Norman Russel: Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Norman Russel: Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7820. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 This Climate Change (Government Vehicle Procurement) Bill is a practical bill that makes a small but significant improvement in the energy efficiency of our vehicle fleet by setting certain basic standards for the amount of greenhouse gas emitted per kilometre by the Government fuel fleet. It is a very simple measure. If we are to make the transition that our children and great-grandchildren demand of us towards an economy with low dependence on carbon and oil then we need to use all of the levers that are available to us. One of those levers is the use of prices and markets and that is a fine lever to use. Another lever is the use of education and individual consciousness to change behaviour and that is also a fine lever to use to make change. However there is a third lever as well which is the use of State regulation. This is an essential component in any transition towards a low-carbon economy. All three levers need to be used and all three levers are necessarily part of the transition that we need to make. 
I will address a few arguments that were put up by National. The first is the suggestion that this bill would put high costs on the State sector. One of the paradoxes is that the Govt3 programme which this National Government abolished saved the Government money. The Inland Revenue Department reported to us that it saved many hundreds of thousands of dollars because it implemented Govt3. That was what the department told us. This measure would save the Government many hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars in fuel because we would use the most fuel-efficient vehicles that were fit for the purpose. It does not cost money; it saves money. But for some reason this Government would rather spend money than save money just so that it does not have to regulate. Another argument raised was that the emissions trading scheme will do it all. Well I am afraid that the emissions trading scheme be it the old one or the new one will never do all of the heavy lifting on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That simply is not possible. 
In terms of this bill being some kind of terrible burden on Government procurement there is already a set of rules and regulations around Government procurement and this bill would simply add one further dimension. It would not be a huge problem. 
In terms of the allergy that certain National members seem to have towards regulation I have a two-word answer to anyone who opposes regulation. Those two words are leaky houses. This country currently faces an $11 billion bill because in 1991 the National Government passed the Building Act which said that people can build whatever they damned well pleased and that we did not have to have rules around how people build houses. Now taxpayers households and councils have to pick up an $11 billion bill because National does not like regulation. 
Regulation works. I tell members to talk to the people in California. I was in California recently and I asked people how they had had such phenomenal growth in energy efficiency that the electricity use per capita has remained stable for 30 years even though they have more computers in Silicon Valley and all the rest of it. They said they did it by having energy-efficient regulation. Every year they improved the regulations around energy efficiency and they drove innovation. They made industry in their sector the most competitive industry on the planet because they drove innovation in energy efficiency through the use of energy efficiency regulations. 
This is a very simple measure. It is something that our children demand of us—that we actually confront the fact that New Zealand per capita has one of the highest emissions of greenhouse gases on the planet. If we do not resolve this issue then people born today who will be alive in 2100 will live to curse the people now in this Parliament who vote this measure down. I say to every single member of Parliament in the National Party and the ACT Party who votes against this bill that their children and grandchildren will curse them for not making progress on climate change. They will curse them for allowing them to inherit a world that has out-of-control climate change because people like those members in parliaments like this all round the planet knew the evidence could read the science and did not do what they knew had to be done. That is a disgrace.