Katene Rahui: Sustainable Biofuel Bill — First Reading 
Katene Rahui: Sustainable Biofuel Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:656;Page:5267] 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 I am really pleased to be able to stand in support of the Sustainable Biofuel Bill which amends the relevant legislation in order to ensure that biofuels supplied or sold in New Zealand from 1 May 2010 are sustainable. The Maori Party supported the Biofuel Bill that introduced the biofuel sales obligation and we subsequently opposed the bill introduced in the early days of this Government to repeal that bill. In light of the repeal bill we were really pleased when Minister Brownlee announced as part of Budget 2009 that $36 million was available for a new grants programme for bio-diesel production. We saw this programme as a great opportunity for rural marae communities to showcase their ability to use their traditional social and industry systems to be key players in the emerging biofuels industry. 
I take a particular interest in the development of biofuels. One of my iwi Ngati Koata is in the process of establishing a biofuels plant. Our original intention was that we would sell the biofuels to users of static machinery such as school boilers. We started off looking for tallow but we realised that there are uncertainties around its supply so we are now investigating other sources. Of course we are not the only iwi who have invested in biofuel manufacturing infrastructure. Taharoa C Block incorporation came to the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee and shared their experience including the development of the  
miscanthus 
 species for biofuel production from marginal land which they considered to be a very promising biofuel project. This bill then has the potential to make an important contribution to climate change initiatives to help provide options for employment and to express energy rangatiratanga. 
We are very interested in being involved in the interpretation of what sustainable biofuel is which the bill recommends should be made by regulation by 1 February 2010. The definition of exactly what we mean by sustainability is the crux of the issue. We all know that importing biofuels is problematic given that fuel is required to transport the biofuel in addition to the fuel required to create the biofuel. As the price of oil rises so too does the relative price of energy alternatives. We are concerned that the word “sustainability” can be tossed around perhaps carelessly as though merely using the word is sufficient to create a sustainable society. 
We have been interested in the view of Dr Albert Bartlett head of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr Bartlett’s analysis leads us to look again at the concept of sustainable growth in the sense of endlessly increasing. Of course because the resources are not unlimited there is not an open-ended supply. The finite size of resources ecosystems the environment and the Earth leads to the most fundamental truth of sustainability: that in fact the term “sustainable growth” is an oxymoron. So although we support this bill and the principles of sustainable biofuels we must do much more than adjusting a regulation on paper; we must look anew at the way we approach environmental management the efficient use of water and the conservation of energy. The Maori Party has constantly promoted the importance of reducing our dependence on oil by strategies to reuse recycle repair respect replace and trade locally. We must do all that we can to support the development of renewable and sustainable energy resources in order to protect and preserve limited resources such as oil gas and coal. 
This bill is an important step along the journey but we stress that it is only a small step. Biofuel energy production is not energy production. With or without biofuels the critical fact is that we need to radically change how we live. A safe environmentally sound and economically viable energy pathway that will sustain human progress into the distant future must be the horizon we all seek to achieve and we must start to do something about it now. In that spirit we give our support to this bill and thank Jeanette Fitzsimons for her proactive initiative in putting it forward. Kia ora.