly—the Minister did speak to that. It simply wasn’t in the bill. So we must ensure that we provide time for us to catch those mistakes. That’s entirely what the select committee process is for. Going from six months to six weeks does not give us the time to be able to do that.

What’s more, and colleagues have spoken about this, but this Government had the time to allow the public to digest this information. They had the regulatory impact statement in October last year. These have been issues that have been around for years, but people are being given six weeks to engage. There was an option to, and they’ve chosen not to. They’re demonstrating the truth of what we’ve heard many times over in the Justice Committee over the last several weeks as we’ve been discussing the four-year-term bill. One, that there isn’t trust. But there’s also a sense that many parliamentarians are treating the select committee process as a tick-box exercise, not a true space for listening to people’s views, for being open to the ability to change provisions within a bill before it’s finalised, and for the select committee to truly recommend changes. That simply isn’t happening.

Last night, Dr Duncan Webb spoke about who would be able to respond, and he made the excellent point that the rural communities who the Government often refer to as serving would not be necessarily able to reprioritise work, engage with the bill, actively digest reports that ought to be coming to the table to be considered by select committee. Those communities are busy. Those communities are hard-working communities and deserve the right—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Oh, really? When did you discover that? When did you find that out?

VANUSHI WALTERS: They deserve—Mr Peters—the right to engage with these issues just as much as is the Wellington Beltway. They are not. I went to Laingholm School in West Auckland as part of the parliamentary outreach with colleagues from across the House who, in good faith, were there to talk to young people about the value of them engaging with the parliamentary process as well.

Now, to truly get young people engaged on issues that are coming up in the House, we also need to provide them with the time to be able to digest the reports, with the time to be able to speak to teachers and parents, and, for many of our submitters, the time to be able to muster up that sense that they can be heard too and put their views forward. We should not be going the other way on the basis of the data that we have that New Zealanders aren’t trusting our parliamentary systems. We should be looking for better ways to engage rural communities, better, more engaging ways to include young people’s views as well. If this Government truly did care about what New Zealanders thought, they would be taking the time to hear from New Zealanders.

Now, last week, we had scrutiny in the House, and I had the privilege of questioning the Hon Judith Collins in her role as Attorney-General in her responsibility for PCO—the Parliamentary Counsel Office. Another thing that the Government appeared to have a disregard for is the people who work in the role of preparing and drafting and proposing amendments in relation to the legislation that we produce. They are under the pump. You can go back and listen to the hearings. They are absolutely under the pump. The reports that we received talked about the stress it puts on the system when Government—any Government—takes a big mandate of bills through urgency or shortens the period of time that PCO have to actively engage, not just with what the Government have proposed and want to do, but also what the people have suggested as amendments.

We need to be respectful that there are layers of process, including drafting layers, that must be adhered to if we are to get legislation that truly sticks and is lasting in New Zealand. New Zealanders are frustrated by Governments and Parliaments that pendulum swing back and forth because legislation hasn’t adequately been considered in Parliament, and this has to change. It must change.

I started by saying that democracy is an experiment in trust. It’s not a given; it’s an experiment in trust, and members will see what has happened globally when Governments have been irresponsible with the democratic processes, the procedures that both sides have put into place to ensure that we’re making sound law, not for ourselves, not for our egos, but for New Zealanders, and that we are making sound law and that we are actually providing New Zealanders with a fair and a reasonable opportunity to be heard. This is a Government that is not doing that.

Once again, I would call on Government members—thank you for your silence at this stage; I hope that means you’re listening—to support the amendment that was proposed by my colleague. It doesn’t go as far as six months, but we believe that it is a reasonable, fair opportunity for New Zealanders to be heard, and a reasonable, fair opportunity for PCO and the advisers engaging with this important legislation to help us get it right.

At this stage, I’ll take another speaker, but we’ll be looking for very precise and new material pertaining to both the amendment and to the original motion.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will do exactly as you instruct, but I would, if I may, please move, That the motion be amended to change the words “13 August 2025” to “25 November 2025”.

The effect of that is that—the motion being debated currently is that the submission process move out to four months. The effect of my amendment would be to move it out to five months. This is recognition that if it were to be six months, the closure of the submission process would be Christmas day—that is too long, but the current proposal would mean as little as 10 days for people to compile their submissions and evaluate this piece of legislation so that it would be completed by 13 August. That is vastly too short a time.

