Muller ToddTODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): What a disgraceful partisan rant. I'm not going to be lectured by this lot particularly that Minister on behalf of a Government that has seen emissions go up for the last five years and imported three times more coal than five years ago. And he's got the temerity to sit over there and give us heat; well that's coming back to him big time I can tell you that.This entire debate was established because I sat alongside Minister Shaw when we negotiated the zero carbon bill to have exactly this: a robust debate on the how. We can all agree on the fact that our emissions have to come down over the next 10 15 20 30 years. But we should have a robust debate over how and if one side of this Parliament wants to bankrupt the country on the way to doing it we have the right as the Opposition to call it out—and we are. Because your plan that you waved to us is nothing more than a long-term drive to economic suicide in this country. And it is our expectation as an Opposition party to be able to call it out.Now let's look firstly at carbon dioxide. As the Minister said it's part of our emissions portfolio. We will be a technology taker in the carbon dioxide space and anyone who doesn't sort of see it like that is missing the point. So what does that mean? That means we have to be very focused on how we enable that technology that exists in the other side of the world to be deployed in a New Zealand context. We have to focus on innovation investment on enabling infrastructure and we must bring commercial acuity to the discussion.So let's go to transport emissions and transport that has so dominated the debate over the last two or three days—17 percent of our emissions. We have made it clear that the standards that have been brought in to ensure that cars have to meet a lower and lower emissions profile over time is the right direction. But we totally reject this Government's view that the way you then incentivise the uptake is to throw cash around because there is no economic discipline in that. In fact it's worse than that because what this Government does is say Righty ho if you want a Tesla we're going to discount it and we'll spend $45 million enabling that and if you're a farmer who has no choice but to actually need a four-wheel drive to get around your property."By the way why don't you some time go and visit a farmer and actually see for yourself what's going on out there? Sometimes I think you live in the own little world. Go and visit a farm and actually see what it's like. They don't have electric four-by-fours everywhere that they can use; they have to use a decent four-by-four. They have been taxed and that is your approach—that is the Government's approach—that we will make it easier for Tesla owners and we will tax farmers.We say: the standard's right the taxing is wrong and what we would do is we would ensure that there was actually a network—an infrastructure network—so you could actually charge the electric vehicles. That's called commercial acuity. That side wouldn't even know what it was if they looked it up in a dictionary.Now let's go to energy. The Minister said before "Our target's 90 percent." No it's not. Read your own policy Minister. It's 100 percent it's in the committee's report back. And guess what the marginal cost per carbon dioxide to get that 100 percent: $1200 a tonne—does that come from me? No; that comes from the Interim Climate Change Committee. So this Government stands up and says "Renewable energy's important." We agree it's important. "Oh no we need to get to 100 percent. Even if the marginal cost of the additional 1 percent to go from 95 to 100 is $1200 a ton." These guys have no idea around the commercial impact on New Zealand of a policy like that.Let's take industrial heat. And this is fantastic.Rachel Brooking: So what would you do?TODD MULLER: It's called an emissions trading scheme (ETS)—I'll tell you if you listen—but it's really interesting. It's really interesting when you look at industrial heat because what you've got there is businesses who can see that their manufacturing process is actually creating an emissions impact there is technology available to mitigate it they can offset their current emissions by planting a tree. Only in New Zealand can 100 percent of those businesses have that option—no other country—and they can go and do it. And guess what the cost of planting a tree over the course of its life is! It's $15 a tonne—add the land to it: $75 $80 a tonne.What you are seeing is gross emissions are not going down because of this Government's ETS settings. What happens is as that price rises they'll go and buy another sheep and beef farm in the Wairarapa to ensure that they can fulfil their obligations in terms of reporting but their gross emissions don't go down.Our view is the technology exists and the incentive is there for those businesses to deploy that technology in their business. But why would they if they know that over there is a Government that will just spray the money around and say "Oh look we'll pay for it for you." Well of course they're going to support it because not only do they get ETS subsidy on the one side—offset on the one side—they'll get a Government subsidy in terms of any capital they need to deploy. But it is not an effective use of taxpayer money. We of course support the revenue that comes in from the ETS to be deployed in a way that is enabling innovation infrastructure. But be commercial about it please. This is the thing. Our criticism of what you are doing is not because we don't believe something shouldn't be done; it's not because we don't think climate is important. It's because you are hard-wired to spray and walk away. You don't understand about investing at a marginal price above the current ETS; you don't understand it. So from your perspective as long as it's hundreds of millions of dollars as long as it looks good in the UN as long as the Prime Minister can appear to be first fast and famous you don't care what the cost of it is. That's the point: you actually have to bring some commercial discipline to this.So now let's move to agriculture and I'll conclude on some of those comments—half the emissions profile. For a start what an appalling speech from the Minister before. Essentially 10 minutes of criticism particularly of the agriculture sector. No wonder you guys are looking at the floor because the agriculture sector looks back at this Government with despair because there is never a view which says "By the way well done for what you've done; by the way well done for your adaptation; by the way well done for your innovation over the last 20 30 years." Oh no it's just crickets. You couldn't get that word out of your mouth if you tried—"well done." So you've got a sector that is sitting there who have been working in terms of their freshwater improvement their nutrient improvement.Ruminant animals create this pressure. We are the most carbon-efficient animal protein producers in the world and they are lining up and saying "We accept we need to improve." So what you need to be doing what the Government needs to be doing is partnering with them. The Minister says "Tax is good." We say "Why don't you work with the sector? Why don't actually you build a model which is a levy base on the one hand to support innovation and the establishment of technology to be able to identify what goes on on the farm and then let the farmers count the sequestration in their land." But this Government says "No we don't want to do that. No we don't want a levy; we want it to be a tax" and then have the audacity to stand over there and lecture us on not having a plan. You have a plan: it's called hopeless and if you take this up it's electorate suicide I tell you.So we will work with the sector and we will make sure that there is—and we have made it clear that there will be a price on agriculture but it's a price that is balanced with the capacity for the sector to adapt and to build on their world-best position. And the Government will continually shout back denials that our approach to this is wrong.I can assure you that this is hard work and the way you actually make a difference in terms of investment in a business—investment on farm—is partnering with them not regulating taxing throwing money away as if it grows on trees. Start being commercial start partnering in a long-term manner and you'll find that actually we can do this as a country. At the moment the progress is despite you not because of you."