Hodgson Pete: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hodgson Pete: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7957. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 Let me take the Minister for Climate Change Issues back to his remarks before the dinner break as we began the Committee stage of the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill. The Minister took us through the brief history of climate policy in New Zealand. I will not do that because it is a long history and it has already been done but he did say that we have had a very long debate and there comes a point in a country’s history where we need to make progress. I agree with him on that. We have had a long debate and there comes a point where we need to make progress; it is just that that point is not now. This is not progress as I will spell out in a few more minutes. 
The one thing that needs to come out of the very long debate is the fact that this Parliament has not yet reached anything resembling consensus on climate change. It took us 20 years to reach consensus on superannuation and it took us quite a long time on other issues that are difficult matters to resolve. We have not done it on climate change. So I say to the Minister in the chair the Hon Dr Nick Smith that it would be good style if he were to get up and give his response to the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of my colleague the honourable Charles Chauvel. It sets forward a process by which we might alter legislation and alter targets through an independent body as the years go by. That might be a way that we can move towards something resembling a collective agreement. While we are at it the Minister for Climate Change Issues ought to also respond to the Green Party Supplementary Order Paper that specifically asks for transparency around allocation. If there is not transparency around allocation and we do not end up with transparency around electoral donations then it is too easy to draw the conclusion that an allocation has been made as a consideration for a donation. That would be a really sad time. 
I thank the Minister for his introductory remarks. I suggest that if we are ever in the future to move towards a more bipartisan approach—and we certainly have not got there yet—to climate change than we have been able to achieve for whatever reason between 1997 and today then a response to the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Charles Chauvel which he mentioned in his first speech— 
Craig Foss 
: He said you’d repeal this bill. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Oh indeed—that is our position. The point I am trying to make is that we do not have agreement across the House. I will spend the rest of the debate explaining why that is but I am saying now that my colleague the honourable Charles Chauvel has put forward an idea that I think the Committee should look at. It is an idea that I think the Minister may want to respond to tonight tomorrow or whenever it might be and while he is at it he might also want to respond to the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of the Greens regarding transparency of allocations. 
The other comment that the Minister made in his introductory remarks and he has made a lot of play about this is that New Zealand is now a little closer to Australia on climate change issues than we used to be and that as we speak Australia is contemplating putting legislation through the Senate etc. that the Minister said is a little weaker than the New Zealand legislation that he has put in front of the House. The Minister challenged Labour members to say what they thought about that given that that legislation is in the name of the Australian Labor Party. He asked whether we would dare criticise it. Well we most certainly do and here is the history behind that. 
In the last decade Australia has been governed by a centre-right Government and New Zealand has been governed by a centre-left Government which has had the Greens at its flank right through that time. As a result of that after many many attempts to get the numbers in the House we finally got legislation through in the name of the Hon David Parker. It was an emissions trading scheme that was much stronger than the one we have now. I used to be involved in climate change negotiations internationally through the 1990s and without telling too many secrets or stories I can tell members that what happened in the 1990s was that New Zealand was way ahead of Australia—way ahead. Australia is catching up from a low position. The Rudd Government is progressive whereas this Government is moving back from a more advanced position and is therefore regressive. We are still ahead of Australia but only just. That is a shame. What is more because Australia negotiated a better deal at Kyoto in 1997 it is in fact not behind in its emissions record; we are. We have some things to do and the reason why the Parker emissions trading scheme should remain on the books is that it comes into play earlier. 
I acknowledge that the Minister has a problem and I will read it out. The problem is a quote in  
Hansard 
 from Rodney Hide about a year ago and it goes like this: “that is that the entire climate change and global warming hypothesis is a hoax that the data and the hypothesis do not hold together that Al Gore is a phoney and a fraud on this issue and that the emissions trading scheme is a worldwide scam and a swindle.” That is from National’s coalition partner that is why the Minister has been delayed by months because of the select committee process and that is what drove the Minister into the arms of the Maori Party. I am sorry that there was not room between National and Labour to get a deal. We assert afresh that we negotiated in good faith. We were certainly prepared to move but we were certainly not prepared to move as far as the legislation we have in front of us now. 
However I think there is agreement that the emissions trading scheme as a tool is the best way forward and that is a point of agreement. That comes from someone who introduced a carbon tax into the policy mix en route to an emissions trading scheme I would assert. That did not get the numbers finally in 2005 and I think that much of it might be something that is pretty much set in stone. From here on however things get bad. I will not have time to lay them out in the remainder of my 10-minute introductory remarks but I will say that the one thing that disappoints me perhaps more than anything else about this legislation is that this Government has no confidence in our economy. It has no confidence in New Zealand business it has no confidence in our renewable energy industries it has no confidence in the innovation of our agritech sector and it has no confidence in the high-tech end of the New Zealand economy. It is as if we must freeze our economy here and now in 2009 and tourism and dairying will do it for us. Well they will not be sufficient. 
The Kyoto Protocol is a significant driver for economic advantage. It is a significant driver for a phrase that the Government does not like but here it is: economic transformation. We have taken the driver off. Michael Porter would say: “Don’t do that.” and many other growth economists would ask whether we were nuts but we have done that. We have taken the driver off some of the smartest people in our country and they are aghast because they were ready to take advantage of a tougher bigger better emissions trading scheme. It is not a point of view that is shared by the ACT Party. I acknowledge that and I acknowledge those members’ consistency. I say and it is not a one-liner that I trot out too often that I think that ACT is consistently wrong. But I say to National which does understand economic development that it is making a very serious mistake because it is freeze-framing us. In my view it is freeze-framing us in a way that I just do not think is tolerable. 
In the case of agriculture if we are improving our intensity by 1.5 percent without any drivers why are we saying that just 1.3 percent from now on will do? I ask whether it is lost on National members that we have the finest agritech sector in the world. We know more about plant and animal breeding than any other country I know with the possible exception of Australia and we already had an ability to make those changes without any drivers. Yet somehow or another we are saying to people in the agriculture sector that they can forget about it. We are saying that it is fine and dandy and they can put the money in their pocket if they want to do it for productivity or food conversion efficiency reasons but they should not worry about the environmental stuff. 
That is not a tolerable position—1.3 percent is derisory. Making it 1.3 percent is saying to agriculture that it should just go backwards a little bit and that will be OK but it is not. It is not OK for productivity reasons it is not OK for environmental reasons and it is not OK for reputational reasons. The food miles debate is not going away. Other countries will catch up with us sooner or later and we will say that the emissions trading scheme that was passed in 2009 was part of the problem because it allowed us to take the pedal off the metal. That should never be allowed to happen. This country depends on primary production good downstream processing and selling into international markets.