I want to recognise what members on the other side of the House said last night in the debate, and remind everybody—and for your clarity, Mr Speaker—that we are in unanimity about the need for us to address this big problem of loss of productive land to pine forests. So we are all in agreement this is a step in the right direction, though a tentative step, but it is a very significant piece of legislation. One of the members from New Zealand First—Minister Mark Patterson—said last night that he believes it is one of the most significant pieces of law to be passed through this House in this Parliament, in this term.

Andy Foster: For rural communities.

STEVE ABEL: For rural communities. Why, therefore, has there not been given sufficient time for those communities most impacted by this, who are at the coalface of understanding the extent of what pine conversion is doing? They are expressing very clearly that there are real challenges with this legislation as it is currently drafted. Surely it is appropriate that we have a fulsome submission process. We need to hear from the likes of Beef + Lamb New Zealand, who are concerned that the foundation of our breeding farms will be diminished by 15,000 hectares a year—this is Beef + Lamb speaking to the flaws with this bill as currently drafted. Why shouldn’t this House do the right thing by those farmers that this Government purports to represent and allow them time to bring the case for what would be the appropriate amendments to this legislation?

We want it to go to the select committee so that we can truly address the number of challenges and distortions potentially created by the bill. One such distortion is that by permitting class 6 land to have 15,000 hectares go into a lottery, there is a risk that farmers will be, one, unable to plan for what they intend to do, and, secondly, that 150,000 hectares of land will be lost over the course of a decade—that important, vital land that Beef + Lamb point out is the foundation of their breeding farms.

Why wouldn’t this House and the Government allow a substantial submission process for us to understand the distortions created by the bill and the risks that this bill brings in terms of actually making the problem worse and the problem more complex? As my colleague Vanushi Walters pointed out, this issue has been an issue for a long time, and on 4 December, the Minister made announcements at a Federated Farmers event in Gore about this legislation being on the way. Why is it now being rushed at the last hour, when it should be thoroughly prosecuted through a select committee process?

Our proposition of five months would mean we are done by Christmas. It would extend the number of days that the submission process could be open for to five weeks. That would give time for people to actually make substantive submissions and for the committee to take the time to take those into account and get thorough advice from officials on what the impacts of this bill are. If this legislation, as the Government claims, is so significant for rural communities—it directly impacts on private property rights that the Government purport to be deeply concerned about—surely we should give the time for those who are impacted by the legislation, who are having their private property rights restricted in terms of what they can do with their planting of pine trees, and surely they should have a right to respond to it in a thorough amount of time. We risk, under the current proposal of the Government for a 13 August closure—only 10 days for submissions to be sent in. That is all too little time, and is an insult, frankly, to rural communities and landowners and farmers who will be impacted.

Importantly, one of the clauses in the bill speaks to the exclusion of Māori land from the legislation. That is a good thing, that is a sensible thing, because a lot of that marginal land that Māori are putting into forestry is out of necessity because it is the only means for them to make a living from it. Discussion on how that is thoroughly dealt with is an important part of the process and we are putting, once again, the onus on another impacted group—tangata whenua Māori and the various iwi and representatives of Māori—to come up with a submission in the space of a mere 10 days.

I am moving my motion that we make that submission process a closure on 25 November, therefore allowing five weeks for submissions and a decent amount of time for the committee to fully evaluate and understand the legislation and to hear from officials what the core issues are and how we deal with them to make this an effective means to deal with a very serious problem we have in this country: loss of productive land to pine forests. Thank you.

Members, the question before the House for debate is that the amendment be agreed to. The amendment is now debateable together with the motion.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the ability to take a call on the various motions around when this bill should be reported back. Of course, we’ve had my colleague Tangi Utikere put up a four-month time frame. We’ve had Steve Abel put up a five-month time frame, pointing out that the six-month time frame, which is the standard time frame for bills in the Standing Orders, would result in a Christmas report-back date, which is obviously problematic. So we all accept that we don’t need a six-month time frame for this bill, but the seven weeks that the Government has put up is too short. And, of course, there is a recess coming up and then we’re sitting again and then there’s another recess week before 13 August, which is a sitting day—a sitting Wednesday—that the Government has suggested that we report back on this bill. That is too short.

