Marcroft JennyJENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to stand and take a call on this the second reading of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill.It's a pleasure to be a member of the Environment Committee and I'd just like to start my contribution this afternoon by thanking our previous chair Dr Deborah Russell who was absolutely fantastic to work with; our new chair of equal quality Dr Duncan Webb; all of the members for their contributions throughout this process; and particularly also too the officials who have worked diligently with us. It was noted in the previous member's contribution—the member Sarah Dowie who's just resumed her seat—that we were given a great amount of expert advice that this was a space for many of us where we had limited knowledge. The officials were very patient ensuring that we had the information that was needed for us to progress this bill through the select committee process. Also I would make note of all those who contributed to these important discussions on climate change.I note that the Minister in his speech this afternoon has said that the select committee has done a grand job and that the bill is much improved because of this. So thank you to the Minister for those comments. We do believe that we all worked genuinely very well and very hard together to make those improvements so that we see this bill now fit for purpose.There has been criticism of the zero carbon bill. Some of the farming community have said that they believe it actually goes way too far. However on the other hand environmentalists have feared that it doesn't go far enough and that it won't end up saving our planet. But this legislation I believe is ambitious and it is far-reaching and I believe that we have found and landed in the right place.Limiting climate change to no more than 1.5 degrees over the next 30 years will become legally binding. We've had many commentators particularly over the last year or so who've actually missed the importance of farm emissions being included inside the legislation. What we're doing in New Zealand is we're actually including all the tough stuff in terms of the climate change strategy the framework that we are looking to pass into legislation. In the UK when the committee travelled there last year we heard that over the 10 years that the UK has had their contract legislation they have just been knocking off all the low-hanging fruit in climate change. But for New Zealand we don't have that luxury because we're already very high in terms of our renewable energy so we don't have those easy initiatives to get through. So we are going straight to the hard stuff and that's something that I think the committee were well aware of. At 85 percent renewable already we're light years ahead of many other countries around the globe.Nevertheless it's also very useful I think at this juncture to point out New Zealand First's position when negotiating with our coalition and our confidence and supply partners about developing an enduring response to the challenge of our changing climate—weather events that we've seen particularly in our own neighbourhood in the Pacific. Where I live near Warkworth we have the largest Kiribati community. Why are they living in New Zealand? Because their island has seen the sea level come up through it. I was just at the Inter-Parliamentary Union last year up in Geneva and Tonga called for an urgent debate on climate change which I was honoured enough to chair. So we had Pacific Island nations all debating how important it is that we make this move.We do acknowledge that the last National Government recognised this as well by signing up to the Paris Agreement in 2016 and committing us. They did tinker around the edges taking a few tiny steps so we're really pleased now that we're getting down to business and therefore no longer will the status quo be sufficient for us. It became untenable and so we had to seek with our coalition agreement with Labour the creation of an independent Climate Change Commission and also the introduction of the zero carbon bill.We received a large number of submissions: 10200 submissions. We heard oral evidence from 800 submitters across the country in Christchurch Auckland Hamilton Palmerston North Nelson Tauranga Dunedin and Wellington. There was huge interest in people having their say and it was a privilege to be able to share the commitments on New Zealand for New Zealand First and to have my colleague to help with the heavy lifting from our perspective. Mark Patterson was able to sit in on some of those subcommittees to hear concerns and thoughts from those submitters.One of the things that I was particularly interested in was the level of engagement that we had. For example the Hawke's Bay Regional Council in their submission were very clear that setting a clear target in law will provide much-needed certainty and clarity of direction and they also talked about focusing on how they will reach their target as a region. So there is buy-in from our regions to this. They also commented that the agricultural sector will be important in a regional context and they noted that water security is a very important focus for them as well.Some of the other submissions that I found interesting: we heard from one farmer who had been farming in the Waipukurau region for 103 years on that land four generations of farmers and they've already reduced their stock by 10 percent to become a more sustainable production unit. So already we are seeing where farmers are taking responsibility and making those changes as well. One of the other submitters was concerned where the bill will land for farmers so they actually acknowledged that the split-gas approach was a very good thing. The Interim Climate Change Committee spoke to the committee and one of the comments that they made which I think was something that the entire committee agreed with was that it was critical to depoliticise the commission and that the independent Climate Change Commission should be experts in their fields. I think that is something that we all as a committee agreed to.We did make several changes to the bill and certainly it has improved the bill. Several people have already acknowledged what those changes are so I don't want to relitigate too many of them but I would like to speak to the one around consideration of technology. Now we believe that the commission must consider when performing its functions and duties existing technology and anticipated technological developments including the costs and the benefits to early adoption of these in New Zealand and we made this recommendation that they need to consider the costs and the benefits of adopting new and existing technologies early. This will help particularly for our rural sector the agricultural sector to make the transition once these new technologies come on board and I think we need to be forward-looking in terms of what those new technologies will be. At some point they will come on stream and that will give hope to various sectors of our community. So we're forward-looking. We are basically taking a positive approach to this and not being negative Nancys about it at all unlike some on the other side of the House.I'd just like to reiterate finally in conclusion—I turn my mind now to the long methane target and I'd just like to make a comment on that. This is the methane that does not live long in the atmosphere. The emissions budgets leading up to 2030 will determine the actual target post-2030. Now that's as it should be and the scaremongering around the long target is wrong. That scaremongering is damaging to the agricultural sector as it works with the Government to turn green into gold. I commend this bill to the House.