Hodgson Pete: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Forestry Sector) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Hodgson Pete: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Forestry Sector) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:655;Page:4728] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I will give just a wee reaffirmation that Labour members will be supporting the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Forestry Sector) Amendment Bill. We consider it to be minor we consider it to be sensible and we consider that the firm deadlines that the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee has put into the legislation are the appropriate things to have. And we signal the obvious—that this legislation represents for part of the emissions trading scheme a delay of 12 months or thereabouts. 
I say a little acerbically that it needs to be put on the record that had there been the necessary cooperation during the 9 years of the Labour Government—cooperation that we think we might be starting to see now—we would not be in this position. We would not be in this position if we had matured earlier. But we did not. We got off to a great start even before then in the days of Simon Upton who by the very nature of the man was inclined to want to reach out across divides and to have chats about this and that. And those were the days when we signed the Kyoto Protocol. We did not ratify it in that time of course but we signed it and got started. Simon Upton never did get to make a lot of progress because of his own Cabinet and its opposition to the things he was seeking to do. But under the 9 years of the previous Labour Government—and I remember some of these matters well—the National Party routinely opposed everything. It opposed every piece of legislation and it engendered opposition in society as a whole. It declined to promote alternative plans with any detail. It even had one of its idiot members of caucus ride a tractor up the steps of Parliament. It was only 3 years ago that the Prime Minister—today’s Prime Minister—said he was not sure of the value of the Kyoto Protocol and indeed he was not sure whether climate change was a real matter. 
But you see in 2002 the Kyoto Protocol was ratified and at that point an environmental issue became an economic one. That is what the Kyoto Protocol does to climate change. It takes it from being an environmental issue and turns it into an economic issue—at least for those countries that have targets. If we look a little further along we see that it immediately becomes a fiscal interest and therefore at the point of ratification as soon as Treasury has woken up to that in whatever jurisdiction one is in then the Minister of Finance wakes up to that and a bit of go-forward is created because of that. But we did not get it right even then. People did not like the carbon charge and after the 2005 election that was voted down and we went straight to an emissions trading scheme not via a carbon charge but directly. My predecessor David Parker put in place an emissions trading scheme with support from many parties in this House but not including the National Party. 
National could have supported the emissions trading scheme and then gone and amended it later on but it did not. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: We voted for the first reading. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: It did at the first reading—I do apologise. But the fact of the matter is that the National Party in my view wasted those 9 years in Opposition. That is not to say that all of its members did; there would have been some members within the National caucus who were busy on that and maybe the current Minister was one of them. But generally speaking we are looking at lost opportunities there. None the less that is where we are at. 
At the last election we had a change back to a National Government along with the “4 percent environmental vandals” in the form of the ACT Party. Its members basically said “We are 4 percent; you’ll listen to us. We’re off to a select committee to find out yet again whether the issue of climate change is a real one or whether it isn’t.” So the months have gone by. But National I would think can no longer rely on the ACT Party for any reliable support on an emissions trading scheme even though the Minister of Finance knows that until the allocations are done and until the obligations are farmed out there is an impost on the accounts to be paid by the taxpayer not by the polluter. The ACT Party—the party that stands firmly as my colleague Charles Chauvel has said for business certainty—came into this House helped to form a Government and immediately created huge uncertainty around a huge issue. In my mind those ACT members stand condemned for that because they are truly the Luddites of the land when it comes to this issue. 
None the less this the point at which we find ourselves. We have made hesitant progress three steps forward and two steps back—some would say two and a half steps back—but none the less we have made progress. Now we come to a point where we run the risk of there being an outbreak of peace at least between the two major parties on climate change legislation and I certainly reaffirm our support for this bill. I think this is necessary legislation; it is good legislation in the sense that it has had something forced upon it and it should proceed through the House without too much further delay.