Browning Steffan: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Browning Steffan: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Sitting date: 06 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6319. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 I am concerned about the title of this bill the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill too. There is a series of alternative titles for it because this bill is really one of those bills or pieces of paper that you really feel like chucking over your shoulder—but I dare say that that is inappropriate in this building in this Chamber. It is the “Kill the New Zealand Brand Bill”. We have our best products going to the best supermarket chains in Europe and other places that value our clean green “100% Pure New Zealand” image that this Government seems set to destroy. Those people who buy into that and give us the best prices for our best products expect us to be doing our bit. This bill is about us not doing our bit and it will affect our reputation in a very very negative way. 
It also could be called the “Deforestation Bill”. It very much is the “Deforestation Bill” because this is all about it seems enhancing an urea-based dairy industry in this country for the indefinite future. This is an industry that we should be really looking at and seeing whether we can improve it by getting it into the emissions trading scheme or being appropriately charged for its carbon. We should actually be giving our farmers the opportunity to be sequestering carbon by encouraging diversity on those farms instead of the path of these great green deserts that we seem to be going down which we then have to fight all the symptoms and the externalities of including the emissions. There are other very very positive alternatives that we could be doing in this country and standing and walking tall while we do it. 
Another title for this bill could be the “Future Generations (Climate Change Failure) Bill” because we are doing nothing—nothing of any substance—in this bill that is going to be looking out for the future generations that we all in here are responsible for. It is appalling. It is the “Climate Change (Fiddle While the Earth Burns) Bill” because as my colleague Kennedy Graham has put to this Committee very eloquently we are in emergency times and this does not go anywhere. It just puts it off to a new Government which will obviously be including the Greens to deal with the mess that this current Government is leaving behind. 
It fails as I have said to bring in agriculture. What an opportunity lost for New Zealand. It is important that New Zealand at the bottom of the world gets amongst it and starts to look at the vision for agriculture the vision for forestry and the vision for sustainable primary production in any form in New Zealand. There is no vision here apart from some crude commodities and maybe a couple of flash little items made from some ingredients. Overall there is no vision. What are we really doing about our soils in this country? What are we doing about erosion? What are we doing about our rivers in this country? We are doing next to nothing and certainly what is happening is nowhere near fast enough. There is no vision. The Greens have a vision. They have a vision of how we would deal with climate change. They also have a vision of how we will deal with primary production. 
The forestry sector is hurting because of this. Is this because the Government concedes that 80 percent of it is foreign-owned at this stage? Is that the reason? Is it because it is a monoculture and needles are dropping throughout New Zealand and we have got some serious disease issues? Is there something the Government is not telling us? What is it? Or is it just because you are sold on Fonterra you are sold on dairy? I think that might be what it is. It seems to be a real shame. Also the emitters the industrial emitters that you seem to want to look after there is a cap for them all right! They know where they are. They are really comfortable carrying on emitting while the rest of us pay for it.