Norman Russel: Climate Change (New Zealand Superannuation Fund) Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Norman Russel: Climate Change (New Zealand Superannuation Fund) Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 05 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7218. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 It was clear during this debate that there is not a lot of knowledge about responsible investment particularly on the Government side of the House. The Norwegian pension fund which is one of the biggest sovereign wealth funds in the world—over US$500 billion under management—has some of the strongest responsible investment guidelines of any of the sovereign wealth funds by far actually and has been a very successful fund. So when the Government says “Oh well we cannot have responsible investment guidelines; it’ll destroy the New Zealand Superannuation Fund.” that is just because it does not really know what is going on in the world and there are a lot of things happening in the world. 
The National Government which on the one hand is arguing that responsible investment will destroy the Cullen fund on the other hand argues that it already has responsible investment guidelines so we do not really need this bill. But it cannot have it both ways. So it is not a consistent position that the Government has taken because there is not really a logical argument there which I think is pretty sad. 
The Government also argues that we cannot have standards or red tape as it calls it. This of course is the National Party that brought us the leaky homes disaster—a $20 billion leaky homes disaster because National weakened the rules around housing. It is also National that has brought us a lot of dead miners because it wanted to weaken the rules around the regulation of health and safety legislation at work. So it seems to me that although the National Party consistently opposes standards—consistently opposes standards—none the less standards are important. 
The Green Party believes that standards matter so for that reason we have no problem with adding a fourth dimension to the current guidelines that are in the bill. I think Shane Jones actually hit the nail on the head because Shane Jones in what I thought was a very good speech said that the investment fund already has a kind of responsible investment guideline when it talks about avoiding prejudice to New Zealand’s reputation as a responsible member of the world community. So there is already a relatively weak responsible investment guideline and what we are trying to do is strengthen it up particularly around sustainability and climate change. I think that is a worthwhile thing to achieve and I thank Labour New Zealand First and of course the Greens and Mana for supporting this proposal. 
I think really when it comes down to it climate change is one of the most difficult issues that we have to deal with as a species. It is difficult because it requires action now for future gain. Most of the gain is not going to be for us here now; it is going to be for those in the future. It requires collective global action and that is a very difficult thing to coordinate and those two things make it extremely difficult for our species to deal with climate change and to make the kinds of changes we need. It requires challenging existing vested interests—vested interests that can have a very strong voice today—in order to advance the interests of those who are yet to be born. So it is a really difficult problem because we have very powerful vested interests and we have heard them speak one after another from the National Party today. We have those powerful vested interests who have a one-vote majority in this Parliament and who are against taking action on climate change and that makes it very difficult when you have those powerful vested interests today. 
It also requires an understanding of science. I think that clearly—and we have seen it again tonight and we have seen it often from the National Party members who have opposed taking action on climate change over a very long time—they think it is very difficult. It is very difficult for a lot of people to get their heads around the science. So when you put all of those problems together you can see why as a species we have had so much trouble dealing with this problem of climate change. But the reality is that if we read the science and if we read the reports from the international organisations what comes through very clearly is that we need to take action today in order to avoid out-of-control climate change which will have a dramatic impact on people who are being born today. We are seeing just the very beginning of it today. 
So although I think it very likely this bill will not get the numbers in this House today there are enough of us who are determined to do something so that over time we will make progress because if we do not make progress on this critical issue it will be our children and our children’s children and to some degree even us who will suffer as a result. I commend this bill to the House.