Cunliffe David: Settlement Systems Futures and Emissions Units Bill — In Committee 
Cunliffe David: Settlement Systems Futures and Emissions Units Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:658;Page:7656] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 I take a very brief call to say that although Labour supports the principles of the Settlement Systems Futures and Emissions Units Bill it comes at a very important and difficult time for this Parliament. I see colleagues around the Chamber who are on the Finance and Expenditure Committee. It is currently considering deeply flawed legislation the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill which is the companion bill to this one. It is essential to make cross-reference to that bill because it is moot to be talking about the Settlement Systems Futures and Emissions Units Bill when the basics of the trading scheme are themselves in doubt. 
I will give the Committee several examples of why this is for New Zealand a train wreck waiting to happen of such serious magnitude that it will result in an intergenerational disaster for our children. The first of those issues is that it is not possible to have a coherent “cap and trade” system without a coherent cap. The companion bill to this one which is before the select committee removes the cap that is currently in law from many of the sectors that this bill would cover. The economic effects at the macro level would be that it would be impossible for efficient trading to occur between sectors and therefore impossible for the New Zealand economy to adapt to mitigate or prevent climate effects at the lowest economic cost. That means unfortunately that ordinary hard-working New Zealand families will be paying too much tax losing too many jobs or paying too high a price for their power or petrol because this Government is too determined to suppress dissent and ram the bill through Parliament than get it right. 
Simon Bridges 
: Ha ha! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I hear the member laughing. The Government will make this country a laughing stock in Copenhagen and that saddens me. 
The second reason this bill is being cynically manipulated at this time is that it is predicated as is its companion on interface with the Australian emissions trading system which does not yet exist and in its current form has been thrown out of the Australian Senate. I argue that matching the Australians when they have a different emissions profile is in itself about as smart as putting a fox in a chicken coop. The Australian system is devoted to protecting its minerals sector and Australia’s agricultural emissions are less than half of ours as a percentage. Why are we trying slavishly to fall on our backs in front of our largest neighbour which has a different emissions profile by a factor of two? The answer is that this Government has given up. It has given up the idea that New Zealand is a nation. It has given up the idea that we stand for something unique to our identity and that we are proud New Zealanders. We are not slaves of Canberra and we should not be fawning over the Australian system when it does not exist. It is ridiculous embarrassing and illogical and the Government should be ashamed. 
The third reason the bill is a train wreck is that it and its companion bill in their current form will imply huge risks to New Zealand’s fiscal balance. The only way that the Crown and future generations of taxpayers will not be subject to massive fiscal liabilities is if the carbon price increases by less than 1.3 percent per annum on average because that is the rate of decay built into the companion bill to this bill for the decline of the subsidies to National’s rich donor mates. No forecaster I know of not even the New Zealand Treasury believes that is the case. Nobody is saying that the carbon price will be flat or have less than 1.3 percent growth. Of course it cannot happen. Most of the developed and developing countries of the world will find themselves in carbon deficit and will be competing on the open market for the credits. How ironic to have this bill’s second reading the day the New Zealand Treasury has published its long-term fiscal outlook! Absent this bill it already projects a total net debt by 2050 of 220 percent of GDP. Do members know what net debt was when Labour was in Government? Zero. 
Moana Mackey 
: How much? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Zero. We were in credit for the first time in a century. Under National less than a year later debt is projected to rise to 220 percent. Here is the rub. Can members guess what the imputed carbon liability in Treasury’s long-term fiscal outlook is? Zero. The 220 percent net debt is without any carbon component. Another branch of Treasury tells us that it does not believe that there has been adequate analysis and it does not believe that it will be possible to have a growth rate in carbon of less than 1.3 percent. So not only is this embarrassing bill here on a day when Treasury has not been talking to itself but it adds to the burden on our children. I do not know how members of the Government can look their own children in the eye and say to their sons and daughters that they are leaving them a world so much worse than the one they inherited. It is so much riskier that their children’s very existence—their lives—are on the line because of climate change. They will do nothing much about it other than give open-ended subsidies to some of their best mates at the Wellington Club and the Northern Club and to the other people who have paid them handsomely to sit on that side of the Chamber. How can those members opposite look their children in the eye and say that they are bequeathing them a future that is at least as good as the one that the people remembered around this hallowed Chamber fought and died to give us?