Mackey Moana: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mackey Moana: Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8072. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 This is a very very sad day for this House and this is a very sad day for a Minister who once used to tout his blue-green credentials but Dr Nick Smith will for ever go down in history as the man who put in place climate change legislation that damaged New Zealand’s economy weakened our position with our trading partners overseas and had no environmental credibility whatsoever. He will go down in history as the man who came into this House as a proud blue-green National Party member and will exit his role as Minister for Climate Change Issues by being known for putting together and passing legislation that makes New Zealand and New Zealanders poorer and I think that is sad. 
The one thing that I will be happy about when we finally pass this Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill is not having to be lectured any more by Nicky Wagner from a high moral ground that she has absolutely no right to inhabit. I noticed that there was an article in the Christchurch  
Press  
today in which Nicky Wagner explained how the Government’s emissions trading scheme will work—but actually she did not. In that article Nicky Wagner explained how the previous Labour Government’s emissions trading scheme works in terms of putting a price on carbon and influencing behaviour in that way. I say to Mrs Wagner that the legislation we are about to pass now does absolutely nothing like what she stated in that article. It will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions it will not put the full price of carbon on the emitters by 2030 rather than on the taxpayer and it will not change behaviour. 
We need to remember why we are here doing this because when we get rants from the National Party that we will be shutting down New Zealand if we try to do anything about climate change I think we forget why we are here. We are here because all the parties in this House with the exception of ACT and I acknowledge that believe that we need to do something about climate change and believe that this issue is so important that New Zealand needs to be seen to be playing its part. We also need to do this because we are an export-driven economy. We are incredibly susceptible to mood changes overseas and smear campaigns against our products so it is even more important that we are seen to be doing our bit even if that bit in percentage terms is not great when we look at the entire world picture. 
I was at a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in Tanzania and the President of Tanzania gave a very powerful speech in which he talked about climate change. He said that the snowcaps of Kilimanjaro are disappearing. 
Nicky Wagner 
: What is their emissions trading scheme like? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: If Nicky Wagner listens to me I will tell her that he said that this is not a problem that Tanzania created. This is not a problem that Africa created but it is living with this problem every single day. The snowcaps of Kilimanjaro are disappearing. That is a water source for millions of people; it is a water source for their irrigation. The safari animals are starving the cattle are starving and the people are starving. The President said that his people do not have the luxury of sitting in a First World country arguing about the science and about which economic model to put in place that will cost their country the least because his people are suffering right now. He also said that we should not try to tell him that our farmers feed his people because they do not and they never will. He said: “You know what? Our farmers want to be able to feed themselves. That is what they want.” He begged the Western countries there to take action on climate change and to show some leadership. 
We also sit in the Pacific region. We need to be able to go to our Pacific neighbours whose islands are disappearing under water as we speak and who are facing salination issues because of the repeated floods and severe weather events in their region and show that New Zealand which has always been a strong advocate for our Pacific neighbours is doing its part. We can no longer do that. 
I think that if the National Government is not worried about what this might do in terms of our trading partners it only needs to look at the  
Guardian 
 article that appeared in the UK. This is another in a long line of campaigns against New Zealand products in Europe and in the UK. The  
Guardian 
 slammed New Zealand’s “clean green” and “100% Pure” branding as a cynical ruse and a shameless two fingers to the global economy. The article went on to state that per capita New Zealand is one of the world’s worst polluters with carbon emissions that are 60 percent higher than those of Britain. It decried our weak revised emissions trading scheme and mocked our reputation as a global leader in tackling climate change. If the Government— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Who’s been in Government for the last 9 years? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: The Minister should let me read that bit. The article decried our weak revised emissions trading scheme. The emissions trading scheme we have in place already is not that scheme I say to Dr Nick Smith. 
This is not an easy issue for Governments because everyone says that something needs to be done about climate change but no one wants to pay for it and that is what we found out at the select committee. Everyone has a reason why their sector is special or should be excluded. We acknowledge that it is difficult but that is why a Government has to show leadership and not just buckle to the strong lobbying of big corporate business interests as this Government has. 
