Bayly Andrew: Climate Change (Divestment from Fossil Fuels) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBayly Andrew: Climate Change (Divestment from Fossil Fuels) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:7933. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It is a pleasure to be talking on the Climate Change (Divestment from Fossil Fuels) Bill because this is something that is really important to New Zealand—that we do deal with climate change in a responsible manner and of course we are. We have got a very good target that we are going to take to Paris in December next month.I think that everyone in this House will agree with the overall sort of general intent of what this bill is trying to achieve. However in my view it is totally misdirected. The first thing is why is this bill just focused on New Zealand Superannuation and ACC the Accident Compensation Corporation? I think of all the issues to be worried about and all the entities to be worried about they are perhaps two of the least worrisome entities that the Government has on its books.I think if the sponsor of this bill had actually picked up the phone and maybe rung Adrian Orr at the New Zealand Superannuation Fund as an example or even the investment team at ACC then they would have been absolutely horrified—Adrian would have been horrified at the thought of this bill—James Shaw: He was quite supportive actually when we spoke to him.ANDREW BAYLY: —because they are already applying a very strong ethical approach to way they invest in their investments around the world. I have actually spoken to Adrian about this bill very recently and I got a slightly different view which is that the New Zealand Superannuation Fund is very focused on achieving good outcomes and it is very focused on ethical investments and it is already applying some of the proper principles for investment.But why this bill is totally impractical is that it is an issue of how you define what the entities that should be precluded from being invested in are. There is a general sort of clause but for instance entities or investee companies that are using for instance a high use of coal—and a previous speaker was talking about transport—that is probably just as concerning as investing in certain other types of companies. How far do you stretch that definition? I have not seen anything in this bill that would go anywhere towards giving the clarity that the investees or the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation as an example would be able to apply.The second thing is that the bill actually cuts across good governance and we have been debating in this House over the past few months about permitting the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to actually invest through funds. Actually there are four issues that we have been debating in this House but one of them is the ability and quite rightly so to be able to invest in funds and not only in New Zealand but offshore. They are a very standard fund-to-fund type of approach and here you are.By implementing this bill you would then start to preclude how the New Zealand Superannuation Fund can invest its money and of course it has got a very substantial portfolio. So it may be a very small part of a very large fund that would be therefore excluded or the New Zealand Superannuation Fund would be excluded from investing those types of funds.I just think that lack of practical application and that constraint on the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and ACC achieving their outcomes is so ill-defined in this bill that it would actually become quite meddlesome. And of course it raises significant issues for the Minister because no doubt that lack of clarity will require some issue of support from a Minister and that is a difficult issue. And on that basis I cannot support this bill.