Banks John: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Banks John: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Sitting date: 06 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6297. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 In a previous life I represented a very big farming constituency the electorate of Whangarei. I do not think it is even a farming constituency today because it has come back on to the boundaries of the city. But I will take a farmer in Mangawhai Heads right now. In my day in those days farmers would love to listen on their crystal sets to what was going on in the Parliament while they were milking their cows. They would invariably be milking their cows with their wife and maybe a son and a neighbour and they would be doing their best. They have been up since 4 o’clock or 3.30 in the morning and it is now 10 to 5 at night and they are halfway through their herd of 350 cows. They listen to the Labour Party member who has just resumed his seat David Clark and the eminent member from the Green Party Kennedy Graham who I am sure is very knowledgable on these things but they are terribly confused. 
I want to take the confusion out of this debate this afternoon because if we stopped milking cows in this country today if there were no cows in this country today if the farmer from Mangawhai Heads with his wife his son and a neighbour milking their 300 cows this afternoon were not there and there were no cows being milked in this country it would not make any difference to the timing of the melting of the ice down in the Arctic—no difference at all. That is the problem. All I know is that the farmer in Mangawhai Heads listening to this debate this afternoon on his crystal set will be saying that what the Labour Party has told us today in this Committee is that it is going to cost $320 million to $350 million if this Minister this fine Minister in the chair Tim Groser does not take the decision with the support of the ACT Party and the member for Epsom to say taihoa. The farming sector the productive sector the export sector of the New Zealand economy cannot take a $380 million to $400 million hit in 2013 and maybe more in 2014 2015 and 2017 because we want to lead the world in terms of the milking of our cows so that we can stop carbon emissions on this earth. 
I am not going to debate this afternoon whether greenhouse warming and the Arctic ice—and I am saddened about that because I am an animal rights activist and greenhouse warming and the melting of the ice in the Arctic means a lot to me because it means a lot to that environment. But the problem we have here is that the country is fundamentally broke. We are borrowing $1 billion a month. We have borrowed $55 billion in the last 3 years and the farming sector that you represent Mr Deputy Speaker from the bottom of the South Island is the people who are keeping this country afloat and they really cannot take an impost of a taxation like this in the absence of the rest of the world which is not even following us. The rest of the world is not even following New Zealand let alone staying with us on the proposition. Australia Canada the United States and Britain are not even following us and we are at the forefront of this as a country. 
Going back to the Mangawhai farmer the Mangawhai farmer lives in the Kaipara constituency of the local authority. The Kaipara District Council has got more debt per capita than a citizen living in Greece. So that Mangawhai farmer listening this afternoon on his crystal set to this debate in the Parliament will say: “What is going on here? We’re struggling to make ends meet here. I’m a dairy farmer. I don’t own the property; I’m a sharemilker. I own these cows. I owe the bank $550000. I’m struggling with my debt and all I hear from the parliamentary Opposition is that it wants to put a tax on me milking my cows for the town supply of milk for the domestic sector and for exports to the rest of the world so that we can pay the interest on the $1 billion a month we’re borrowing because we’re going broke slowly.” 
Kyoto and the rest of the agreements—farmers in Mangawhai Heads do not really understand. You see the farmers milking cows in your electorate Mr Deputy Speaker or in Mangawhai Heads—there are not many farmers in Epsom—clearly understand that all costs impact on their viability to be able to pay the bank the interest on the money they owe it for the cows that they are milking and that the cows that they are milking provide export receipts for New Zealand to pay the interest on the money that we borrow which is about $1 billion a month for the last 3 years and going forward. 
It has got to be condensed into a simple debate. This National-ACT Government said at a Cabinet committee meeting not so long ago: “Taihoa on 2013. Let’s taihoa on that. Let’s make sure that the productive sector has an opportunity to pay its way pay the debt pay the interest on the $1 billion that we have been borrowing and make our export sector competitive.” 
There is no evidence that I have seen—and I would like to see it from Dr Graham who knows more about this than I will ever know and I respect that; he probably also understands this—of how you can quantify the carbon emissions from that dairy farmer’s 280 cows in Mangawhai Heads when we do not even know whether one jersey cow compared with another jersey cow has the same level of emissions. What are the emissions anyway? There is a 50 percent variance. All the work I have seen and the article that I read in  
The Economist 
 tells me that there can be up to a 50 percent difference in the emissions from one cow to the next cow. All I am saying today in the Parliament from the constituency of Epsom where there are no dairy farmers is thank you Mr Trade Minister for two things: the work you do on international trade and the gauntlet that you have picked up on emissions taxation in this country which was going to be an impost on that farmer from Mangawhai Heads with his wife his son and a neighbour from down the road who are milking 280 cows night and morning for export receipts to pay the interest on the money that we are borrowing to fund the Crown account. It is the Crown account that we are borrowing for every week and it is about funding. 
If we had oil on farms in Mangawhai Heads then maybe we could be leaders in carbon emissions on the global scene. But we do not have the oil. What we have is cows’ milk and by-products of cows’ milk for the export sector to pay for this—$380 million to $400 million. It could be more. In 2014 it could be $500 million. If we had a Labour Government a Greens Government and a New Zealand First Government by 2020 it could be $1 billion on the dairy farmers of New Zealand as taxation for this. The farmers simply cannot afford it. I speak on behalf of hard-working mums and dads who are up the metal road behind the gates up the path in the sheds—all night waking up worrying how they are going to make ends meet—milking cows for milk for production and for exports to pay the money that we are borrowing for the Crown account so that we can live in a style that we have become accustomed to and cannot afford. 
All I am saying is that when the economy comes right and the Crown account stops borrowing from the Chinese to fund it each week each month and each year then we might be able to afford to even have a debate like this. But these debates are costing $8000 a minute in this Parliament to talk about taxing farmers the productive sector of the New Zealand economy which is holding this country up. 
I will say one final thing about emissions control and this National Government’s attitude towards it. I thank the National Government for its sensible proposition that right now is not the time to be even having this discussion. Right now is not the time to be taxing farmers on their emissions. Right now is the time to be supporting the farming sector the productive sector of the New Zealand economy to pay the interest on the money that we are borrowing each week for the Crown account which we cannot afford. Thank God for the farmers and Minister stay staunch on this. It is very important to the New Zealand productive sector. Stay staunch on it. Do not buckle to any of the Supplementary Order Papers because the ACT Party and the member for Epsom will not support silly Supplementary Order Papers that mean more taxes more impost and more costs on that farmer whom I talked about who milks 280 cows at Mangawhai Heads with his wife his son and the man from down the road.