I want to take us to a point that the previous speakers touched on, and that is the lottery system in this bill. Actually, I want to focus on the ballot requirements; it’s the ballot that is talked about in this bill. The Government has said a number of times, “Look, people have been aware of this issue; we put out a press release on 4 December 2024.” That is true, there was a press release put out on 4 December 2024 in the names of the Hon Todd McClay and the Hon Simon Watts, being both agriculture and climate change and, I believe, Todd McClay is also forestry. But the thing that I want to point out is that this press release—and I’ve read some subsequent media articles that picked up on this issue as well—does not mention the ballot as far as I can see. So it says, “The farm to forestry changes include: A moratorium … An annual registration cap of 15,000 hectares for exotic forestry registrations on LUC 6 farmland.” Then it goes on: allowing up to 25 percent to be planted, the ability for landowners to have their categorisation reassessed, excluding specific categories of Māori-owned land, and transitional measures. I have not, obviously, gone into all the detail there reading out that press release, but there is no mention of the ballot that I can see, and this is important because a lot of the bill is about the ballot.

So we see on page 11 of the bill—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): You’ll be wanting to context this—very much so—now that you’re digging into the details of the bill itself.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Well, the point is, Mr Speaker, that the ballot requirements make up quite a significant part of the bill, and this is something that I believe was—I’m happy for the Government members to take a call and explain how everybody was well aware of the ballot requirements. This bill now has a number of pages—it’s quite a short bill—around the ballot requirements—

Hon Louise Upston: It’s about the report back; it’s not about the policy.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: —that were not signalled. Minister Upston is saying that I should be speaking on the timing of the report back, and this is entirely related to the timing of the report back because the Environment Committee is being given seven weeks to report back on issues that have not been signalled to the public. These are new issues that different groups need to get their heads around, and it includes requirements here for the EPA—the Environmental Protection Authority—to administer a ballot. This would have been useful to know at the scrutiny week, when we could have asked the Minister for the Environment, who has the Vote for the EPA, to say, “Well, how is it that this ballot is going to be funded?”

These are real questions that we need to ask officials and the EPA about, whereas seven weeks—this is not signalled. A lot of the bill is about the ballot, and that is in addition to all of the other matters that are not apparent when you just read a press release that says, “Farm conversions are going to be stopped.” Because if you just heard that—“Farm conversions are going to be stopped”—of course there are going to be some transitional provisions around that. There’s this 25 percent, there’s going to be a lot of mapping required, and there are a lot of regulations that need to be made under this bill as well. But then we see the bill, and it’s actually a lot more complicated, which is why the select committee needs more than seven weeks to report back.

We’ve had the suggestions—we’ve had the other motions—saying four months or five months, and those are much more realistic time frames. Four months is a time frame whereby this House does not get the opportunity to do a debate like this because it is accepted that whilst four months is shorter than the normal six months, there is enough time for some scrutiny for the advisers to come and tell the select committee what the bill is about and for the submitters to make submissions. I acknowledge that most of the people who will be making submissions on this bill are likely to understand both the emissions trading scheme (ETS)—and it’s a fairly small group of people in New Zealand that can say that, but I’m sure those people who do understand the ETS will be making submissions and that these people are busy and they won’t have very many weeks in which to make the submissions. If you take the seven weeks, obviously the committee has to have time to hear those submissions well before the end of those seven weeks. So when is it that the people will be able to make submissions, these highly sought after people who know about the ETS?

Also, there will be farming groups who want to make submissions as well, and landowners who will be trying to get to grips with—they have this Land Use Capability class 6 land—what this ballot means for them and how the ballot will work or not work and whether the regulations that go with the ballot and also the EPA will be sufficient or not.

So the point is seven weeks—13 August—is very soon. The Government promised in December last year to have some legislation in place by October of this year. So that press release I read out was on 4 December. They had a regulatory impact statement before that in October of 2024. Yes, the Government made some further policy changes in March, but it is now the end of June. So if this is really that important to this Government, if it is the most important thing for rural communities ever, and I acknowledge that it is a very important issue, the Government had a choice to bring this piece of legislation to the Environment Committee many moons ago. It has chosen not to do that and, as a consequence, people who know about the ETS, people who know about the forestry sector—of course it’s very relevant to them as well—people who have this land, landowners, are going to miss the opportunity to have their submissions and their concerns properly addressed. That is just not good enough, which is why I am standing in support of my colleague Tangi Utikere’s motion that it should be at least a four month—well, it should be four months, that is what he has put up; it should be four months for the reporting back of this bill, not seven weeks.

