Cunliffe David: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cunliffe David: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 25 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6222. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 Every now and again colleagues around the House get the opportunity to make contributions on debates that they feel really matter. I am the proud dad of two wonderful young sons and every week when I come down to this place like many other colleagues occasionally I feel a little wistful about leaving them behind in Auckland or wherever members come from. But the reason that I am keen to take a call in this debate is actually for them because climate change is a fact—not a philosophy not a political statement; a scientifically verified fact. 
There is debate about whether we are going to get 1 degree or 6 degrees’ difference over the next century or so and that may make the difference between the continuation of the human species or not. It is a small point extinction—for us. It just happens to be in the lifetime of my two little boys or their children. So we have the bizarre and frankly disgusting picture of a Government so craven to its traditional agricultural and big-business backers that it is selling out the future of my children and your children and even their own children because it is somewhere between being confused about science that puts a 95-plus percent confidence in this change and being craven to the business interests that it serves in this House. Neither reason is good enough neither reason is right and actually neither reason is even in the long-term interests of this economy. 
Weakening the emissions trading scheme to the extent that there is no minimum floor on a carbon price to the extent that half of our emissions—the agricultural and primary sectors—are left out and to the extent that there is a one-for-two giveaway subsidy on our carbon debits are changes that gut the emissions trading scheme. They are going to result in clear-felling of more timber and the destruction of more sinks. They are going to result in an under-investment in clean technology. They are going to result in New Zealanders paying more in our lifetime and our children’s lifetime to adjust to the climate change that is certain—not probable but certain—to come. We have a choice. We can use integrity science and a dash of political courage to say what we know to be true—that our future will not be easier than our present. 
Our future in relation to climate change will be a damn sight more difficult. New Zealand it is true and others have said it will be relatively—relatively—less affected than many other countries but it is little cheer to know that we will be relatively less affected than countries like Chad or Somalia which are going to face mass famine. People will die in their millions. Here we will just put up with tornadoes thunderstorms droughts floods reduced agricultural production and may I say more turbulent flights into Wellington. That is known as a First World problem—more turbulent flights into Wellington. It is not one I enjoy particularly but hey no one is going to die we hope. But people are going to die around the rest of the world and we are going to face refugee flows into New Zealand as a result. We are going to find our markets contracting on us. And we are going to find it more difficult to export to people who have far bigger problems than we do. 
So what can we do? In the face of a party that has rolled over and said “tickle my tummy” to traditional business interests that has flown in the face of established science Labour is proposing four important Supplementary Order Papers. The first of those is to restore the entry date of agriculture to the legislation so that it will continue to enter in 2015. That will provide certainty it will provide some incentives for proper investment in clean technology and it will help agriculture to adjust by giving it a longer time period to adjust over. 
Nearly 70 percent of submitters to the Finance and Expenditure Committee were opposed to excluding agriculture from the emissions trading scheme. Bring it in on schedule all sectors all gases and let us have an emissions trading scheme that actually achieves its objective which is to achieve a given level of carbon reduction at the minimum economic cost. That is what an “all gases all sectors” scheme will do. 
 The second Supplementary Order Paper is to restrict international limits to 50 percent so that New Zealand units are preferred over international ones thus protecting sinks in New Zealand like the forestry industry. That is the same standard that is applied to the Australian scheme. It is well known that many of the carbon credits that are sourced from offshore—particularly one might say Eastern Europe and other places—are perhaps worth less than the paper that they are milled on. 
To make the transition period changes recommended by the panel the carbon price cap would increase under Labour’s Supplementary Order Papers by $5 each year to $50 rather than remaining at $25. The one-for-two deal would be phased out over 3 years rather than being continued indefinitely. Finally our Supplementary Order Papers would have the Environmental Protection Authority publish annually the amount industries charge their customers for carbon and that would allow the public to know when they are being overcharged. 
We acknowledge that both the world and the domestic economies remain weak. We understand that there is turmoil in world carbon markets and that the carbon price has substantially declined. But if people look closer than today’s price they will see that the price of carbon futures is high relative to the current price—that is the markets are betting that carbon is going up again. When it does New Zealand will face substantial international debit liabilities because the current Government has failed to take the opportunity to put in place a scheme that is robust workable and coherent let alone comprehensive. Instead what is happening here is we have a Government that is knowingly selling out the future of all our children. It is knowingly flying in the face of established science. 
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the largest research body behind climate change. It involves thousands of scientists. It is mandated by the United Nations. Its fourth assessment report in 2007 found that the probability that the climate change that is already well documented is simply natural is less than 5 percent—that is we know with a 95-plus percent confidence interval not only that it is happening but that human endeavour is causing it. Therefore human endeavour has to change unless these lovely kids up in the gallery are going to pick up the price tag for stuff that we failed to do—that we failed to do. We look them in the eyes and we say: “Kids I’m sorry. Your life is going to be more difficult because adults today failed to have the foresight and the courage to write laws that would make our economy and our environment better when you grow up.” 
I look to every parent in this House and I ask you to ask yourselves whether that is right. Is that the best we can do? Is that why we get up on a Monday or a Tuesday morning and fly to Wellington? I hope not. I hope that all of us whatever our party whatever our persuasions in this House have the foresight and the courage to ask ourselves how as a country we should respond to this challenge which is inevitably coming at us like a rushing freight train through a tunnel. We can see a light ahead. We know the noise. We know we are in a rail tunnel. We know that climate change is happening. We know that half of our emissions are from the agriculture sector. Yet this Government wants to leave agriculture out. 
We know that in the long term it is better for the economy as well as the environment if business has appropriate prices signals but this Government is giving a one-for-two discount and seeing the carbon price go to zero. We know it is going to be in our fiscal interests—that is it is going to cost New Zealand less as a country—if we build up our carbon sinks so that we have a positive net balance; our sinks outweigh our sources. This bill does not do that; it does the reverse. By gutting the carbon price and leaving out agriculture it leaves our foresters with no incentives to plant. 
We know that it will be better if business itself invests to mitigate the worst challenges and to give itself a decent long adjustment curve. This bill does not contain any incentives for any chief executive to go to their board and say they want to install a scrubber on their smokestack they want to invest in clean technology they want to invest in research and development that will help their processors work better as well as being better for the environment or they want to become a clean green exporter and help New Zealand to be a clean green and clever country. There are no incentives. In fact it will be harder and harder for businesses to do what is right. Think of our children; think of these children. Government you should be ashamed.