Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Look the ACT Party knows that New Zealand's agreed that under the Paris Agreement we need to play our part to limit global temperature rise to around 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2100. Now I'm a civil and environmental engineer and I came to Parliament to solve problems just like this. But sadly the emissions reduction plan proposed by Minister James Shaw and supported by the Labour Government does not reduce our emissions. It does not reduce our emissions any more than what would occur under the capped emissions trading scheme. Because the emissions trading scheme sets a cap on New Zealand's emissions every year and all of the carbon you reduce with your ute tax your car scrappage and all of the other schemes paying big business like Fonterra paying big business like breweries to replace a coal boiler with something else they would have replaced anyway it doesn't reduce our emissions by a single tonne more than allowed under the cap under the emissions trading scheme. Now Kiwis pay for their fossil fuel emissions right now: about 20c a litre on petrol and diesel—that's about $20 a month on an average power bill. That's a huge incentive to reduce fuel usage and save energy. The emissions reduction plan is actually a combination of bad policy virtue signalling and wishful thinking—those are three things that this Government's actually really really good at. Their track record in climate policy is that coal imports have doubled in the past three years. Now the Government wants to tax farm emissions. Today Groundswell delivered a petition to ACT MPs at Parliament with a 102000 signatures signed by Kiwis rejecting the Government's plan. Kiwi farmers are amongst the most efficient in the world. Taxing Kiwi farmers will only push emissions offshore production offshore and lead to higher global emissions. Look at the emissions trading scheme plan for cash for clunkers". The Government proposes handing out $8000 to $12000 to people who hand in a used car in exchange for cash to take people's petrol and diesel vehicles off the road. Imagine handing out $12000 of taxpayer funds for a used car that a wrecker told me they'd give you a hundred bucks for. Only under Labour. Well it gets worse. This scheme is expected to cost $569 million—half a billion dollars. The emissions reduction would only be 4500 tonnes a year according to a reply to a written question from Minister Michael Wood. That's 4500 out of New Zealand's 80 million tonnes a year for half a billion dollars. That's $126000 per tonne of carbon reduced compared to 85 bucks a tonne—you could buy a credit on an emissions trading scheme today right now and shred it. Now the ACT Party also wants to raise a warning. The emissions reduction plan contains actions such as income insurance which are entirely irrelevant to emissions reduction. By including highly political but completely irrelevant policies in the emissions reduction plan a future Government including ACT will have no choice but to bin this emissions reduction plan and get rid of the zero carbon Act that enables the central planning nightmare. Now this is what ACT would do instead: we'd set a cap on emissions equivalent to the average of our top-five trading partners. New Zealand does need to play its part to reduce our emissions but not at the expense of food production in sending high-paid manufacturing jobs offshore. ACT would also return the billions collected under the emissions trading scheme to Kiwis—Kiwis who pay for their emissions at the pump and in their power bills. We'd return $250 per person per year—around $750 per household—through the emissions trading scheme revenues instead of wasting it on "cash for clunkers" and all these other madcap schemes. We'd also allow New Zealand businesses to mitigate their emissions offshore at lowest cost using certified carbon mitigation schemes. That's proposed in my member's bill; it's also allowed under the Paris Agreement but it's currently banned under the zero carbon Act. Countries like Switzerland are doing this in Fiji: they're replanting mangroves they're carrying out climate diplomacy in the Pacific and cutting New Zealand's carbon climate reduction lunch. I've written to James Shaw today to seek his support for my member's bill. That's ACT's practical solution to help New Zealand meet its emissions reduction targets and actually do things in the Pacific and with our neighbours that help them. And I'll also ask members in this House to support my bill so that together we can create enduring climate policy not this absolute farce that this Government—and the Minister for Climate Change James Shaw who we haven't heard from from his resort in Egypt since he left—have delivered to this country. ACT wants New Zealand to play its part in climate change. We want it to be enduring but we also want New Zealanders to get the reward—the carbon dividend that they deserve for saving on emissions. Thank you Mr Speaker."