Cunliffe David: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cunliffe David: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 08 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6466. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 I appreciate the opportunity to take a 5-minute call towards the end of this debate on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. It is often the role at the end of the third reading to do a bit of a sweep-up of the arguments that have been mounted by the opposing side and also the key issues from our own side. Perhaps to start at the highest level what is the order of logic here? Is the climate changing? Resoundingly the world’s scientists say that yes it is. Is that change generated by human-induced emissions? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there is a 95-plus percent probability that we will get a human-induced change between 1 degree and 6 degrees Celsius this 21st century. If that does not sound a lot 6 degrees in one century is species threatening. That is our species. That is a catastrophe. Let us hope and pray that that does not come to pass but there is certainly a very high probability 95-plus percent that we are in the danger zone already. 
Can we stop it? Is the science good enough? Do we know the causality? Yes we can as Barack Obama would say—and good on him for getting a second term. Climate change denying did not help Mitt Romney with the American voters. Can we stop it? Yes we can. We know the causalities. We know the mechanisms. We know that it is methane carbon dioxide nitrous oxide and sulphur dioxide. We know that 53 percent of our emissions come from agriculture and the rest from transport and industry. Having an emissions trading scheme in New Zealand without agriculture as part of it provides an inappropriate subsidy to farming and it provides an inefficient penalty to industry transport consumers and of course taxpayers who are picking up the tab. 
Is there an economy/environment trade-off here? The Government’s arguments are based upon that assumption. As my colleague David Clark has I think very eloquently pointed out that assumption is false. Indeed getting price signals right so that they contain the signals for investment and business to take account of environmental needs is something that both sides of the House should surely strive to agree on. In fact a sensible emissions trading scheme does represent the middle ground in this debate. It is an economic instrument. It is designed to help commerce take the long-term view and find an equilibrium position that is pro-economy and pro-environment. 
What about the jobs argument raised by Maggie Barry? Well you know there are lots of jobs in smart agriculture. I was in I think David Bennett’s electorate last week on a Fonterra dairy farm—I do not think it was yours Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch but it might have been—and the dairy farmer said to me: “What we really want is a reliable price on carbon because then we would know what we were managing to. It would support our efforts towards greater sustainability in the dairy industry.” Farmers who are managing effluent and other issues wanted to see a carbon price. 
Then there is the forestry industry. Without a carbon price we are restricting the ability to develop carbon sinks and forests which will be of long-term benefit to New Zealand. We are restricting the ability of that industry to grow. 
I will say a couple of words on contributions from the National speakers. Nick Smith—the tragedy of Dr Nick Smith is that with all his intellect I would warrant with a good dose of goodwill towards this issue he seems to have missed the point that he is being used. The token Bluegreen element from his side is not reflected in mainstream National policy and his advice to his colleagues has been largely ignored. Then on to Todd McClay—there are no such qualms there. He turns a blind eye to the needs of the forestry industry in his own electorate just as Mr Bennett has to the interests of sustainable dairy and other agricultural industries. 
In the last contribution to this debate in the second reading I was pretty passionate about this not just as an MP but as a father. Because when you put all the economic arguments aside and you put all the scientific details aside and you put all the partisan bickering aside we are left with an inescapable fact that in our lifetime our children’s and our grandchildren’s these chickens come home to roost. The climate is changing. Super-storm Sandy may have impacted the US presidential election. It was without precedent in the United States. Mitt Romney the climate change denier did not get the job. 
New Zealanders know what the right thing to do is. They do not welcome a bill that is gutting the emissions trading scheme and that could have found a sensible middle ground—