Muller ToddTODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to take my first call in the committee stage of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill and echo if I may the sentiments expressed by my colleague Scott Simpson who I think framed up our perspective extremely well. We all know in this House that often when we get to the committee of the whole House stage there are times when Oppositions put Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) on the Table more for political posturing regardless of the colour of the Opposition of the time and it's all part of the process that we follow. I think it is fundamentally different with respect to this bill.I covered off the National Party's perspective with regards to this last night in the second reading of the bill: that this whole conversation is anchored on a premise that bipartisanship is critical for the enduring nature of legislation of this sort. We don't need to traverse all the ups and downs of the process to date but it has been very much as Scott Simpson said in the spirit of adding to the legislative framework that is being considered that our SOPs appear in front of us this afternoon. I'd like to quickly step through those and urge particularly the Minister for Climate Change to reflect deeply on the merits of them in terms of adding to the quality of the legislation that it has to be acknowledged has been worked on now for many many months.Firstly SOP 401 reflecting on the additions we would like to do to the purpose statement. There will be an argument that says Well we if append the Paris Agreement to the legislation then somehow the intent that is sought by this SOP gets covered." We disagree with that. The purpose plays a significant part in terms of the legislative hierarchy that this bill establishes. It understandably focuses on the importance of keeping New Zealand's contribution to climate change constrained to match the collective world view of trying to keep under 2 degrees and ideally 1.5 degrees.But the language of the Paris Agreement is very explicit. It has ambition with respect to constraining temperature rise but also quite explicitly outlines that that should be done in a manner that doesn't threaten food production. This is a very critical addition in the context of the New Zealand economy. We feed 43 million people from our exports. Having that purpose statement in the bill expanded to reflect the global expectation of action with respect to climate change we think makes sense. So we have SOP 401 that specifically aligns the purpose to the detail of the Paris Agreement which we and over 180 other countries are signatories to. Again as Mr Simpson has said we see that as adding to the strength of this bill not detracting from it.SOP 402 again we think is a very useful addition because there is a conversation that has not been had in New Zealand with respect to climate change action which is the tough conversation which suggests that even if we put our shoulder to the wheel as we each imagine ourselves doing it is highly likely on current trajectories that the 1.5 degree ambition will be overshot in relatively short order by the cumulative emissions from the world and it will push on to 2 degrees. What we want is the ability for the commission to be able to reflect on what is actually happening in the world both in terms of emissions temperature impacts and making a decision as to what then makes sense from a New Zealand economic response—essentially calibrating it to what is actually happening in the real world. That is the point of this SOP. Again we think it adds to the strength of this bill asking the commission to be conscious as they reflect on our required journey to decarbonise over time of essentially what the rest of the world is doing.The next SOP I would like to pass some comment on SOP 405 of course relates to the target. This is a very critical area. There's a significant amount of science that is out there around what makes sense in terms of a target for methane reduction by 2050. In fact the Minister himself is on the record as saying it's a very mixed bag and because of that mixed bag he chose a particular reference point on a particular Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. We won't have time no doubt to debate the ins and outs of that particular decision but the fact is that a range was picked.It has had significant debate not only within the agriculture sector but particularly within the science community of New Zealand. So the question then we think needs to be answered: why then have a range? Why not ask the commission to provide for us the advice with respect to what the methane target should be? Now the previous speaker David Clark referenced the fact that this is somehow inappropriate that it should be fixed now and we not leave it to the commission. I suggest you should read the bill. There is significant expectation in this legislation of the commission to be able to check recheck and adjust its expectation both in terms of budget and indeed targets if certain conditions are met. So it is entirely consistent with how this legislation has been framed up and the expectation we as Parliament have of that commission to ask of them to provide to us a target range for biogenic methane by 2050. Again as my colleague Scott Simpson has said this is not partisan rhetoric. These are very deeply considered additions to what is a complex but we think you know pretty well-crafted bill that sits in front of us.In terms of SOP 404—which essentially relates to review of use of forestry assets and an insertion we would like in clause 8—we have had significant debate over the last few weeks and I sense more is coming around the appropriate use of forestry assets to offset the challenge of actually reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The emissions trading scheme is designed in such a way that carbon is priced and if you can't meet your obligations you look for units to offset your emissions. Increasingly because of the lack of availability of international units our domestic emitters are turning to forestry. What we are seeking is rather than the sort of passing reference that we accept—and the Minister mentioned this earlier in the committee that there is some opportunity for the commission to reflect on this issue in the legislation as it stands—we want to ask specifically for the commission to reflect deeply on this issue on our behalf and report to a future Parliament. Again we think that adds a huge amount to this. We are expecting the same of them in other areas. In fact the Minister talked about the expectation he has on the commission to look at airline emissions in particular and there is a specific request on the commission to look at that and report back. We think that if you are explicitly asking a commission to look at how we would treat airline emissions in the context of our response to climate change we think it is absolutely appropriate to then ask that same commission to reflect on the use of forestry as offsets for our domestic emissions.Finally our last SOP—403—relates to a more technical amendment which is essentially asking that each emissions budget state the total emissions that will be permitted but expressed both in terms of biogenic methane and carbon dioxide. Because we have agreed that actually a split-gas approach is appropriate in terms of how we measure manage and over time drive the budget response to it it makes sense that we are consistent in keeping those gases split in terms of how we report from a Climate Change Commission to ultimately ourselves as Parliament.So I repeat the key message that we have put on the Table from this side. When you consider the 18 months' gestation of this bill the work that has gone on in a bipartisan manner to develop the detail of it firstly by myself and more recently by my colleague Scott Simpson and the various permutations that we've had through that journey we now get it to the point where we think this bill is in a reasonable state but there are these five SOPs that we believe genuinely add to the strength of the commission in terms of enabling it to do its job for us and the wider community. It's in the spirit of that—it's in the spirit of the Minister's original reach out to us on the other side for bipartisan commitment to creating legislation that endures—that we put these SOPs on the Table. We ask for the Minister and the Government to in good faith reflect on what we have put in front of them."