Mackey Moana: Energy (Fuels Levies and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Mackey Moana: Energy (Fuels Levies and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:855] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to take a call in the third reading of this very very bad and damaging bill—the Energy (Fuels Levies and References) Biofuel Obligation Repeal Bill. I note once again that this bill did not go to a select committee. Those affected by this terrible legislation were given no chance to come and have their say. Those National members who say that Mr McNicholl is lying when he says that he will lose his business if the Act is repealed— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: No one said that. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: So is he telling the truth in his letter when he says that his plant will go under? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: He doesn’t know. Even that’s a very bad admission. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: That is right. He does not know because he read the letter only just before the lunch break. The National members who say that Mr McNicholl was not telling the truth in his letter when he said that his plant will go out of business if this bill is passed would have had the opportunity at select committee to have that discussion with Mr McNicholl face to face. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: And Sue Wood from Otaki knows that. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: That is right—Sue Wood from Otaki the former president of the National Party knows that. The least the people of New Zealand should expect is that when their Government plans to pass legislation that is not only environmentally damaging but economically damaging legislation affecting someone who has invested $10 million of his own hard-earned money and employed 22 people in Waharoa which as my colleague Jacinda Ardern—who campaigned very hard in that electorate told us—had over— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: 23 percent unemployment in 2006. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: —over 23 percent unemployment plus another 20 people in East Tamaki that person has at the very least the right to come along to a select committee and put his case. He has the right to have National members who are like lions in the House today actually face up to this person who will be put out of business and tell him why they are passing the legislation. 
There is no good reason for this repeal bill other than revenge on the Labour Government—National does not like it because we put it into place. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Oh! 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I am sure Mr Auchinvole’s call will elaborate on this in great detail but we also know that Mr Brownlee tried to claim in the Chamber today—I do not know whether it is true—that he was trying to get a meeting with Mr McNicholl to talk about the issue with him. According to Sue Wood as of Friday last week that was not the case. Again I come back to the fact that we would not need to be having this discussion if this bill had gone to a select committee and Sue Wood and Mr McNicholl had had the opportunity—which most in this country would think would be their right—to come along to a select committee and face up to those who are planning to put them out of business with this legislation. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Sue Wood was campaigning for the Nats at the election. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: That is right. She campaigned for the Nats at the election. The National Party campaigned on this policy. What it did not say is that the bill would be rammed through under urgency in the first 2 weeks of Parliament with no select committee process for the public of New Zealand to have their say. 
 Mr Brownlee has talked a lot about how unhappy he is about compulsion. This is a very fundamental philosophical opposition on his part so I went back and had a look at his first reading speech on the Biofuel Bill. I know that National supported this bill to select committee but Mr Brownlee raised a number of issues and concerns that he had about the bill as it stood going to select committee. He seemed to actually know a little bit about it. I read through his first reading speech; there was not a single mention of compulsion at all. I remind members that at the time the bill went through its first reading the mandatory target obligation was 3.4 percent not 2.5 percent as it came out of the select committee. At the first reading Mr Brownlee apparently had no problem with compulsion. In fact he went on to say: “we support the bill—with considerable goodwill—going to a select committee recognising the importance of all of this for New Zealand’s future. It has to be said that as an agricultural producing country with a huge emission problem from our agriculture sector and not wanting to penalise ourselves unduly in the future getting this part of the emissions profile in better shape is in all of our interests.” I do not know what has changed between now and then—who knows? 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: The select committee led me to change my mind. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: It is the select committee process that made the bill better. The select committee process that addressed every other issue he raised in his first reading speech apparently made it so that National could not support the legislation. 
