Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you very much Madam Speaker and I'd like to acknowledge the Minister the Hon James Shaw who—I did tell the House last night that I didn't receive a copy of the bill in advance. He explained there was a bit of a mishap and I acknowledge that so thank you for coming and talking to me about that James. Look one of the issues I have with this is actually we're talking about this auction price and the confidential reserve. We acknowledge that there may well be a need for that. We really want the select committee to tease that out. I'm not certain we need it. I don't know. I want to find out—and my colleague Andrew Bayly who knows a lot more about bond markets than I do explained the need for a floor price. My understanding was there is a floor price. This is a confidential reserve that goes between the floor price and the cap upper limit and at the point at which the other reserve units come into the market to even that price out. Now I don't know what's happened there whether this—we'll find out in the select committee and I'm sure my colleagues on the Environment Committee are looking forward to hearing that. But we found out last night from the Hon Scott Simpson that back in March of last year like a year ago there was a paper that went to a Cabinet committee and considered by that committee which said—Dr Duncan Webb: Referral motion.STUART SMITH: This is all to do with the referral actually—that said quite clearly that this was a low risk. They identified the issue. They said it was a low risk. So my submission to you Mr Shaw is that actually if it's a low risk missing one quarterly—or having the auction but without the confidential reserve price is not an issue. It's one—one—auction. That's it.I think that we've got to a point. Clearly last year they must have had some other advice where panic set in and I don't think panic is a good way to come up with good legislation. We are now in a situation where this is being rushed through the House and then rushed through select committee. How are we going to get good law out of this? I don't know. I don't think we will actually. How do we know we're not missing something? We heard from Mr Bayly what happens in the bond markets. We want to know what happens in other commodity markets as well. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The referral motion is a very tight debate. I'd ask the member to stick to essentially the referral motion. Thank you.STUART SMITH: Thank you I am actually making that point. This is a very short period for us to get the right submissions—and from people such as Fonterra who operate in this market or this type of market. We would then find out whether we are going down the right track or not. Unfortunately what we are going to be faced with is a very short time for them to put their submissions together. Then the select committee has to hear it and consider it and seek advice on that evidence that we've heard. I don't think we're going to have enough time. One auction being missed is not going to be the end of the world. It doesn't expose us overly because in fact the advice to Cabinet was that it was a very small risk. What's changed? I don't know. Perhaps the Minister could have told us that. We didn't hear that and there's been very limited actual contributions from the other side. Between us the National Party and ACT—that's been the only real contributions of any significance. And this is yet a very very important motion or bill that we are talking about here and has far-reaching consequences. We acknowledge that the emissions trading scheme is the right mechanism to lower emissions—and I know it might be quite a shock going from Waiheke to Taieri but the weather is different in those sorts of places and it can be quite a shock to people that don't come from down that way what happens in those areas. But we shouldn't—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order!STUART SMITH: I'm referring—Hon Peeni Henare: The member is far more experienced than this.STUART SMITH: It's all a matter of opinion. I think it was quite valid actually.Hon Louise Upston: Absolutely 4 March. You guys serious—4 March?STUART SMITH: The 4th of March is absolutely right and then a 15 March commencement date for a 17 March auction. It's outrageous when the risk is so low when the advice came from their own officials and the Cabinet committee accepted that in March last year. We know that that's the case. If the Minister could stand up and tell us that's not that would be great. But I know that that is the case.When are we going to hear a substantive argument from the other side about why we should rush this through rush a select committee process? These things have been set down in Parliament for a very good reason. These time frames are not something that are made up where we laze our way through all these things take our time. We take our time because we want to get it right and had time been taken perhaps in the first instance we wouldn't be here fixing up a problem a problem that's pretty obvious to anyone who operates in these types of markets. Mr Bayly came in here very quickly and got his head around this very very quickly—so someone who operates in that area. Why didn't the Government and particularly the Minister get on top of this at that time? It is a mess. It is a mistake and it's wasting Parliament's time and pushing select committees to make decisions that may not be right. Last night we had a bill in here—I suppose we should be grateful. We should be grateful that we've got more than five days which is what's happened with the local government bill last night. I mean that's outrageous. And so perhaps three weeks is generous—I don't know maybe to this Government but it isn't to parliamentary democracies around the world. This is outrageous. I think it's something that the Government will live to regret and hopefully the markets will actually react to this properly because who's going to have confidence we've actually got it right? We don't have the confidence that this is right and so we oppose the referral motion. Thank you.