Fitzsimons Jeanette: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — In Committee 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:649;Page:18161] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I am happy to take a further call on Part 1 in order to complete the analysis of the changes to the bill that the Green Party has achieved. The one thing I did not have a chance to talk about in my earlier contribution was the question of the impact that pine forestry could have on New Zealand’s biodiversity. A number of submissions to the select committee and in particular the analysis that was done by the Cawthron Institute of the likely environmental impact of the emissions trading scheme pointed out that this great monetary incentive to plant pine trees could come at the expense of land that was in rare tussocks in the high country land that had been regenerating in native forests ever since 1990 and other areas where there were biodiversity and ecosystems we would not want to lose. So the Green Party has always asked for there to be some conditions in the bill before one can get credits for planting pine trees just anywhere. 
The strong reply we had not just from the Government but also from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment was that the place to deal with biodiversity is in the Resource Management Act not the emissions trading scheme. There is no process in the emissions trading scheme whereby one can set criteria that pine forests have to meet. Fine so we then proceeded to deal with the matter under the Resource Management Act. The problem under the Resource Management Act is that plans vary enormously in the standards they set. Some councils have set some quite good protections for biodiversity in their district plans and others have none at all. What we need is consistency and the way one gets consistency under the Resource Management Act is through a national policy statement. 
A national policy statement on biodiversity was attempted a few years ago. The Government basically stalled because it got too hard. We had another look at that and we have a commitment now that a national policy statement on biodiversity will proceed under the Resource Management Act; and because with the best will in the world promises 10 weeks before an election are not necessarily always implemented we have a commitment that one of the targets legislated for in the bill in the amendment we achieved will be a date by which a national policy statement on biodiversity will be promulgated. Under the Resource Management Act it takes about 2 years. We are concerned about what might happen in that 2 years until it is out but it is about the best solution we can arrive at. So there will be a national policy statement under biodiversity and I think that will be of benefit not just to the areas threatened with pine forest but to the areas threatened with all kinds of vegetation clearance with subdivision with building and so on. 
There is also a provision now in new section 166(1)(ba) for a statutory declaration to be made by those planting exotic forests for credits to show that they have complied with all the provisions of the Resource Management Act so that where their district council does have rules they will make a statutory declaration that they have complied with them. That of course raises the penalty threshold considerably if they lie and that I think will be a helpful matter. 
I will reply to some of the general matters that have been raised all day today by saying that criticisms of the bill seem to proceed mainly from the view that dealing with climate change is fine as long as it does not cost anyone anything. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Never said that! 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: Nick Smith may have never said that but a lot of his colleagues did. The problem is that no one should have to pay anything. One would think listening to members of the Opposition that farmers were going to be up for a big bill tomorrow. In fact farmers are completely subsidised by the taxpayer for 5 whole years until the end of the first Kyoto period and then they are 90 percent subsidised by everybody else for a further 5 years before the subsidy starts to abate. Farmers actually have an exceptionally gentle deal under this legislation and to some extent there is a reason for that. The technologies and the methods for farming that reduce nitrous oxide and methane are less well developed and less well verifiable under Kyoto than what can be done in an industrial factory.