Mackey Moana: Sustainable Biofuel Bill — First Reading 
Mackey Moana: Sustainable Biofuel Bill — First Reading 
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MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I ask the Minister Gerry Brownlee who has just resumed his seat why if he loves these standards so much he voted to repeal them before Christmas. We had these standards in legislation we worked long and hard at the Local Government and Environment Committee to develop them we worked very hard to ensure that a process was set out whereby an Order in Council process would detail these standards and we passed them into law. If this Government had not repealed the previous Government’s biofuel obligation—there was a date in that legislation of 1 July 2009 and our officials had told us that they could make that date—we would already be there. 
 Our officials told us that they would have to work hard but they said they believed it could be done or if they needed more time it would be only a little bit more and it was entirely appropriate that the Minister should have to come to the House to explain why it was taking longer than expected and what the new time frame would be. So we would already be there. It is a bit rich for National members to stand up now and go on about what a great bill this is—and I think it is a good bill—when this is the legislation they repealed before Christmas saying it was the worst piece of law that they had ever seen. 
Hon Georgina te Heuheu 
: We are entitled to take stock and decide where we want to go. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Georgina te Heuheu says that they have now taken stock and realised they were wrong. I thank the honourable Minister for admitting that the National Government was wrong in repealing this legislation in the first place. That is the first honest admission we have seen. 
I want to thank the member Jeanette Fitzsimons for bringing this bill to the House. It is like seeing an old friend again because it was not that long ago that we were working at select committee to draw up these standards and I want to acknowledge the role that the Green member on the committee Metiria Turei played in that process. An awful lot of work not only at select committee but outside select committee hours went into getting this legislation to a point where everyone was comfortable and felt that we were allowing only the sustainable forms of biofuel that were already being produced in New Zealand to go ahead. But at the same time we were doing as much as possible to shut off the avenues to non-sustainable sources. 
The member Nick Smith who was on that committee criticised us. He said there were no sustainability standards in it because they had not come into force but the submitters who came to the select committee told us that as long as the committee gave them a clear steer so that they knew what they were going to be dealing with then that was fine—as long as they were given as much forewarning about what those standards were going to include. Let us be honest what is in the legislation is extremely detailed. In fact a group of parliamentarians from the European Parliament came to look at what we had done because they were so impressed and thought we had found a really good way through. We gave a clear steer to industry about what would be expected of it once the Order in Council and the regulations were drafted and that is what it asked for. 
I have to say that it is good if we can get biofuel producers on board and the companies that produce bio-diesel. But those companies also supported the biofuel obligation that the previous Government put in which did not cost taxpayers $36 million. That is what I find astounding because every day in the House we hear from National members that they have no money to fund things like helping mums on the domestic purposes benefit get off the benefit and into work. They say they have no money for adult and community courses and no money for new early childhood centres but somehow there was $36 million for subsidies for biofuels to produce an outcome that the biofuel obligation did for free. 
We had legislation in place and let me point out that one oil company in New Zealand was already providing biofuel and had been doing so for a long time. Another oil company when the legislation was introduced into the House started putting biofuel into its mixes because of the legislation. It saw the writing on the wall so it automatically did that voluntarily before the legislation came into place. So we had people moving down the path before the legislation was even passed. We looked at the target in the bill and we dropped it down to the level at which we knew it could be supplied by New Zealand providers from sustainable sources. We were very reasonable but it was about producing a market for those companies and they were very grateful for that—and it did not cost the taxpayers $36 million. 
I am astounded that National seems to think that subsidies for these companies when we are in a recession and we are fighting over every scrap of money is the most important way to go rather than keeping in place the biofuel obligation that was there that provided a market that the oil companies were already moving towards doing and most important that cost the taxpayers of New Zealand nothing—zero. I look forward to the next National speaker explaining how National can justify $36 million in subsidies for something that was already happening for free under the previous Government.