Robertson Grant: Climate Change Response (Removal of Transitional Measure) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Climate Change Response (Removal of Transitional Measure) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 26 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11379. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): We will thank Scott Simpson for his version of Fox News that he just gave us there—reasonable and balanced. At this point in the proceedings I would like to spend a little bit of time reflecting on the select committee submissions that we had on this piece of legislation.Dr David Clark: I didn’t see those.GRANT ROBERTSON: Oh that is right—there were none because the Government has decided to put this bill through under urgency tonight. The Government knows that it has widespread support across the House for this measure so here would have been an opportunity. Do a first reading by all means; you have announced it in the Budget. Good on you! Then send the bill to a select committee so that New Zealanders can actually have a say about what is happening with one of the most significant issues facing the planet.Paul Foster-Bell: Already had a say—already had a say.GRANT ROBERTSON: Paul Foster-Bell says that they have already had a say. It is not good enough Mr Foster-Bell. It is a piece of legislation. It has got clauses in it. It has got things in it that might not be quite right. It would not surprise me if we were back in the House sometime in the next few months correcting this piece of legislation because there will be a mistake. That is what happens when we move in haste—we make mistakes. So that is what could well be happening.Right now I should be standing here saying: “Well I would like to thank Generation Zero for their excellent contribution to the select committee process. I would like to thank the business organisations right around the country that have come in and said: ‘This is a really interesting change. We can see why the Government is doing it but we want to see more to help create sustainable jobs.’ ”. I could be talking about all of those select committee submissions right now today and I cannot because the Government has decided that it had better do something important on Budget day; it had better look busy.It is very important to look busy on Budget day if you are the Government even if your Budget does not actually do anything to make the economy more sustainable to allow us to transition to a low-carbon economy and to allow us to help find the path to sustainable jobs right around New Zealand. That would be a fantastic thing to be debating today in the Budget but it is absent. It is not in the Budget. The Budget does not deliver a pathway forward to adjust the transition away from fossil fuels to a low-carbon economy. We all know we have got to do it. I even think members on the other side know that they have got to do it but there is no plan in the Budget for this.Is it not interesting that this bill is entitled the Climate Change Response (Removal of Transitional Measure) Amendment Bill? That really sums it up—just the one; just the one measure. It would be good to have seen something about measures perhaps but no just the one measure.As I have said everybody in this House certainly in the first reading supported this bill. I am sure that will continue to be the case as we go through. The one-for-two subsidy has had its day. It is quite clear that we need polluters to take more responsibility for what they do for the emissions that they have and this is one small step in that regard.I do note that in the Budget documents this will net the Crown about $356 million—not an insignificant sum of money you might say. Would it be good to see some of that money translated into some of the other initiatives that might actually promote a more sustainable New Zealand that might actually allow us to meet our climate change goals and targets? That would be a good thing. Sadly lacking in that regard.I see the Warm Up New Zealand funding is now $18 million over the next 2 years in comparison to the $100 million over 4 years that came before. I heard Simon Bridges say that the Warm Up New Zealand subsidies are now more targeted. Well that is an interesting idea because we are only about one-third of the way through retrofitting New Zealand homes for insulation so I do not think we are quite up to the targeting stage. I think we probably have a bit more work to do in New Zealand to get our housing stock up to the state of being both healthy and energy efficient.It would have been good to see some of the $356 million that the Government pockets today as a result of this change that we are passing in this legislation actually go on to being used to help create a more sustainable New Zealand but again there is no plan for that whatsoever in this piece of legislation.On this side of the House and I think this actually goes for all of the Opposition parties we have been calling on the Government for some time now to step up with a real plan on climate change—a plan that actually acknowledges what is happening in New Zealand today and what is happening in the world today. Members of the Government might care to take a trip down to my old home town where I grew up down in south Dunedin and check out what is now effectively a flood plain that has been created in south Dunedin.Large insurance companies are going to stop insuring the residents of south Dunedin within the next 10 years possibly even shorter. This is also going to be replicated in parts of Christchurch as Mr O’Rourke knows and in other parts of New Zealand as well. This is happening now. One single measure in a bill today is not enough. It is not even close to enough. It is a tiny little baby step.Our responsibility is to meet the targets that we have said are not being met. New Zealand’s emissions per capita are the fifth-highest out of 40 developed nations in 2012 and we have got a 19 percent increase in emissions since 2008 since National came in. They are not doing the job and they are selling out New Zealanders by not doing the job. Not only are those residents of south Dunedin—incidentally it is important to know that the community of south Dunedin is low-income and elderly. The most vulnerable people in New Zealand are living in one of the most vulnerable areas in New Zealand. This is what is happening with climate change. This is what is happening with sea-level rise and the Government just sits there and says: “Well we will put up one measure. We will do one measure today. We will try to do just enough to be seen to be doing something.”Just enough is not good enough. It is not good enough. We have got to be doing better than that. On this side of the House what we are seeking is a just transition to the change to a low-carbon economy one where we support communities through the change. We are not seeing enough action from the Government to deal with those industries that are changing and deal with those communities when things are changing. We have seen Huntly having a small extension. I think the Government should be in a community like Huntly right now today saying: “What are we doing to train and retrain people to give them new skills and to give them opportunities to generate wealth themselves?”. Those polluting industries are gone now; we know that.It is important for New Zealand as a country in terms of our image in the world and how we sell our products in the world that we lead the way on this. John Key has gone from being a fast follower or whatever it was he said he wanted to be to being a bewildered bystander. He has got no idea what to do when it comes to climate change. But he found this one. I am sure he found this measure because it earns him $356 million in a year where he needs to prop his surplus up a little bit. I am sure that is what he did here.We welcome the fact that the Government has taken this tiny little baby step but it needs to get into its big-kid clothes get out there and start taking proper steps towards a sustainable future for New Zealand and one where we take climate change seriously.The Labour Party would have liked today to see the Government with a clear pathway forward—not just a working group or a review or anything like that but an independent climate commission that actually starts setting proper carbon-budgeting goals that starts setting proper pathways forward for New Zealand and that puts out there in front of New Zealanders every single day what it is that we need to do to make this transition.This is not all doom and gloom. There are massive opportunities for New Zealand in transitioning to a low-carbon economy to build up our regions to create wealth for small businesses and to create wealth from innovation but this Government comes to us with one small simple tiny measure. Well under such urgent circumstances we commend and support this bill.