Adams Amy: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Adams Amy: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7916. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
: 
 I rise to take a call in this debate. A little more than 10 years ago New Zealand entered into the Kyoto Protocol. New Zealand committed itself to Kyoto and this Government is committed to follow through on those obligations. Living in a carbon-constrained world is a legal economic and environmental reality. It is something that all New Zealanders have to grasp as part of this debate. As well as that it is a trade imperative to now be seen to be doing our part around our carbon obligations as set out in Kyoto. New Zealanders need to understand that whatever they may think of the debate from a matter of trade we need to do our bit under Kyoto. We need to be seen to be playing our part. Under the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill we are. 
There is one other starting point that New Zealanders need to grasp if they are listening to this debate and when they think about this debate. They need to understand that on 1 January without this bill masses of cost will come into play. The power bills of households will go up by 10 percent and it is Kiwi mums and dads who will bear that cost. As well as that if we do not change the legislation the jobs of thousands of New Zealanders will be put at risk. The Labour Opposition talks about jobs but if its scheme comes into force on 1 January of next year which it will do if we do not pass this legislation not only will the costs of households go up dramatically but New Zealand jobs will be at risk. This bill is about getting that balance right between those two things. It is about getting the balance right between what we must do to play our part in terms of the environmental economic and legal realities as set out in the Kyoto Protocol and ensuring that in doing so we do not sacrifice the New Zealand economy the jobs of New Zealanders and the wealth of every citizen in this country as well as future generations as Rahui Katene referred to in her speech. This bill does that well. Politics aside we have a workable solution that balances our international obligations our environmental obligations and the fiscal realities. 
When this Government was elected we talked in regard to emissions trading about a couple of things. We talked about the need to be aligned with Australia as much as we could. We talked about the fact that Australia is our major trading partner so it would make sense to put our industry on a similar footing to that in Australia. We talked about the fact that to National an emissions trading scheme should not be a tax-generating mechanism. That is what it was going to be under the Labour scheme. It was setting itself up to suck another $2 billion a year out of the economy to put into its war chest. We do not see the emissions trading scheme as revenue gathering for the Crown. We see the emissions trading scheme as about protecting the environment and protecting jobs. We set out to design a scheme that was fiscally neutral and that is what we have done in this bill. We do it without risking our key industries. 
Let us be really clear that under this bill the cost on New Zealand households will halve—it will halve. That is what we are talking about. We are not talking about big business. We are talking about cutting in half the cost that the Labour Opposition wanted to put on Kiwi households. This bill will not impose that cost. 
I shall spend a moment talking about agriculture because that is an area of great importance to my Selwyn electorate. Agriculture is a crucial industry to this country. It always has been and it always will be. We are not prepared to see agriculture sacrificed but we must deal with it within the emissions trading scheme. The reason we must deal with it is that it is almost half of our emissions profile. I know that other countries have decided to exclude agriculture and if it were possible that would be great. But when in New Zealand half of our emissions profile is agriculture we must include it in an emissions trading scheme and it has stayed in our system. But—and it is a big but—we will ensure that we will do it in a way that does not see farmers go into bankruptcy in their thousands as would previously have been the case. We have deferred the introduction of agriculture for a further 2 years to enable time to look into better ways for farmers to adapt and to reduce their emissions so they are not just fed to the wolves. 
We are not here to put people out of business. We are not here to kill off industry. We are not here to see New Zealand continue to sink further and further down the OECD rankings and that is what would happen if we did not stand up for agriculture. So we must include it. But the Minister has worked very hard as have officials to ensure that it can be included in a way that enables our farmers and our agriculture industries to survive. That is through a deferral of 2 years. That is through the reduced phase-out rate. Instead of losing their allocations at 8 percent a year our farmers will see a phase-out rate of 1.3 percent a year starting in 2016. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: We’ve been saving 1.5 percent since 1990. 
AMY ADAMS 
: As Mr Cunliffe said—for once in his life managing to say something that is remotely accurate—they are getting phased out a lesser rate now than they have already been working to reduce their emissions. So we are saying to them that that is great. It is fantastic. That is the point. The point is if they are already reducing their emissions we support them. This is a carrot and a stick. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Yeah with no stick. 
AMY ADAMS 
: If they reduce their emissions they will not have a bill. If they do not reduce their emissions they will have a bill I say to Mr Cunliffe. I do not know why he finds that so hard to grasp. But we cannot in this country simply ignore it. The way Kyoto works is that we have to account for our entire domestic emissions profile. In this country if we were to leave agriculture out all of that burden would fall on the rest of the economy. In Australia the emissions profile of agriculture is 13 percent. They may find that workable although I suspect we will find that there will be considerable cost there in agriculture albeit that may be achieved through other mechanisms apart from those directly in the scheme. 
The bill we have before us does in my view strike the right balance with our environmental obligations with the trade realities of needing to show the rest of the world that New Zealand is doing its bit between meeting our Kyoto legal obligations and the need to ensure that we do not walk away from Kiwi jobs and do not put the income of more Kiwi households at risk. We do not want to see big cost increases on Kiwi households that do not need to be there. This bill will halve those increases. It will protect those jobs and it will do our bit for the environment. I am very pleased to support it.