Dean Jacqui: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Dean Jacqui: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:635;Page:6229] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) 
: 
 I rise to speak to Part 2 of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill which makes amendments to certain other Acts of Parliament that are affected by this bill. They are the Forests Act of 1949 the Land Transfer Act of 1952 and various other Acts. This bill and this part of the bill deals with issues to do with forestry carbon sequestration and carbon sinks. 
It is interesting to note—if I talk about forestry for a moment—that throughout the 1990s in New Zealand an average of 60000 hectares of new forests were planted each year. Actually I remember it very well particularly the Kaingaroa Forest in the middle of the North Island which was in full planting mode earlier than that but was in full production in the 1990s—if my memory serves me right. Forestry was a big industry with a lot of confidence and a big export earner for New Zealand. What do we have now after 7 years of this Labour Government? We have close to zero forest plantings. That is not exactly a fine record for the Government in terms of affecting climate change. 
Why should we care about the amount of forest being planted? Well I think there are several reasons that we should care about the level of forestry investment. The most obvious reason is that forests are the greatest absorbers of carbon and planting forests is the best thing we can do for climate change in New Zealand. I think we must always remember—and I think the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues has quite forgotten—that we did not create the problem of climate change in the world as we produce only 0.4 percent of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions and we are certainly not the answer to the problem. However we can make a contribution to solving it which we are all doing by supporting this bill. And National does support this bill but with some amendments because we believe that environment policy should last for longer than the term of any Government. 
I reflect that Nick Smith wrote to the Minister back in January this year—am I right or was it December last year—offering a bipartisan approach on the issue of climate change. National members have not had an answer to that letter but here we stand in the Chamber today supporting the Minister’s bill on climate change. At least National is prepared to work in a bipartisan way on climate change. 
Why else should we care about forestry planting in New Zealand? We should care because vast areas of eroding hill country mostly in the North Island desperately need to be planted in trees. But we need incentives to plant forests on that eroding land. Why else should we care? We should care because the forest industry is our fourth-biggest export industry. Well it was until the current Government’s policies shut down the forest export industry and caused a huge loss of confidence within that industry. 
This Climate Change Response Amendment Bill goes part of the way—and we do support it—but it must be said that climate change response is a little more complicated than sequestering carbon in forestry. Carbon sequestration is very important but is that it for the Government’s climate change policy? The Prime Minister last week in her “get out of jail free” card conference speech tried to turn the agenda from some of the unpalatable issues that Labour has been faced with and talked about carbon neutrality which is a very worthy aim—very very highfalutin. How are we going to do it though when all we have on the books is a Climate Change Response Amendment Bill that deals with carbon sequestration? We know that it goes part of the way and we support it but gee I say to the Minister that there has to be an awful lot more from him. Has he read National’s  
A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand 
? I can tell him that it is very good and it has been so well received that it has actually been embarrassing. You know it is very embarrassing because— 
Eric Roy 
: Printed on recycled paper. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Yes with natural vegetable dye inks. People would think that this party came from the greener end of the spectrum. Well in fact we do. National takes the environment very very seriously. I myself was a member of—and some of the older members in this Committee will remember it—Ecology Action.