Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): When we as parliamentarians gather here in this place day after day sometimes year after year much of what we do and attend to is seen by our fellow citizens as being mundane boring irrelevant and frankly inconsequential. And then from time to time there are pieces of legislation that come before this House pivotal pieces of legislation that are history making that are formative in the future of our country of our citizens and of the generations that will follow behind us. Today in this debate we are marking one of those moments and so I'm delighted and very proud to be on this side of the House representing Her Majesty's loyal Opposition in support of this bill.It's been a long road. It's been a long slow road to getting to where we are today. But I think it's been worthwhile because here in what is actually the ultimate citizens' assembly of Aotearoa it's good to see a former colleague Dr Kennedy Graham sitting in the Chamber at a place where he is appropriately most welcome because Kennedy Graham and others in the last Parliament and indeed over a long number of years have provided an awful lot of work along the pathway to getting to where we are today. I enjoyed working with Kennedy Graham on a genuine cross-partisan bi-party approach to creating what was then an initiative by GLOBE-NZ in the last Parliament that the Minister for Climate Change referred to in his speech that ultimately produced the Vivid Economics report that presented a range of scenarios to take us to a low-carbon economy by the second half of this century. That was pivotal work because it laid the foundation for where we are today.I want to thank my colleagues and also I want to acknowledge the leader of the National Party Simon Bridges because he mentioned in his speech that he made our position very clear back in June of last year at Fieldays. So it should have come actually as no surprise to any keen observer of politics what the National Party's position on this bill would be at third reading because he actually laid out our position back then when he indicated that he was willing and prepared as Leader of the Opposition to work collaboratively in good faith on behalf of the Opposition and on behalf of the Parliament of New Zealand to try and achieve consensus that would require a degree of compromise by us all that would be difficult that would be challenging. But he was prepared to lead us as an Opposition through that debate.And he talked then about it being challenging to achieve; it would require an adjustment to our thinking but it was something that we must do as a nation. He said that to drive long-lasting change broad and enduring political support is needed" and I agree with that. I agreed with it then when he said it I agree with it now and I agree with it into the future. "Stability is required" he said "to allow people and businesses to plan and respond". He said consensus between the major political parties would be required and that an overall framework an infrastructure a way of managing a reduction to our emissions and a transition to a low-carbon economy would need to be led through practical science sensible approach and that a commission was a good way to do it. Then he went on to say that "the prize is too great not to try". And so I'm very proud that he did try that we did try and that across the House everyone has been trying their best. That said there are a number of matters that we feel are still problematic with this piece of legislation. And Simon Bridges leader of the National Party has made it clear this afternoon that within the first hundred days of a re-elected National-led Government there will be changes to this legislation. We prosecuted our agenda for those changes last night at the committee of the whole House. Each and every one of those initiatives was voted down by the coalition Government and its members. We will put that right within the first hundred days of a re-elected National-led Government and what that means is that a methane target will be recommended to the Minister of the day by the commission. Earlier this week I received a letter from a group of agricultural primary sector organisations. It was Beef + Lamb DairyNZ the deer industry and Federated Farmers. Collectively they represent all of New Zealand's pastoral farmers and in their letter amongst other things they said to me this: "We also view that sending these targets"—this is in reference to the methane target—"to the Climate Commission is the best way to de-politicise what we all want to be a scientific decision that can have long-lasting support." I put it to members of the coalition Government that that's exactly what needs to be done. I understand that there is a clause in the legislation that enables the Minister to request the commission to make a recommendation forthwith and it's my fervent hope that the Minister will listen to organisations such as our primary producing groups listen to us as an Opposition and take heed of that opportunity that is available to him. We also had a number of other concerns. We were concerned that there isn't enough protection around food production and so we will move at the appropriate time when we have an opportunity that the wording of the Paris Agreement is put into the purpose clause of this legislation—that would ensure that the production of food is protected whilst taking us to a low-emissions economy. And we'll put in stronger attention and detail and review of what's happening by nations around the world. We want to be sure that our actions as a nation as a small nation of less than 5 million people at the bottom of the South Pacific with a low total contribution to global emissions—we want to make sure that our contribution is in step with those of the rest of the world. And then we want to have some consideration of the impacts; what it means to individual New Zealanders their families their businesses and their communities. We're concerned about the potential for mass forestation. I want to quote in this debate a letter that was sent by none other than the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and he sent this letter to the Minister for the Environment David Parker and to the Minister for Climate Change James Shaw it's dated 22 October and it says amongst other things and I quote: "As you are aware there are real risks associated with relying too heavily on forestry offsets. Much comment has focused on the social impacts of land-use change and my concern is more directly environmental. Not only are sinks a risky store of carbon in a warming world excessive reliance on them will defer the transition we must make away from fossil fuels". And so I urge both those Ministers to take heed of the advice of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.I want to just acknowledge also the visit by Lord Deben the chair of the UK climate committee back in 2017 in March. He was hosted to New Zealand by the National Party's Bluegreen organisation and we did that because we wanted to engage a conversation about what the legislation that this bill is actually based on—how it had worked in the United Kingdom. And we found that amongst other things it had worked quite well for them over there. So we were very pleased to have a pivotal role in bringing him here.I want to conclude my contribution today by looking to the future because one of the things that we've learnt is that once this legislation is passed debate will turn to the future. It will turn to how we achieve the changes that are going to be needed and required. And so now is the time to look to the future. Now is the time to look to the future with optimism with hope with determination and together."