Turei Metiria: Energy (Fuels Levies and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Turei Metiria: Energy (Fuels Levies and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:802] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 I was on the Local Government and Environment Committee which considered these provisions and worked very closely with Moana Mackey— 
Hon Member 
: And Nick Smith 
METIRIA TUREI 
: Yes and Nick Smith. He was very engaged in the discussion and the debate particularly on the sustainability clauses. In fact the Green Party is the architect of the sustainability clauses. There was some provision for them in the original Biofuel Bill but we redefined those clauses and the sustainability principles significantly in order to meet the growing concerns about the impact of unsustainably grown biofuels not just in terms of greenhouse gas emissions but in terms of their impacts on indigenous biodiversity indigenous communities and starvation around the world. It is certainly true that very large corporations particularly oil companies and others are looking at buying up millions and millions of hectares of land in places like Africa South America and the Pacific whether it is indigenous forest cover or other land that is used for food production in order to grow biofuels to feed the increasing market for alternatives to petrol and oil fuels. Western countries in particular are desperate to find ways to fill their gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles as opposed to developing countries which are desperate to fill the starving bellies of their people. 
The first principle that we fought for and which was included in the legislation was around the fact that a sustainable biofuel must emit significantly less greenhouse gas over its life cycle than obligation engine fuel emits. We were very clear to put in a principle that identified both the production of that biofuel as well as a percentage limit. It was a hard-fought-for discussion in the select committee. Many hours were spent on debating the wording of the principles to make sure that they were practical achievable and set an extremely high standard so that New Zealand would not contribute to starvation would not continue to contribute to greenhouse gas emissions where it was possible to avoid doing that and would not contribute to the elimination of indigenous biodiversity. So we were very pleased to see that we had a very strong principle around emitting fewer greenhouse gas emissions. There was no problem with that; the committee was OK with that. I do not remember Nick Smith having a big problem with it; maybe he did have one. It certainly seems very odd that he wants to get rid of that principle now. 
The second principle was very important to us. It was around food production: that sustainable biofuels should not compete with food production and should not be grown on land of high value for food production. That principle was put in place specifically to meet the concerns that Nick Smith expressed. He had very deeply held concerns about the destruction of indigenous rainforest in Brazil and he talked a lot at the select committee about how those communities were using food-growing land to make biofuels and then cutting down indigenous forests to feed themselves. He said it was terrible that poor people had to do that in order to sustain themselves in Brazil when it meant the destruction of the rainforest and that all of the really good food-producing land would be used for biofuels instead of food. I am sure he had a genuinely held concern that that should not happen. 
I was happy and the Green Party was happy to work through those issues and to find wording that would meet Nick Smith’s deeply held beliefs and concerns about Brazilian rainforests. So we came up with the words stating that the sustainable biofuels were not to “compete with food production” and would not be “grown on land of high value for food production”. That was specifically put in there to address the really deeply held concerns that Nick Smith had about biofuels. In the end the result was a very good one actually; it turned out that the standard is a very high one. We are talking about very poor communities in those countries. We are talking about indigenous communities in those countries and often about people who for example have the lowest incomes the highest rates of child mortality the highest rates of poverty and the highest rates of homelessness. The communities of those countries really are struggling and we wanted to make sure that we provided the best protection we could in New Zealand as far away as we are from them to make sure we did not contribute to those problems for them. 
So that is what we did; we put in the sustainability clause on food production specifically for the sake of Nick Smith. We did that so he would know when he was driving his car around with a biofuel blend—and I do not know what kind of car he drives—that he was not starving a poor Brazilian child and that he would know a poor Brazilian family was not having their home and livelihood wiped out because the land on which they were growing food to feed the family for the next 6 months or the next year was now to grow the biofuels that would feed his car while he travelled with his family around the country perhaps on their Christmas holiday a nice family trip or maybe even just a Sunday drive. Nick Smith could then therefore feel secure that he was not contributing to the poverty and the starvation of those poor people. 
But it turns out that an ideological gap of some kind some ideological lacuna in Nick Smith has driven him to argue—and he must have argued this in Cabinet—that the sustainability clause that he so wanted to see in the legislation and that he worked so hard to make sure was in it is now being taken out. His concerns about poor Brazilian children and poor indigenous communities—that they might starve as a result of land being used for biofuel production and that the indigenous forests from which they might gather their food or take their medicines or that they might have their cultural expression or engagement with would be destroyed in an effort to grow the food previously grown on the land now taken to grow biofuels—have all gone now. For some strange ideological reason Nick Smith has decided that when he drives his car around the country takes his family for a Sunday afternoon drive or maybe goes away for a weekend or perhaps even for his Christmas holidays he does not mind if his car is being fuelled by— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: What changed? 
METIRIA TUREI 
: If Nick Smith does not now mind that unsustainable biofuels may be fuelling his car if he does not mind that a Brazilian child may perhaps starve to death because the land from which that child would otherwise have had food is now being used to grow biofuels and if he does not now mind that a poor Brazilian family may have lost their home lost their land and lost their forest to the large multinational corporations that will buy up indigenous forest and destroy it to grow biofuels on what did change? 
What happened to poor Nick Smith that meant he could feel so strongly about those people in one instance and then completely desert them in the next just as a result of the election? It is a disgraceful and very sad demise of the principles of Nick Smith that he could change his position so much and actually be in the end responsible for public subsidies going to the very international corporations that will buy up food-growing land for biofuel production and that will buy indigenous forest cover and destroy it—knock it down—in order to either grow more biofuels or provide food sources for those communities even though they were perfectly fine beforehand. The public subsidies will go towards impoverishing indigenous communities. The public subsidies will go towards destroying indigenous forest eliminating the habitat of precious rare indigenous species and even destroying the New Zealand industry in biofuels. 
I do not know how Nick Smith or even Gerry Brownlee could have possibly thought that it is a good idea to have a sustainable New Zealand biofuel industry taken out and jobs lost right at the time when we are most concerned in this Parliament about the economic insecurity of the community and when we are most concerned about increasing job losses. There have been massive job losses in the last year or two just as a result of the slowing down of the economy. Right at the very time when the local industry had a foot in the door and was able to compete with the multinational companies National now wants to subsidise and pump money into those multinational companies. Just at the time when the local industry had the opportunity to grow and to provide jobs for New Zealand workers and to support New Zealand families and their children Nick Smith has decided to take all that away and to provide public subsidies to cut New Zealand jobs destroy a New Zealand industry starve and impoverish indigenous communities and destroy indigenous forest. This is being done by the National Government which supposedly has such a commitment to sustainability and environmental principles. 
Moana Mackey 
: That’s right! 
METIRIA TUREI 
: Yeah that is right.