Woods Megan; Willis NicolaHon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you Mr Chairman. I just have some questions around climate change. We heard from the Treasury when they came to select committee about the reporting framework that they have for projects in place. We heard from the Secretary of the Treasury about the three-phase role of Treasury in terms of climate change both in terms of advising the Government on the work programme or the lack of the work programme but also the economic outcomes and consequences of various decisions.One of the questions that I have for the Minister in the chair is given that climate change did not feature in this year's Budget Policy Statement I'm keen to know the extent to which climate change is going to be a focus for this Government. How it is that we are going to see filling the holes left by the axing of the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund. We know that there's 3 megatonnes out of emissions budget 2 which is 37 percent of all emissions that need to come from energy and industry sector in emissions budget 2 alone. There's another 4 megatonnes in emissions budget 3 which is 22 percent and we also know that this Government has received advice that simply doubling renewable electricity is insufficient to meet the targets that have been set. How is it that the Minister proposes to steward the Government that she is a part of through meeting those targets given climate change did not feature once in the Budget Policy Statement?Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well there we are again. If we were to take that member's comments as a guide you could measure how well someone was performing on climate change by how many times they used the phrase in a document. And that is actually how the members opposite chose to measure their performance as a Government isn't it? The more you say it; the more it's true. If you say you care about the cost of living then it doesn't matter that inflation's really high and has been for three years. Hopefully people will just blink and not notice. Just keep saying it and they won't notice the reality.Well actually substance is what matters and I do just quickly want to return to a comment made by Chlöe Swarbrick who took some personal umbrage. No personal comment was intended. My debate is with your arguments and not with your capability and I look forward to continuing to have debates about the argument. Now when it comes to climate change the approach of our Government is—the member is right; the honourable member is right—divergent from that of the previous administration who saw fit to use the emissions trading scheme which in effect imposes a cost on all goods and services in the economy by pricing carbon. It means that everyday working people pay more for their petrol pay more for goods that require petrol to freight it—it requires a higher price across the economy.The previous administration used that tool which is a tool that we support and endorse. They used the revenue generated by it for a potpourri of projects of extremely limited value—the largest of which the one that that member is so proud of was handing out massive cheques to profitable private often multinational companies. Because what that member thinks is the way to solve climate changes is to tax working people ever more to take that charge and use it to subsidise big corporates. And we on this side of the House say we don't think that's really the sensible way to do it because actually we do want profitable companies decarbonising. Absolutely we do. We want them investing in lower-carbon technology we want them contributing to a lower-emissions profile for our country. But you know what? We want them to pay for it themselves and not make working people pay the price for that as that member saw fit to do.So we see the emissions trading scheme as the key tool and we're not going to take the revenue from it and fritter it away on the sorts of projects that former Minister used to enjoy where she got to cut a ribbon and say Aren't I great?" but hadn't even actually looked at how many emissions the initiative would reduce. That came later to do any of that analysis. There are still a number of initiatives that were funded through the emissions trading scheme for which the Government never identified actually what emission reduction would occur as a result because what it was about was greenwash. And so no we're not taking that approach.The emissions trading scheme will put a price on carbon which will incentivise lower-carbon investment and behaviour. We are taking significant regulatory steps—more of which we will say in the next few weeks—to electrify New Zealand which is about doubling the generation of renewable energy so that users of our transport system and users of our heat and industrial system can use renewable rather than fossil fuel - based energy into the future and we will be taking a number of complementary measures to support New Zealand meeting its emission reduction goals. The member confuses catchy headlines and ribbon cuttings with actual emission reduction and our Government is committed to actual emission reduction achieved in an efficient way using our regulatory legislative and other tools to deliver it but not simply taxing working people ever more so that I can take the credit for writing a cheque for a profitable company. That's not the way.Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you Mr Chairman. I'm pleased to hear the Minister in the chair talk about how committed her Government is to actually cutting emissions. So I'm keen to know given Treasury's reporting function on what we heard about what will be the emissions reductions from electrifying New Zealand—in megatonnes?Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well that will depend on what users switch from other forms of energy generation to using electricity.Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Has the Minister sought advice on what the emissions reductions will be and how many companies will switch from using fossil fuels as a source of fuel to electrification in the absence of there being complementary measures which her Government has received advice on that are necessary to achieve that? And I reiterate: what will be the emissions reductions that her Government will achieve to leave the holes that have been left by cutting the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry funding?Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well I'm not surprised that the member strays so far from the actual matter at hand which is a debate about the 2022-2023 financial statements. They're a pretty ugly set of statements and her Government delivered them so she's trying to distract to another discussion. The short answer to her question is that we have been advised that we are still on track to achieve the emission reduction for the first emission reduction plan and we are soon to consult on our plan for the second emission-reduction period. And so the member I'm sure will read that consultation document with interest and she can contribute her views. I was going to say we'd welcome them. We may not but certainly her views will be interesting."