Hughes Gareth: Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill — Second Reading 
Hughes Gareth: Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:17733] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak on behalf of the Green Party on the Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill. In 2009 there were nearly 30000 flights into New Zealand bringing amongst other things 4.5 million people. As an island nation our international air links are vitally important to our relations and our economic prosperity. This rather uncontroversial bill enables the Crown to recover the costs of aviation security biosecurity and customs from new international airports and non-routine flights. 
Our biosecurity is vital to our economic well-being and we must be vigilant to protect our primary production base from introduced pests and diseases. This bill is about protecting the Crown’s potential liability from providing this service and internalises some of the enforcement costs but myopically it ignores the big issues facing us through international air travel. 
The bill focuses on the costs and the liabilities but in the nature of most of the legislation that goes through this House it takes a narrow view. The bill focuses solely on the financial costs ignoring all the other costs relating to the subject we are discussing tonight. The bill ignores the costs of aviation on the climate: the costs paid by people who right now are facing rising sea levels and extreme weather events. It ignores the cost to the environment from pollution as a result of international air travel and it ignores the social costs that are being paid by people who are living under next to or near to airports. Like so much in our society when we talk about costs we simply ignore the environmental costs—the externalities which are real but unmeasured and unvalued when we focus exclusively on the financial costs. 
The Greens will be voting for this bill and we welcome the modest intent that international travellers arriving in a new international airport should pay their fair share of the public services that are so essential such as biosecurity but we lament the parliamentary time spent focusing on the minutiae while we face the clear and present danger of climate change and one of its major causes. Climate change is already the greatest threat facing the planet and it is not just the polar bears and penguins any more—it is the poorest and the most vulnerable who are feeling the brunt of climate change. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan estimates that right now 300000 people are dying annually as a result of climate change. Tonight as we discuss the costs we ignore the real costs of climate change and one of its major growing causes: international air travel. Ironically those 300000 people estimated to be dying right now are almost certainly among the poorest 63 percent of the planet or the 4.2 billion people who will probably never ever travel in an airplane in their lifetimes. 
Air travel is the world’s fastest-growing source of greenhouse gases and globally those 16000 commercial jet aircraft are emitting more than 600 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. All those planes flying at any one time are not only releasing carbon dioxide but also spewing a whole host of other gases into the troposphere changing the atmosphere of the planet. Even in clean green “100% Pure New Zealand” our international aviation emissions have increased by 66 percent between 1990 and 2009. 
Tonight if we are to be honest we should be discussing all the costs associated with international air travel and we should be prepared to ask the hard questions. Do we want to grow maintain or shrink our emissions from international travel? I love flying and the Greens are not opposed to flying but the question is about who pays the true cost of our decisions to fly. It is a genuine challenge to our country. We are a far-flung nation at the bottom of the world that makes its way in the world by exporting globally and having people come to visit us. As 70000 people prepare to fly to New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup we need to be asking ourselves about the costs of how they will get here. A return trip from the UK to New Zealand emits 7.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide: that is about the same as the per capita emissions of Swedish citizens over the entire year and in this case it is just on one trip. Many of those travellers will be flying into Auckland from the UK and they will already be paying a distance-based environmental impact duty of around $240. Landcare Research found that direct carbon dioxide emissions from the tourism sector were massive with over 4 million tonnes produced from aircraft which is equivalent to a quarter of our nation’s carbon dioxide emissions across the entire economy but those costs are just not counted. 
As it stands under the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation and the 4000 treaties it has been written into since all international travel is protected from all excise taxes and global climate negotiations have ignored it in their deals globally despite the significance of air travel. No matter what people do in their lives be it recycling changing the light bulbs or taking the bus it all quickly comes to nought if they are still flying round the world for shopping trips to Sydney quick winter breaks to the Islands or taking short-term long-haul flights. 
If we are serious about protecting the climate we cannot keep growing air travel. As the UK-based Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research shows if we want to keep the Government’s—albeit inadequate—target of 450 parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and want to continue flying we will have to reduce to zero all the other emissions in our economy—that is our emissions from cars electricity and energy—and that is plainly ridiculous. As MPs who have unlimited flying privileges we must lead the debate on how we reduce our emissions from air miles. Although planes have become more efficient over time we are still essentially dependent on a 1940s engine design and we are already reaching close to the limit of efficiency gains. At the same time we are massively increasing the number and the kilometres of flights. In the UK in 1970 British airports were used by around 32 million people. In 2004 the figure was 216 million people and by 2030 the Government there is predicting a mind-boggling 500 million trips through its airports. 
We cannot keep growing like this on a finite planet. Alternative fuels such as biofuels may play a role but all of them so far have environmental and social costs. Biofuels contribute to rising food prices which gives us the stark choice between the stomachs of the poor or the pleasures of the rich. As George Monbiot says there is no techno-fix for the disastrous impact of air travel on the environment. Tonight as we discuss the Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill we ignore the real costs of international air travel. We should be asking whether air travel is too cheap. Should there be a tax on fuel? Should it be included in global climate treaties? Should we limit growth? Should we stay where we are or even try to reduce the number of flights? We should be focusing on sustainable alternatives to air travel. We should be preparing alternative strategies as our economy is just so dependent on our international air links. 
Although I have talked tonight about climate change which is impacting on us in our own time and gives us reason to act alone reducing the amount of international air travel may be forced on us. Already the price of oil has topped US$120 a barrel and recently the International Air Transport Association warned that airline industry profits will be reduced by half this year because globally the industry is facing a $166 billion fuel bill. In 2008 when the price of oil skyrocketed similar to its rise now nearly 25 airlines globally hit the dust. Kiwi motorists are already feeling the pinch at the pump as is the international air industry. As insecurity spreads in the Middle East—thanks to people’s revolutions against dictators propped up by Western nations to ensure their access to cheap fuels—as we near the natural reality of peak oil and as we enter a series of oil price-shock recessions followed by price crunches causing further recessions that pinch will hit further. 
In summary we need to look at the cost that the end of cheap oil will impose on us the cost of climate change and the cost of pollution—not just the financial cost. In conclusion as we focus on these issues we have to ask ourselves whether this Parliament is like a traveller sitting in an airplane and looking over a beautiful view out the window but instead focusing just on that dirty dot on the window. Kia ora.