What we have learnt in this process is that everyone in the world is wrong about climate change except Dr Nick Smith. We only need to look at the editorials. The Christchurch  
Press 
 headline was “Authority lacking” and the  
New Zealand Herald 
 had “Another sorry chapter in emissions farce”. We also had “Key should pull the plug on this dog of a bill” “Compensation deal discredits all involved” “Climate bill $92000 per person” “$50 billion rise in carbon scheme costs ‘shows process too rushed’ ” and “Carbon bill time bomb for taxpayers”. I ask why everyone in the country is wrong except for the Hon Dr Nick Smith. 
I thought it was interesting that when we were talking about Suzi Kerr who is a visiting professor at Stanford University and a well-known expert on emissions pricing Chris Tremain asked how good she could be if she had not managed to get the United States to put agriculture in its scheme. Suzi Kerr is not actually an elected representative of the US House of Representatives I say to Mr Tremain but that raises an interesting point about the United States. Dr Nick Smith is very very keen on aligning New Zealand with Australia and on going with an intensity-based approach because that is what Australia has done— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: As is Europe. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: —and Europe. But what he did not tell people is that this would exclude us from working with the United States which will be one of the biggest markets for purchasing carbon credits. It will be one of the biggest sources of investment for clean technology. Section 728 of the Waxman-Markey Bill on climate change which was passed by the US House of Representatives explicitly bans the United States from linking its emissions trading scheme with any country that moves away from volume caps and goes to intensity-based allocation. That is precisely what we have done in this legislation and it did not have to be that way. It did not have to be that way. 
I will now come to the Maori Party comments. I appreciated the contribution of Rahui Katene at the Finance and Expenditure Committee and I very much appreciated her support for Labour the Greens and the ACT Party in ensuring that all the submitters who wanted to be heard were heard. I genuinely mean that. I also think that she was in a very difficult position at that select committee and I would not have wanted to have had to sit through all those submissions. It was difficult for her and she handled it with grace and I congratulate her on doing that. I am pleased that Rahui Katene has enjoyed working with the National Government so much and I am pleased it has been such a positive and self-affirming experience for her. It kind of misses the point on what I am complaining about in this legislation though. 
I will point out one of the things that I find really offensive. I have sat in this House both up in the public gallery and as a member of Parliament and I have listened to things that the Hon Dr Nick Smith has said. He stood up and peppered his speech today with words like mokopuna and Papatuanuku. I remember sitting in the House and listening to the debate on the local government bill that the previous Labour Government passed and hearing the Hon Dr Nick Smith say that Labour’s provision to allow councils to have Maori seats as we have in the Bay of Plenty was apartheid. He called that apartheid. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I did not. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Yes he did. He is smiling now because he knows that he did. I find it incredible that a member whose party had “Iwi/Kiwi” billboards up not that long ago and who had a big ““One law for all the beaches belong to everyone” billboard paid for by the taxpayer called having Maori seats apartheid and is now standing up peppering his words with Maori and acting as though those things did not happen. That is not sustainable. 
I say to Rahui Katene that the fact that ACT and Labour have been such strange bedfellows on this legislation and have both voted against it shows just how bad the bill is and how bad the process has been. We oppose the bill for very very different reasons but we both agree on the process. The process has been one of the worst I have ever seen in my time in Parliament. The bill went through the select committee process in 6 weeks. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Oh rubbish! What about the 800 amendments on Auckland? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I ask Dr Smith how other many bills he has seen that have not had a revision-tracked version and have not had a clause by clause analysis. The answer is none; that is exactly how many. 
Rahui Katene commented on fisheries. She praised the move from vessel operators to quota holders and I think that really sums it up. That means that the Maori Party is favouring big corporate interests over the small-business people who run those fishing boats. I think that is—let us be honest—where we got on this because the average cost to Maori households will increase dramatically. Power prices will not go down. The Government cannot force companies to drop power prices. It will not do that. It did not happen in Europe; it will not happen here. It is simply another handout that will not result in any lowering of costs for the New Zealand taxpayer. Power prices will not go down or be halved as a result of this bill.