We need to hear from these people. We need to consider it properly because if we don’t, then we will have unintended consequences from a complicated new ballot system that I’m fairly sure—I’m happy to be corrected by members on the other side, but I am not aware of the Environmental Protection Authority having an existing ballot system for any of the different jobs that it does. The EPA has many different functions across many different pieces of legislation. It’s quite an interesting organisation: it regulates for hazardous substances; another role is that it administers the ETS, so the emissions scheme, the computers that do the ETS calculations, they are all housed with the EPA.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I call Lawrence Xu-Nan—noting that you have spoken in this debate and any discussion will be around amendments and will be very tight. It’s just quite hard to imagine there will be much more that can be said at this stage. Don’t see it as a challenge, but I’ll be listening very carefully.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the motion be amended to delete the words “at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House” and “196.”

I think one of the things that hasn’t been discussed in terms of the referral motion so far, although there’s been a number of contributions around the date, and I will only speak to the two amendments later on, because I have not spoken to the two amendments. But the first thing I want to address is the broader, I guess, deviation from the Standing Orders and specifically Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196. I’ll also speak to the rationale behind my amendment of only ruling out one of the Standing Order exemptions, 196, and not the other two.

Speaking to the other two amendments in terms of the four months and five months first, I think we have heard from the previous speakers on the rationale behind the two. However, noting that in this case I will support my colleague—actually, I support both of them; I support both Tangi Utikere’s amendment to change it to four months and Steve Abel’s amendment to change it to five months, and I do genuinely implore the Minister to consider these two amendments. Now, the reason for that is, should there be additional requirements to get things done before the end of the year, the four months makes logical sense because there are three sitting weeks in November for which the House is able to do the second reading, committee stage, and also the third reading.

I have not spoken on the two amendments and I’m speaking on the two amendments specifically. Should everything be done in November, it still gives December for officials, etc., for implementation. However, if that is not a consideration, the reason I will support Steve Abel’s five months amendment is that there are still two weeks in December for there to be the second reading, committee stage, and also the third reading.

Now, the reason I’m focusing on the exemptions of Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196 is that should there be an absolute requirement that, you know, there’s something that needs to be done within seven weeks, I actually think that the meetings on a Friday under Standing Order 193 makes logical sense and meeting outside of the Wellington area during a sitting—Standing Order 195—is particularly important.

As we heard from the previous speakers, this is something that affects rural communities in particular. So I also then look forward to the opportunity maybe for the Environment Committee to actually go to some of these areas within those seven weeks to actually make it easier for rural communities to be able to submit on this as well and do more public hearings as a result of the truncated time period. I think it’s only fair for the people of New Zealand, and particularly for our rural communities, to be given those opportunities for more of a public hearing in their community as opposed to having to just come in or Zoom into the select committee hearing. That is something that I think is important.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Filibustering and wasting time.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: I really do think we need some bug spray in this House because there are just a lot of insects buzzing around that I’m hearing.

To be fair, the reason that I’m looking at Standing Order 196 in particular is I do not believe that the select committee should be given the authority and the mandate and the exemption to be able to conduct while the House is sitting, and also particularly in the evening. If it’s just for the official elements, etc., possibly that makes sense. But I think it does, as we’ve seen previously, put an enormous burden on submitters, particularly for those in the evening and those in the morning as well. Also, there is a lot of housework—as we see because we’re currently under urgency—to get through as well. So I don’t think that Standing Order 196 in particular should be exempted as a result of this.

So I would ask other people, and I particularly would ask the Minister, to consider, yes, keeping Standing Orders 193 and 195 as it is in the motion, that makes sense, but 196 is something that I’ll ask the Minister to seriously consider removing from the motion or deleting from the wording of the motion. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that the amendment in the name of Tangi Utikere be agreed to.

The question is that the amendment in the name of Steve Abel be agreed to.

The question is that the amendment in the name of Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan be agreed to.