Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Mr Speaker. Listening to Government members and particularly the Minister one would have thought that this was epitome of the Prime Minister's climate change emergency declaration and it was the most important step towards her generation's nuclear-free moment. But once you scrape aside the excited rhetoric coming from Government MPs and particularly the Minister and even the climate change Minister himself what's left is actually a small worthy step forward in climate change legislation but it's not the great panacea that has been painted by speakers in this debate either this third reading or earlier stages as this bill has progressed through the House.So on this side of the House we are supporting it but we are acknowledging that it is just a very very small step because it actually doesn't change anything in terms of climate action. This is a Government that speaks a big game about climate action and delivers almost nothing. In fact the Minister is on his way to Glasgow very shortly and I'm sure he will be using this as an opportunity to say Look New Zealand is doing its piece it's doing our bit we're doing what we should—what we said we would do." Well actually if this is all he's got to wave around then it will be worthy of Greta Thunberg's further—Stuart Smith: Admonishment?Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Admonishment—yes admonishment. I was going to say something that was probably unparliamentary but "admonishment" is a good word Stuart Smith. "Admonishment" is a good word. So what this piece of legislation does is it actually is that small step forward to have 200—just 200—entities report in a consistent regulated measured way the risks relating to the investments that they have in terms of climate impacts. Now that's of itself not a bad thing but it's a very small step in the right direction. But it is a part of an evolution in accounting practices and it's not too dissimilar to the changes in accounting practices that occurred in years gone by in terms of triple bottom line reporting when businesses started taking into account environmental aspects in their business practices in the way that they reported to shareholders and stakeholders and indeed to customers. And it's also not dissimilar in a way to the changes that occurred in the last few decades around accredited third-party standardisation of a range of factors in business—the International Organization for Standardization accreditation programme and I can remember being involved in businesses that went through those programmes. It wasn't so much because initially the business wanted to do; it was because our customers and stakeholders and shareholders wanted us to do it. An earlier speaker actually made mention of that. So that will be a prime driver. What we have seen in other countries is that it's actually often business that leads climate action. That's certainly been the case in the United Kingdom where they've had the equivalent of our zero-carbon legislation for more than a dozen years now. And any analysis of that legislation in the United Kingdom shows that actually it's not parliamentarians passing pieces of legislation that actually goes to make change in the commercial and business world; it's actually the business sector itself being encouraged by their customers by their stakeholders and by their shareholders that will be leading the call for clear consistent reporting of what they are doing as a business in terms of their climate action or inaction and what the risk or opportunities might be for them as a commercial entity. So on this side of the House we are supporting this piece of legislation. We think that it is a small step in the right direction but not the silver bullet that the Minister or the climate change Minister James Shaw would be wanting to make it out to be in terms of his trip to Glasgow and his attendance at COP26 in the very near future. So a small but worthy step in the right direction nothing to be jumping all around and joining hands and singing "Kumbaya" about but a step in the right direction none the less."