Smith Nick: Biofuel Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Smith Nick: Biofuel Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18296. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I apologise to my colleague; I have a meeting I need to go to and I want to make a further contribution. I have noticed that not a single member in the Committee has been able to refute the core argument around the amendment that National has put. 
Moana Mackey 
: Because it is not doing anything. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well let us go through it. Does the member accept as the Minister of Energy does that there are a large number of unsustainable biofuels around the world and that that is cause for serious concern? 
Colin King 
: He’s nodding. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: He is nodding as is the member. In every other area of public policy before we make something compulsory we want to have the standard in place. Have members ever heard of anything as ridiculous as what the member for Rotorua wants? She is the temporary member for Rotorua; she is a goner the National candidate is on his way here and we are looking forward to welcoming him. One of the reasons Steve Chadwick will go is she does not seem to give a hoot about the costs imposed on people in Rotorua on low and middle incomes. She is prepared to pass any sort of politically correct legislation that imposes costs on her constituents and that is one of the reasons she will go down the gurgler in a few weeks time when we have a general election. 
I come back to the core point: why will this Parliament not support having the sustainability standard in place before making biofuels compulsory? The Government says that that would just delay them. 
Moana Mackey 
: Of course it is. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well is it a bad thing to delay making unsustainable biofuels compulsory? I ask those ladies opposite why we would want to compel people to use biofuels made from palm oil from Indonesia. Labour is making biofuels compulsory before it introduces a sustainability standard and not a single member of the Government including Steve Chadwick can give me a reason why. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: It will stimulate biomass. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Oh she says it will stimulate the biofuels industry. Well let us try to stimulate a sustainable biofuels industry. There is absolutely no logic in the Government bringing this provision into effect on 1 October. 
There is a reason for it. Labour has been in Government for 9 years and New Zealand has the worst increase in emissions of any of the 42 Kyoto-obligated countries—an awful record. We have lost record numbers of trees. We have had a constant decline in the amount of renewable electricity. Basically the Government is going into the election on the issue of sustainability with one of the worst records on climate change that any Government could have. It wants a little photo opportunity on 1 October so that its members are able to say: “Hey guys we know that climate change is in trouble we know that emissions have gone through the roof but hey we’ve got the Biofuel Act.” 
What the Government is not telling the public is that the sustainability standard is miles down the track. I do not think a single member of this House believes that it will be provided by the due date of 1 July next year. The Government says it wants to get in early with this legislation in order to get the benefit of it. Sorry? In order to get the benefit of biofuels making up half a percent of fuel in the first year it will go ahead with it without the sustainability standard! 
National members on the select committee struggled for 6 months to get a sustainability standard and could not do it. We have given a hospital pass to the officials to try to work it out. The Government knows that they are not going to meet the timetable for the sustainability standard but it is passing this bill without that most basic component. I have a simple challenge for members of the Government: if they want compulsory biofuels they should put in place the sustainability standard that will deal with the risk of food being taken from the poorest in the world that will deal with the risk of biodiversity being bowled over and that will ensure that there actually is some climate change benefit before rushing ahead and introducing compulsion. 
The last point I will make to the Minister of Energy is this. He says we need this bill to stop unsustainable biofuels. Well whenever we get the standard it still will not prohibit unsustainable biofuels.