But there was another very good first reading speech from a member of this House who is held in high regard Mr Eric Roy. I would like to read from his speech because I think it also raised a number of issues that we agree with here. He pointed out that there were a number of complex issues when it came to biofuels but that that they were part of the solution in terms of our response to the whole issue of climate change. He believed it was important that they formed part of the debate. He also said: “I also believe that New Zealand has to be in there at developmental and experimental stages because we will gain credibility in terms of the products we sell.” I agree with this entirely. He said: “we sit at 19.5 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per head of population and the rest of the world is at 5.5 percent. I happen to believe that there is something immoral in First World countries saying yes that the planet is in crisis but they will hold just where they are and everybody should hold where they are which means that underdeveloped countries stay underdeveloped. So we need to look for solutions.” I agree with that sentiment. He then explained the situation that we were in with the amount of fossil fuels that we were producing. He pointed out—quite rightly—that the transport sector was an enormous part of that area and that we needed to do it. He went on to say: “Biofuels are actually something we can engage in almost immediately. Both our diesel engines and our internal combustion engines can get straight into utilising these fuels. So we have an advantage there and while not neglecting other things”—like electric cars—“we are off first base in terms of working with biofuel solutions.” That just about says it all. 
One of the issues that consistently came up at select committee was that of low-hanging fruit. New Zealand is very different from most other developed nations. We need only to look at our greenhouse gas emissions profile compared to other developed nations to see just how different we are. New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions profile is nearly 50 percent agriculture which more closely resembles the emissions profile of a developing country than a developed country. It means that when we come to look at solutions for climate change we have enormous amounts of waste by-product from the production of meat and dairy which can be used for the production of biofuels and which other developed countries do not necessarily have in similar proportions at their disposal. 
We are for example talking about tallow. The research on tallow has been world leading. There were times when the cold flow properties of tallow were in question and people were worried. We saw a lot of evidence at select committee that this stuff is being used in Edinburgh. If bio-diesel from tallow can be used in Edinburgh at the temperatures it gets down to then certainly bio-diesel can be used all over New Zealand—otherwise not sold in the parts of the country where it may be too cold to be used. There is also the production of whey from our dairy production using ethanol. Ethanol is also a high-energy option and as we know the legislation was about energy not volume. 
Our dairy industry gives us huge advantages over other countries. It is not simply to say that we are the same as every other developed country—we are not. We have low-hanging fruit at our disposal that we can use now. The only reason that this legislation will be repealed is that the National Party does not like it. Mr Brownlee asked people to trust him to develop sustainability standards according to the principles already in the law. The legislation he is repealing had a requirement to do that. We proposed an amendment to leave the sustainability standards in the requirement. If he was genuine in what he said about those standards he would have supported that amendment because the principles that we worked on very hard at select committee were a good guidance. We were told at select committee that people wanted a clear steer on what those sustainable principles would say—what they could and could not do. These are long-term investments that both the producers and the oil companies are taking and they do not want to enter into a contract to find that 1 year down the track they are in breach of that contract because they can no longer sell that biofuel in New Zealand. 
If Mr Brownlee was serious about sustainability standards he would have supported the Hon David Parker’s amendment which left the requirement for him to develop those standards in the law. I suspect that it will be a very very long time before we see anything come out of this. A lot has been made of this obligation. It was an issue that we took seriously but what has become clear in this debate and at select committee and if we read the letter from Mr McNicholl is that the obligation made a difference. Mr McNicholl stated as much in his letter. He said: “Around August 2005 when the company became aware that the government had in principle agreed to a Biofuel Sales Obligation it took further steps to invest in ramping up production output of its R&D plant in East Tamaki.” He goes on to say: “When it became evident that the government was going to legislate the compulsory use of biofuel the company went ahead with its plans to construct a new 60000000 litres plant at Waharoa which is well under way.” So to say that a biofuels obligation does nothing flies in the face of the evidence that has been presented to the select committee and indeed to this House. 
It is appalling that the Minister in charge of the bill did not bother to read Mr McNicholl’s letter; he admitted as much in the House today. He finally read it when Labour members tabled it. I do not understand why this legislation needs to be rammed through under urgency. It provides no certainty as the Minister has just told us that he will go ahead and develop sustainability standards anyway. The sector out there is still wondering what the standards will say and do. At least if he had supported the Hon David Parker’s amendment to keep the sustainability principles in the bill people in the sector would have had some kind of clear steer on what those standards would be. They are now in no man’s land—they do not know. They do not know whether there will be any kind of sustainability principles produced at all. If there are people now have no idea what they might be because the Minister has taken them out of the legislation where they already were. This creates more uncertainty for the biofuels sector more uncertainty for oil companies and thoroughly dreadful legislation.