Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Mr Speaker. Look I don't doubt the sincerity or the dedication that the Minister brings to this debate and in fairness to him it is his political life mission to reduce the impacts of climate change—not only here in New Zealand but around the world—and I give him credit for that. And I give him credit for his passion and his dedication and his commitment to that role. We share that on this side of the House and we have done for a very long period of time. But what he rightly says in terms of his third reading speech on this bill is that the impacts will be costly and have a negative effect on New Zealand families on New Zealand businesses and on the New Zealand economy at the very time when we are confronting as a nation the worst economic crisis of the last 100 years. What we are saying on this side of the House notwithstanding the Minister's blithe discounting of it is that now actually is not the right time to be doing it. Now is not the right time to be foisting extra cost on struggling businesses.This is the problem with the ideologically pure and driven Greens who have pushed this through with the support of New Zealand First and the Labour Party. They are going to hurt New Zealand businesses at a time when they can very least afford to be hurt even more. What we've had now is the greatest number of job losses ever being recorded in New Zealand: 40000 job losses in the last month alone. New Zealand businesses are hurting and what does this bill do? Well it puts a price higher on carbon than has previously been the case. There is already an impact on New Zealanders' wallets and their back pockets in a way that could not be worse at this time right now. So what we find is that this bill amongst other things—and it's a big bill it runs to 300-odd pages it's a very complicated bill with many moving parts all sorts of detail in it and much of it will be unfamiliar and unfathomable to many New Zealanders. But the bottom line is as the Minister says it puts a price on pollution and that of itself is not a bad thing. It's just a question of timing.So what do we find amongst other things? Some of our major industrial businesses are going to be hit by the decision to reduce the free allocation of credits. Those are businesses like New Zealand Steel like the aluminium smelter like the O-I glass manufacturer in South Auckland like our fertiliser companies like the oil refinery up at Marsden Point and like a number of other businesses who if they are not profitable if they are not sustainable in our economy guess what! We'll be buying those products importing those products from countries overseas with a worse emissions footprint than anything that occurs here. And we will be exporting jobs and importing carbon products or products that have been produced in a less efficient way from overseas. That's carbon leakage and that actually does nothing absolutely nothing to solve the issues that confront the globe.What's more this bill gives effect to the first-time pricing of agricultural livestock into the emissions scheme at farm level and fertilisers at emissions processor level from 2025. There's a sword of Damocles that hangs over the agricultural sector because if the Minister for Climate Change and the Minister of Agriculture don't feel that there's been sufficient progress made by 2022 which isn't very far away they're going to move that forward. And that will mean that New Zealand farmers who already compete against subsidised products from pretty much every other primary producing country in the world already have a difficult job in terms of exporting their product around the world. They are going to have an extra handbrake put on them. I just can't see the sense of that at this current time. Farmers actually are doing very well. They're already low-emission producers by world standards and they do a great job and have done a great job over a long number of years. There are a number of examples that the Minister during the committee of the whole House stage—and I credit him with engaging with the Opposition in a very full and detailed way and actually that worked I thought very well. I thought the committee of the whole House debate was a good one and I wanted to acknowledge and thank the Minister for engaging fully in it.But already since the announcement of the Supplementary Order Paper and the regulations that go with this bill carbon price has moved up. So it was at about $25 or a little bit under for most of the last 12 months or so but today it sits at $31.40. Already that's having an impact. So at the committee of the whole House stage the Minister conceded that at $25 a tonne currently that works out for a litre of petrol at the pump New Zealanders are paying about 4c a litre into the emissions trading scheme contribution. But at $35 the Minister conceded that that moves up to 9c a litre. Now that might not be a lot to many people. It may not be a lot to many people. And I suspect actually that's not enough to probably change driving behaviour. But all it does is add to the cost of living of New Zealanders at a time when we can least afford it. It's not of itself going to be sufficient to change behaviour. Indeed the Minister has indicated that the price needs to go up vastly higher than the $35 that is currently mooted.I want to just refer to the issue that has been highlighted since this bill came back to the House. That is the plight of the South Island winter tomato growers who currently produce tomatoes during the winter and they have a real issue because even at $30 a tonne it looks like many of those growers are not going to be able to produce tomatoes in the South Island during winter months. The reason why is because they heat their hothouses with coal. Of course coal is a greenhouse gas evil and that is something that needs to be changed but is now the right time to do it? These are businesses that are looking for mitigation options. They're looking for help and assistance from the Government and it seems there is none. There's a lot of talk by this Government of a just transition. Well the just transition in the case of South Island tomato growers will be that they just don't grow tomatoes. It'll be as simple as that. And what will happen is that the demand for tomatoes in the South Island during the winter will be met by other producers who will ship their product around the countryside by fossil fuel - carrying vessels or trucks or trains or whatever. They will shift product around and actually defeat the very purpose of this bill because the emissions will be ultimately higher. Then the Minister when he was confronted with the concerns and the criticisms of the South Island tomato growers he said Well we've got a Green Investment Fund." The fund was set up recently—actually a couple of years ago—the job which is to assist companies to adopt low-carbon technologies to help them finance that. Well as of today a hundred million dollars allocated to that fund in Budget 2018 not one single cent invested so far. Not one single cent. They've got flash offices they've got a team of nearly a dozen high-paid executives many of them who pre-COVID spent a lot of time tripping around the world probably adding to the carbon emissions. But have they made any investments in the sorts of things that the Minister has promised the South Island tomato growers? Not one cent.So National is not going to support this bill at this time not because we don't agree with the broad principles because we do but it's a question of timing. In a post-COVID environment where it's going to be our primary producers who are going to need to lead an export economic recovery for New Zealand and New Zealanders surely now is not the right time no matter what the protestations and the blithe dismissal of the Minister in terms of his tin ear on the needs and the concerns of New Zealand business people and New Zealanders who are trying to conduct their day-to-day lives against the most dramatic economic crisis that this country has seen in living memory probably for more than 100 years or so.So I do take issue with the Minister and when he just dismisses as this Government so often does any criticism and just dismisses it blithely then I think that that is treating New Zealanders and New Zealand business people with disdain and disrespect. I think they deserve better than this from a Government that is supposed to be caring kind and putting teddy bears in the windows. So look thank you Mr Speaker. We oppose this bill at third reading."