Graham Kennedy: Climate Change Response (Removal of Transitional Measure) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGraham Kennedy: Climate Change Response (Removal of Transitional Measure) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 26 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11392. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): I take it Mr Chair that we are now all accepting your ruling that James Shaw’s amendment on the purpose—his particular amendment on the purpose—is out of scope?The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Yes.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM: So it is on the basis of that discerning understanding on my part that I had thought it was probably worthwhile to put forward a separate amendment which does not seek to amend the purpose of the principal Act. What it does is seek to elaborate upon clause 3 or amend clause 3 to ensure that it is more explicitly clear—because what I have done here is look to the explanatory note and the explanation in the explanatory note. The specific purpose is removing the one-for-two obligation but the broader purpose of doing that is to improve New Zealand’s ability to fulfil its international obligations and then with a view—and so what I did was I took the thrust of the explanatory note and entered it into clause 3. The original wording is: “This Act amends the Climate Change Response Act 2002 (the principal Act).” So this—Grant Robertson: Yep keep going.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM: Well I am just craving the attention of the—I am insecure enough to crave the attention of the Chair and the Minister but I am confident that I can keep going. To improve the ability of—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I just want to make it clear to the member that we were having a discussion as to whether your particular amendment is in scope—Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM: Yes.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): —and I have ruled that it is.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM: Oh good—thank you. Then that saves me 30 minutes of elaboration as to why I think it is in scope. So the purpose now is to amend “(the principal Act) to improve the ability of the … ETS to fulfil its statutory purpose of helping New Zealand meet its international obligations under the … Framework Convention … (1992) in light of the Paris Agreement signed by New Zealand on 23 April …”. The point of doing that is to make it more explicitly clear what the purpose of removing the one-for-two obligation is—namely to improve our ability to meet our obligations under the 1992 framework convention but in light of the updated conditions that are reflected in the Paris Agreement of only 6 months ago. So I put it to the Minister—through you Mr Chair—and to colleagues that this is well worth doing because even if it were to just stand by itself independent of Mr James Shaw’s other proposed amendments which have some substance it would still none the less register the point that the one-for-two obligation is one aspect designed to improve our ability to meet the 1992 obligations updated in 2015. I think that stands by itself as being self-evident and worthy of doing.My interpretation would then be—and this now becomes a personal challenge—that the one-for-two obligation is inadequate by itself and that there is a range of other measures that will be needed for us to do that stated purpose but I do recognise that if the Government is determined this evening to confine it to just the one-for-one obligation we would support that. We have said we would support it and I would accept that as well but in doing so I would make the point that in our view it needs to be more than just the one-for-one obligation. As we develop more of a dialogue in the course of this year leading up to Marrakesh and the implementing legislation—the treaty examination of the Paris Agreement—we will be making that point in respectful dialogue with the Government. So on the strength of that I just recommend this amendment to the Committee.