Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Oh thank you Madam Speaker it is a pleasure to speak on this bill and as my colleague Ian McKelvie said if you read the title of the bill up it'll be half your speech gone—I think that is right. He made a very good point about the complexity of the emissions trading scheme (ETS) and the response to climate change. Actually the emissions trading scheme is very simple in theory. But in practice it is very complex as Ian McKelvie pointed out earlier.The previous speaker Tāmati Coffey mentioned the School Strike 4 Climate so I feel justified in bringing this up seeing as it has been brought up. It demonstrates in fact how complex it is; it seems like a very simple issue until you get into the detail. And poor Izzy Cook who led the School Strike 4 Climate here in Parliament grounds was interviewed by Heather du Plessis-Allan on her show and virtually said—in response to a question from Heather du Plessis-Allan about Should I take a flight to Fiji"—"Well given we're in a climate emergency you shouldn't fly." Heather said "Well when Izzy did you last take a flight?" "Oh a couple of months ago." "Where was that?" "Oh Fiji."Jan Logie: Shame on you! Shame on you for retelling that kid's story in this House for your benefit!Hon Member: Oh come on.STUART SMITH: The poor girl—all right now listen to this [Interruption]—listen to this—listen to this this is outrageous. If it wasn't for people like that—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! Go ahead Stuart Smith.STUART SMITH: Thank you very much Madam Speaker. Poor Izzy would not have been taken advantage of. They put her out at the front as a spokesperson not equipped to argue the case. She didn't realise that her actions and calling for everyone else not to take a flight were hypocritical when she'd already taken one and in fact does that as part of her life. I don't blame her for doing that—I think it's good; I'll take flights as well. But I'm not calling it a climate emergency and I'm not trying to tell other people not to take flights. And the poor girl was taken advantage of. I think I blame the education system for this: they're ramming this down people's throats and unfortunately without taking an evidence-based approach. If only they did that we would be in a much better position than that. And I think that's one of the big issues with it.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I'll ask—order! I'll ask the member to come back to this bill.STUART SMITH: Well this is all related to it Madam Speaker but I'm coming right back to that now because this bill is an attempt to tidy up what is a complex issue. So as I said it's really quite simple: you account for the emissions that are emitted and you account for the carbon dioxide on the other side that is sequestered. Pretty simple right—until you get down to the difficulty of measuring that. And what we've seen lately with the He Waka Eke Noa is how badly that can go wrong.Hon Member: Not this bill.STUART SMITH: And this bill's quite tied to that and unfortunately it's so complex that it's not understood by many—judging quite clearly by those comments from the other side of the House.Foresters have been and are being caught by this anomaly in the bill in an attempt to try and create a market. Unfortunately this market is not just influenced by buying and selling; it's influenced by policy decisions and announcements which wildly move the market. For example the Climate Change Commission and the Government are trying to control the number of emissions trading units for sale and are also trying to control the price. It's Economics 101: you either control one or the other; you can't control both.Unfortunately with this bill it tidies up this transitional—well it gives it a time to tidy up this transitional arrangement which is a $30 penalty per unit if people haven't paid their units. As Ian McKelvie said most of us—us rural members of Parliament anyway—will have people and I have who've come into my office saying "I've cut down some trees I didn't know I was liable for—I didn't know they were included in the ETS and now I've got this liability. What am I going to do?" Well you know unless they report it it's probably not known because it's not on the title. But most people are honest; when they find out what's going on they get really worried about—and quite rightly so.So it will give them time to try and do something about it but I think this will also be a band-aid on it. We support it; we've got to do this. But I think in the end it's going to be a very difficult thing to finish to get tidied up properly and I think we'll have problems with this for quite some time. As we've seen with He Waka Eke Noa where there are lots of other opportunities for sequestration that's been taken away from the Government. They say "OK we can't measure methane but we'll estimate that. We can't measure sequestration from small riparian plantings and shelter belts so it's too hard we're not going to do it." So on the one hand they are saying "It's too hard; we can't do it." On the other hand "It's too hard but we're going to do it anyway." And that is why this market is such a mess.But I'm looking forward to hearing from the Hon Damien O'Connor—I hope he gets to speak on this bill. I understand he had a fantastic day at AgFest on the West Coast and I want to hear his report on it because the bruises have healed—you must have a wee bit of make-up on to cover those up—but I understand it was a fantastic day. I wish I was there to see it; I would have paid double the price to see it.That's about all I've got to say on this bill but I just want to finish by saying it would be far better if people stuck to what the ETS is all about and actually do it properly—allow people to count all of their sequestration as well as all of the emissions. So I commend the bill to the House."